The Bison Project is taking the next steps in unfolding the vision of healing the people's relationship with the ecosystem by direct experience and application of the power of the bison. The Bison Project has been a nursery project supported by Helpers Mentoring Society for the past couple years. The project has now grown into a bigger organization with the expansion of our land base, project managers, onsite workers, and is soon to become its own business structure called Bison People Land.
Over the next month Bison People Land will continue to grow. The vision includes expanding the herd, greater public access, new opportunities for people to learn and work with the bison and creating more understanding of how to regenerate the local ecosystems that have been degraded due to these large ruminant animals having been removed from the land.
We here at Helpers Mentoring Society are excited to share this adventure with you and welcome your current and future participation and support.
The Bison People Land organization is allied with many other groups who are of like mind and heart - including the InterTribal Bison Council, the Nation Bison Association, among others. To learn more about the work of restoration of the bison and ecosystems here is an excerpt from a recent article from the Washington Post by Jess McHugh.
Once nearly extinct, bison are now climate heroes
Indigenous tribes are leading the effort to bring back the bison — a victory not only for the sake of biodiversity, but for the entire ecosystem they nurture
By Jess McHugh
"The bison’s quiet munching does more than nourish their bodies — it’s one of many things they do to nurture their entire ecosystem, one that is increasingly under threat from climate change. Grazing bison shaving down acres of vegetation leave more than dung behind: Their aggressive chewing spurs growth of nutritious new plant shoots, and their natural behaviors — the microhabitats they create by rolling in the ground, the many birds that forged symbiotic relationships with them — trickle down the food chain. Once bordering on extinction, bison now serve as a great provider for their ecosystems, standing as an example of the ways in which animal conservation and ecological protection can work in tandem.
