India, Oct. 20 -- What if one of the best ways to protect nature is to treat the land like a classroom? In 2021, Ted Turner created exactly that kind of place. He transferred almost 80,000 acres of prairie land to the Turner Institute of Ecoagriculture, which became a laboratory for wetlands and bison. One of the projects of this institute focuses on wet meadows located between the sand dunes of Nebraska. According to the Turner Institute of Ecoagriculture, these waterlogged areas are more important than they seem.

McGinley Ranch sits in the northern Sandhills of Nebraska and straddles the border with South Dakota. The ranch occupied roughly 79,000 acres of native range when Turner's firm moved it to the nonprofit organization in July 20...