How bringing back buffalo can fight climate change and heal Texas’ indigenous people

WAEDLER, Texas – A group just outside San Antonio is working to bring buffalo back to Texas, decades after the animals’ near extinction in the 1900s damaged indigenous people’s livelihoods and ‘environment.

The mission of the Texas Tribal Buffalo Project, a nonprofit organization, is to heal Texas’ indigenous people and the environment by restoring the buffalo population.

“Once again, buffalo are thriving here in Texas,” said Lucille Contreras, director and founder of the Texas Tribal Buffalo Project. “We’re in the southern coastal plains.”

Seeing buffalo grazing the dirt while passing through Waelder, Texas – located off Interstate 10, a little over an hour east of San Antonio – will definitely make you think twice.

There are more than 20 buffalo on 77 acres of the Texas Tribal Buffalo Project.

The non-profit organization is run entirely by indigenous women, from funding to logistics to buffalo maintenance.

Contreras said the return of these animals is linked to healing necessary for the existence of his people.

“At one point, buffalo were everything to the native people of Texas,” Contreras said. “They were our source of spirituality, our source of nutrition and food. »

Buffalo, also known as American bison, were killed by the millions in the 19th century.

“They were killed for sport,” Contreras said. “They were killed for their skin, and they were killed for the purpose of exterminating Native Americans.”

By the early 1900s, buffalo were almost extinct with only about a thousand individuals remaining. Contreras said it’s not just the animals that are struggling to survive.

Native groups in South Texas, such as the Lipan-Apache, Payaya, and Karankawa, depended on the buffalo.

“We had to hide in plain sight, due to forced assimilation, to survive,” Contreras said. “Just like the buffalo had to survive.”

The mass destruction of buffaloes also led to another loss.

“It has also been devastating to the environment, the land and the climate,” Contreras said.

That’s why nonprofit organizations in the United States are working to restore the buffalo population, such as the global nonprofit The Nature Conservancy.

“The Nature Conservancy manages 6,000 bison on 1,300 acres across 12 preserves,” said Suzanne Scott, Texas state director for The Nature Conservancy.

The Nature Conservancy has preserves in Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Iowa and Missouri. Scott said they realized it made sense to partner with groups like the Texas Tribal Buffalo Project.

“In 2021, we transferred five buffalo to the Texas Tribal Buffalo Project in Waelder, Texas,” Scott said. “They were transferred from Madonna’s Opera Ranch in Colorado.”

Partnerships heal Texas’ indigenous people and the state’s native prairies.

“Native grasslands are the most threatened ecosystem in the United States and around the world,” Scott said. “This is mainly due to fragmentation, growth and development. Many of our native grasslands have just been encroached upon by growing cities and farmland.

We need our grasslands and our buffalo together because they help fight climate change by promoting biodiversity and keeping carbon in the soil.

Native grasslands help maintain biodiversity.

“These native plants, what you see on the surface, really provide habitat for birds and pollinators and micro-organisms and other species that are very essential to the health of our soils, to the health of our food that sustains us and other species,” Scott said.

Carbon sequestration occurs when carbon is held in the soil rather than released into the atmosphere.

“Carbon is kept in the soil by creating healthy soil, healthy grasses and healthy forb plants that retain,” Contreras said.

Buffalo contributes to this in several ways.

The first is to prevent invasive species or brush, like mesquites, from taking over and supporting grassland life by spreading their seeds when they get stuck to their fur.

“The way they walk on the ground aerates the soil and wakes up the seed bank,” Contreras said.

The way the buffalo graze also helps the grasslands.

“Beef cattle are not native to here,” Contreras said. “They eat the grass so much that they pull it all the way up, and it doesn’t replenish itself like it does in Buffalo. They graze in rotation, naturally, and only eat the top part of the grass, so the grass continues to grow.

But what about methane?

Cattle are known to release tons of methane through manure, contributing to global warming. Contreras said buffalo manure decomposes better than cattle manure.

Buffalo dung also attracts more native insects, making it a natural fertilizer for our native grasslands, releasing less methane.

“Buffalo dung itself becomes a global microcosm,” Contreras said.

Contreras said this is just the beginning.

In the long term, they hope to have thousands of acres where thousands of buffalo can roam freely, but, more importantly, that other ranchers can replicate their methods for a more sustainable agricultural future.

“If we know who we are and where we come from, we can move forward with purpose, in good health and in unity – just like the buffalo,” Contreras said.