American Prairie

While the controversy and science surrounding the environmental impacts of grazing continues, 1000 Friends based this project on the premise that unfettered rural sprawl damages both ranching and the environment.

Elephants roaming North Dakota? Free-range camels and lions a couple hours’ drive from Denver or Oklahoma City?

“The Emptying Out of the Plains” doesn’t take positions on these issues, or point fingers, or advocate a master plan. It simply shows what‚s happening, sharing the joys and challenges of prairie life with its viewers.

"We want to promote these areas as great opportunities,” Proctor said.

Even Westerners aren’t as apt to scoff these days as population throughout the Great Plains continues to decline, just as they predicted.

”I can imagine how unsettling it is for Montanans, especially multigenerational Montanans, to see people come in and treat this like it’s some kind of suburban playground,” Roger Lang said from Sun Ranch

"Pam and I were worried that if it got in the wrong hands, the valley would be subdivided and split up,"

The result: Here in the heart of the Corn Belt, a majority of the folks who own farmland are not themselves farmers.

Dan Kemmis, director of the Center for the Rocky Mountain West, introduced the possibility of a "Western Congress," so new policy directions might be set by those with a future in the preservation of the West, rather than coming from the nation’s capitol.

"There is no other place in the state where an entire drainage area will have been protected if they pull this off," said Fielder, a Macy friend. "It’s really the next big thing in Colorado."