As Kansans cluster in urban areas, our public lands deserve appreciation and protection

The Cheyenne Bottoms wetland covers 41,000 acres in central Kansas. (Morgan Chilson/Kansas Reflector)

Kansans often think of themselves as a rural people. Take the two of us, for example. We’re both lifelong Kansans who grew up in farming families, one in central Kansas, the other in northwestern Kansas, in the 1950s and 1960s.

Today, we both live in Lawrence.

Kansans are no longer a rural people. Almost half of the state’s population lives in just five of the state’s 105 counties: Johnson, Douglas, Shawnee, Wyandotte, and Sedgwick. Nearly one-fourth of the population lives in Johnson County alone. And the number of urban residents continues to grow.

That’s just one reason that the state’s public lands — our local, state, and federal parks and monuments — matter so much. Kansas ranks near the bottom in per capita public property.

Not only does Kansas have relatively small amount of park land, much of it is remote from the state’s population centers. The state’s largest parcel of publicly accessible property is the Cimarron National Grassland in Morton County in extreme southwestern Kansas. Many Kansans have never been there, maybe in part because the grassland is closer to the state capitals of Colorado, Oklahoma, and even New Mexico than it is to Topeka.

For an increasingly urban population, our state and federal parks are increasingly important. They are a way for people to know and enjoy the natural world. Plants and animals need these places too. With the threats of habitat fragmentation and climate change, these islands of the natural world are critical. Cranes and migratory shorebirds rely on Quivira National Wildlife Refuge and Cheyenne Bottoms in central Kansas. Because so many wetlands in this central flyway have been plowed up, those that remain are essential. These places also provide the public with places to watch birds, a growing pastime that generates its own economic benefit to local communities.

The love of these locations cuts across party lines. Poll after poll shows strong support for national parks. And people don’t just say it, they vote with their feet. National park visits hit 330 million in 2024.

That same support is evident on the local and state level.

For years, people asked us about the best places to see the Kansas chalk beds. But virtually all of these famous, scenic outcrops are on private property. In 2019, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks and the Kansas chapter of The Nature Conservancy opened Little Jerusalem, a 330-acre park in the chalk badlands of Logan County, south of Oakley.

Since its opening, Little Jerusalem has attracted thousands of visitors from across the country who hike the badlands, see prairie birds and plants, and ponder fossils on what was an ancient sea floor.

In short, our local, state, and federal parks are more popular and valuable than ever. They are also under threat. There are moves in Congress to sell federal lands. Staffing at the National Park Service has been cut. On the state level, park funding is regularly challenged, even though much of the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks budget is funded by permits and fees.

That’s why public support for local, state, and federal public property is crucial. On the federal level, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (proceeds from offshore drilling royalties) provides millions of dollars to Kansas for public properties.

On the state level, a coalition of more than 40 conservation organizations, from the Farm Bureau to Audubon of Kansas, have formed Kansans for Conservation. They’ve proposed long-term, dedicated funding for conservation projects across the state.

Elected officials should understand the widespread support for efforts like the LWCF fund. The proposal from Kansans for Conservation deserves serious consideration.

The two of us have been lucky. We’ve watched ferruginous hawks soar over Little Jerusalem. We’ve seen blue pitcher sage bloom on the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. We’ve contemplated history at the Pawnee Indian Village Museum in Republic County and the military cemetery at Fort Scott.

If the public and elected officials stand up for them now, these places will be around for future generations of Kansans, no matter where they live.

Will Rogers once said, “Sanity is where you find it.” Many of us find it on public lands. We need these places. Now they need us.

Rex Buchanan is the director emeritus of the Kansas Geological Survey and a member of the Board of Trustees of Audubon of Kansas. Mike Hayden is the former speaker of the Kansas House, governor, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, and secretary of the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.