IISD's work on the Great Plains began in 1993, with the Great Plains Program convening stakeholders across the Canadian prairies to articulate their needs on sustainability issues. The groups suggested that developing sustainable policies should be the first priority for the program. Following this recommendation, working groups representing diverse views from the prairies met to consider specific policies and recommendations for change. These discussions resulted in two key studies:

• Agriculture and Sustainable Development: Policy Analysis (available in .pdf format ~604KB) outlined the issues facing the Canadian prairies and provided background to the development of IISD's policy analysis framework.
• Sustainable Development for the Great Plains: Policy Analysis (available in .pdf format ~198KB) focuses on the use of the framework and provides four case studies used to test it.

The Great Plains program then teamed up with the University of Manitoba Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences to publish Sustainability of Canadian's Agri-Food System - A Prairie Perspective (available in .pdf format ~702KB). This document, which was produced with input from all departments of the faculty, outlines many of the key issues facing the Canadian prairies.

The next step for IISD was to extend its understanding of Great Plains sustainability by expanding its scope into the United States. Teaming up with sponsors from the United States and Canada, IISD assisted in Planning for a Sustainable Future: The Case of the North American Great Plains, a syposium held in May 1995 in Lincoln, Nebraska. This symposium focused on the future of the North American Great Plains using case studies and results provided by several organizations. At the conference, the Great Plains program also presented the results of its North American survey identifying critical issues and stressors.

Following the symposium, IISD and the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce hosted the Sustainable Development on the Great Plains conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba. This conference was aimed at rural communities and the research community in the Great Plains in order to better understand how they relate to each other.

IISD has found that in order to make progress toward sustainability, it is essential to build and to support institutions at many levels. The Great Plains program has been instrumental in the development of the Great Plains Institute and the Manitoba Rural Adaptation Council. The Great Plains Institute is being established to assist businesses and governments in the U.S. and Canada to come to grips with the issues of the Great Plains sustainability. The Manitoba Rural Adaptation Council was established to assist the rural communities of Manitoba to adapt to the economic, environmental and social changes taking place in their own areas. The results of the Manitoba Rural Adaptation Council will be used in other jurisdictions to promote effective sustainability efforts.

In addition to work done by the Great Plains program, other IISD programs have made contributions to understanding the dynamics of change and adaptation in the prairies. The Measurement and Indicators program has been instrumental in writing the 1997 Manitoba State of the Environment Report in collaboration with the Government of Manitoba. They also have been evaluating the performance of the Whitemud Conservation District to address soil and water-conservation issues. Meanwhile, the Trade Program has provided a critical analysis of the NAFTA agreement and its potential impact on sustainability.