- Associated Press - Saturday, December 10, 2016

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - Some city parks are manicured affairs, specially designed, people-oriented places with picnic tables, swings and slides or trimmed grass and beautiful flowers.

Some city parks are wild things with head-high grass that once fed herds of bison, or meandering streams with nearby stands of 300-year-old bur oak, or marshy fields where American bitterns feed in the water.

For decades, Lincoln has been expanding its wilderness areas - special natural areas that showcase the environment that was here before people built homes and stores, and began a street system that crisscrossed the landscape with concrete and asphalt.

This fall, the city created a new full-time position and hired Aaron Druery as its first greenways and conservation supervisor to manage that growing wilderness system of prairie, wetlands, flood plains and stream banks.

The Lincoln Journal Star (https://bit.ly/2gcwSXo ) reports Lincoln’s 6,600 acres of parkland is split, half in designed parks and half in natural areas, said city Parks and Recreation Director Lynn Johnson.

“We have lots of people involved in the management of the designed landscapes, but not anyone responsible for the native or conservation landscapes,” he said.

It’s a recognition that someone should wake up every day and think about how these areas are managed and preserved in an appropriate way.

Druery, most recently land manager for the Pioneers Park Nature Center and adjacent prairie, started as a seasonal worker in the saline wetlands north of Lincoln.

“That’s when I realized I had a passion for all plants,” said Druery, who memorized all plants native to this part of Nebraska and basic management theories that first summer on the job.

And he has become an expert in prescribed fires, one of the two natural ways to restore and maintain a healthy prairie.

Burning and grazing created the prairie, and the buffalo herds and random fires every two to five years kept the thatch down and destroyed young trees and woody vegetation so grass could grow thick and tall across plains.

Today’s fires are very carefully orchestrated, with hours of planning and days of waiting. The temperature must be between 30 and 80 degrees, relative humidity between 30 and 65 and a north wind between 5 and 15 miles per hour - north, so the smoke doesn’t head into Lincoln.

Plus you do not want to have a storm front moving in, said Druery.

Some years there is no prairie burn because there is no perfect day, he said.

And one year there was an unplanned, non-prescribed fire started when someone tossed a cigarette into the grass near Southwest 56th Street and West Van Dorn, and gusts of nearly 40 mph drove the fire to the Haines Branch Creek and almost to the storage building near the bison pens at Pioneers Park.

The preserved prairie is environmentally important, said Druery. An acre of prairie, particularly older prairie, holds more carbon than one acre of woodland does.

“People think trees are saving the earth, but the prairie is doing more,” he said.

Although preserving natural areas has long been part of city plans, local leaders created a grand vision in the Comprehensive Plan 15 years ago as Lincoln’s urban tentacles crept into Lancaster County.

Called the Greenprint Challenge, it was intended to be a cooperative venture between the city, the Lower Platte South Natural Resources District and other agencies. And it included preserving prairie, saline and freshwater wetlands, flood plains and stream corridors in and around the city.

For the first time, the city used geographic information system mapping to identify priority areas and evaluate all natural areas.

The preservation includes land purchased by the city or the NRD, easements purchased by government and land held by private owners for conservation purposes.

Since then, about 5,270 acres have been conserved through a variety of ways, including government purchase of land or of easements through private land, purchases by private conservation organizations and conservation efforts by private landowners, said Nicole Fleck-Tooze with the Parks and Recreation Department.

The city owns about 940 acres of this land and holds conservation easements on about 180 acres, which are privately maintained.

In addition, the city jointly holds easements with the county or the NRD for an additional 230 acres.

The Nebraska Environmental Trust, funded through the state lottery, has awarded $4.99 million to the Eastern Saline Wetlands project through five grants beginning in 2002, according to Fleck-Tooze.

The most recent grants have been aimed at land management and restoration efforts, rather than purchase of land or easements.

Another $1.66 million in NET grants are being used to build up the city’s prairie corridor.

And part of the city’s goal is to have trails connecting many of these areas, and as a spine along the prairie corridor.

Much of this new parkland is unusual, a whispering reminder of the area before plows and cities arrived.

Just 2 percent of Nebraska’s original virgin tallgrass prairie remains. And the last of the Nebraska saline wetlands are found in Lancaster and Saunders counties, said Fleck-Tooze.

Omaha has a large zoo and safari. But ultimately Lincoln could have the largest area of tallgrass prairie and the largest area of saline wetlands, things you can’t see anywhere else, said Fleck-Tooze.

These areas preserve what is unique about Southeast Nebraska. And they give Lincoln a sense of place, said Johnson.

The new city position recognizes the city needs to preserve and manage these areas differently than designed parkland.

Johnson said Wilderness Park wouldn’t be managed the same today as 40 years ago, when the city allowed volunteer trees to take over parts of the park.

Today, Druery said, the city would thin the trees and lighten the density so it would resemble the pre-settlement habitat.

Druery’s new job is the logical extension of the Greenprint Challenge, saving pieces of natural history for future generations.

“This is a dream job for me,” he said. “There are a lot of challenges, but I am energized by challenges. And what we are doing provides value to the community and to the climate.”

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Information from: Lincoln Journal Star, https://www.journalstar.com

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