Administrative/Biographical History
The Buffalo Commons is a conceptual proposal to create a vast nature preserve by returning 139,000 square miles of the drier portion of the Great Plains to native prairie, and by reintroducing the buffalo that once grazed that prairie. The area covered by the commons includes portions of Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming. The Buffalo Commons theory was first proposed by Dr. Frank and Deborah Popper in 1987. At that time, Frank Popper was a Professor of Urban Studies at Rutgers University, while Deborah Popper was a graduate student of geography at Rutgers. Since its inception, the theory has met with controversy and resistance from people within the “commons” area.
