Policy:

• Permanent protection – land needs to be processed through appropriate legal channels to be permanently preserved. As ownership changes, there need to be legal guarantees that new owners cannot destroy valuable ecosystems.
• Permanent stewardship – long term maintenance needs to be guaranteed for permanently protected areas, and any restoration or reconstruction effort is worthless unless future maintenance is assured.
• Farm Bill rules – have often worked against prairies in the past, but there is a good possibility now that they may be used to restore remnants and establish reconstructed prairies. Potential applicants need to be reached (traditional farm-oriented channels may not be effective) and then educated about all options available so they realize they can do more than plant a monoculture. Agencies responsible for implementing the farm programs need to be educated regarding prairies, which are not a traditional Farm Bill concern.
• Government regulations – many rules and laws which affect prairies do not include prairies as worthy of concern. Examples include mowing requirements and burn bans within city limits, and Iowa code, which lists woodlands but not prairies as areas to avoid when routing new highways.
• Guidelines – there are many prairie-related activities that would be helped by standardization and subsequent dissemination of official guidelines: ecotype seed collection, remnant management and restoration, fire prescription, invasive species management, reconstructed prairie establishment.

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