Corissa Busse - Tribal-Led Buffalo Restoration in the American West and Beyond

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Corissa Busse is the Buffalo Restoration Program Manager for The Nature Conservancy, where she oversees TNC’s work to advance Tribal-led efforts to restore buffalo, grasslands, and communities at scale. Based in Rapid City, South Dakota, Corissa and her team at TNC partner with organizations including the InterTribal Buffalo Council and the Tanka Fund to bring buffalo back to tribal lands, which not only contributes to healthier, more resilient landscapes, but helps to heal and restore a web of natural relationships that has been broken for hundreds of years.

TNC has been working with buffalo for many decades now, and it owns herds at numerous TNC preserves across the United States. Each year, those herds produce approximately 1,500 buffalo that are in need of new homes, so TNC has begun working with Tribal nations to transfer these buffalo from the TNC preserves onto Native lands. But transferring the animals from one place to another is relatively simple– it’s the trust-building, infrastructure development, and long-term, collaborative vision that requires strong relationships and outside-the-box thinking. As you’ll hear in this conversation, it’s a complex and important project with amazing potential.

I’ve always loved learning about buffalo, and given the recent release of Ken Burns’ newest documentary on this very subject, I was extra excited to chat with Corissa. We started out with the most basic question of all– “Should we call them bison or buffalo?”-- and then moved into the more complex topics. We discussed when and why TNC initially became interested in buffalo, TNC’s history of working with Tribal partners, the challenges of overcoming historical realities, the potential for tension between cattle and buffalo producers, specific success stories from TNC’s buffalo restoration work, the all-important role of strong relationships, resources to learn more about buffalo, and Corissa offers some excellent book recommendations.

I greatly appreciate Corissa taking the time out of her busy schedule to educate me on the finer details of buffalo as well as the large-scale vision for TNC’s work. I learned a lot from this conversation, and I know you will too. Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy.

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More on TNC's Buffalo Restoration Work
Full episode notes and links: https://mountainandprairie.com/corissa-busse/

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This episode is brought to you in partnership with the Colorado chapter of The Nature Conservancy. Guided by science and grounded by decades of collaborative partnerships, The Nature Conservancy has a long-standing legacy of achieving lasting results to create a world where nature and people thrive.

On the fourth Tuesday of every month throughout 2023, Mountain & Prairie will be delving into conversations with a wide range of The Nature Conservancy’s leaders, partners, collaborators, and stakeholders, highlighting the myriad of conservation challenges, opportunities, and solutions here in the American West.

To learn more about The Nature Conservancy’s impactful work in Colorado and around the world, visit www.nature.org/colorado

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TOPICS DISCUSSED:

3:30 - Is it buffalo or bison?
6:30 - A brief history of buffalo in the US
10:30 - Books and resources that have helped Corissa learn more about the history of buffalo
13:45 - TNC’s interest in buffalo
17:00 - TNC’s history of relationship-building with Tribal nation partners
22:15 - How buffalo from TNC’s herds are transferred to other partners
23:30 - Exploring the tension between cattle and buffalo businesses
27:15 - Examples of the success of Corissa’s program
31:15 - Measuring success in this work
35:00 - The challenges in this work that Corissa worries about
39:15 - The market for buffalo
42:15 - How Corissa got into work with buffalo
48:00 - The importance of relationships to Corissa’s work
52:30 - Corissa’s book recommendations
56:00 - Ways you can support Corissa’s work, and Corissa’s parting words of wisdom

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