the 1980s, spurred by the publication of a book of appreciation, John Madson's Where the Sky Began: Land of the Tallgrass Prairie (1982). Nonprofit organizations throughout the former tallgrass prairie region began to reserve or restore small remnants of native prairie. For example, the Native Prairies Association of Texas was founded in 1986 to locate, restore, and protect prairies in Texas; the group currently protects about of Texas prairies. The Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, founded in 1996 near Elwood, Illinois, was as of 2006 the largest tallgrass prairie restoration area in the United States. In Minnesota, Glacial Ridge National Wildlife Refuge was established in 2004. The core of the refuge is a preserved tallgrass prairie remnant, and an additional are either in the process of restoration or will be soon. According to The Nature Conservancy, so far, 100 wetlands have been restored and of land have been seeded with native plant species. Several books have been published on tallgrass prairie restoration, including: See also Buffalo Commons List of ecoregions in the United States (EPA) List of ecoregions in the United States (WWF) Range condition scoring References Further reading Chapman, Kim Alan, Adelheide Fischer, and Mary Ziegenhagen. Valley of Grass: Tallgrass Prairie and Parkland of the Red River Region. St. Cloud, MN: North Star Press, 1998. Jones, Stephen R., and Ruth Carol Cushman. A Field Guide to the North American Prairie. Peterson Field Guides. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004. Crosby, Cindy. The Tallgrass Prairie: An Introduction. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2017. Gruchow, Paul. Journal of a Prairie Year. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions, 2009. Heat-Moon, William Least. PrairyErth: (A Deep Map). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. Manning, Richard. Grassland: The History, Biology, Politics, and Promise of the American Prairie. London: Penguin Books, 1997. Savage, Candace. Prairie: A Natural History. Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2011. White, Matt. Prairie Time: A Blackland Portrait. College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press, 2013. External links Tallgrass Prairie Preserve on TravelOK.com Official travel and tourism website for the State of Oklahoma Tallgrass Ontario Tallgrass Prairie - Video footage of the area and a list of relevant resources. Temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands Prairies Grasslands of the North American Great Plains Ecoregions of Canada Ecoregions of the United States