The Flint Hills

Nestled in what was once the greatest prairie ecosystem on the planet covering nearly one million square miles from Texas into Canada. Today less than 4% of what it once was remains, encroached upon by civilization.
The Flint Hills and Tallgrass Prairie in which the Flint Hills exists have remained dominated by vast sweeping vistas and grasses that grow head high. Its savior from the growing population has been the limestone and chert (flint) layers that lay from the surface to over sixty feet in depth. This has protected this land from the plow and thus agriculture. Now vast grasslands sustain the nation’s cattle herds from spring to winter. Not all land is grazed by domesticated animals, there are those places that, even today, have remained mostly untouched by human hands.

Note of interest: A single disruption to a prairie ecosystem, such as a utility easement takes in excess of 100 years to return to its native state after all traces of man have been removed. Protection from continued exploitations of ecosystems such as the Flint Hills is their only hope of survival.