We were greatly heartened by an Indian tribe’s much-publicized move to buy up land to restore the prairie in Prior Lake, Minn.
Most recently, the tribe, the Shakopee Mdewakanton, drew the media spotlight when it purchased a 30-acre field where corn and soybeans were once grown.  Flush with casino profits, the tribe is acting on its yearning to purchase and painstakingly restore — at much cost — its ancient lands to their prairie origins.

What makes this field especially notable is that it is next to a condominium complex in suburban Minneapolis, making it very valuable. Surely most developers would argue that the property is not being put to its maximum productive use. Moreover, local government officials have voiced resistance to the purchase, saying the move interferes with their development plans for the area.

Now covered with Canada wild rye, big bluestem, Golden Alexander and compass plant, the patch of prairie appears as the pioneers would have seen it traveling westward in the 1800s.

In all, the tribe has bought about 125 acres of farmland and wetlands just outside Minneapolis over the past few years and restored them to their natural state.

Better yet, the Shakopee Mdewakanton hope to begin 450 more acres near the Twin Cities. Most of the land has been farmed since at least the 1880s.

“We hold the land in high regard, and we think it’s important to return some of these areas to the way they were — the way it was years ago,” tribe vice chairman Glynn Crooks told The Associated Press recently.

The tribe won’t say how much it is paying for these chunks of valuable land in this fast-growing part of the state — and it refuses to discuss its finances.

While many Indian tribes live in poverty, the Mdewakanton are prospering, thanks in large part to the success of their Mystic Lake casino, which opened in 1992 about 30 miles from downtown Minneapolis. As the biggest gambling hall in Minnesota, the casino has generated millions of dollars for the tribe and made its estimated 300 members rich. In fact, according to an AP report, “many live in suburban McMansions.”

Other tribes also want to the use the land in the way their ancestors did, but, much to their credit, the Mdewakanton are among the increasing number of casino-enriched tribes that are actually putting their money where their hearts are.

The Mdewakanton are marching ahead with a laborious and expensive prairie restoration process.After the tribe’s scientists study old maps and other records to figure out the mix of plants that will bring a piece of land closest to its historical character, they destroy the non-native crops with herbicide, turn over the dirt and plant grass and flower seeds.

Interestingly, “the seeds alone are perhaps the most expensive part of the project,” the AP noted. “Many are rare and hard to find, and the companies that sell them often must harvest them by hand.”

According to Mike Whitt, an environmental specialist for the Mdewakanton tribe, “Some of these seeds are worth more than their weight in precious metals.” The tribe has spent about $600 per acre just to buy the seed mix to create prairie, he noted.

The work reportedly is beginning to pay off, judging by the return of native animal species to the restored areas.

“I think there’s a lot of people who sense intuitively that we’ve done a lot to disturb the planet — we all have — and we have to do something to give a little bit back,” Bowen told The AP.

Perhaps in our area the Eastern Band of the Cherokee might do well to plow some of its casino profits into a similar project in Western North Carolina.

And in the aftermath of the controversial Parkside condo project in downtown Asheville, perhaps some deep-pocketed residents might buy up tracts around the city and return them to their original — and natural — state.