GRETNA, Neb. (AP) — Even though state laws protect existing burial sites, protection of tiny pioneer cemeteries in Nebraska is proving hard to enforce because of growing housing developments.

Many of the at least 40 pioneer cemeteries in Sarpy County are tucked away on private property, leaving it up to the property owners to ensure the subtlest of them will survive.

But leaders of the Nebraska State Historical Society have heard of cases of property owners throwing away gravestones for renovations on the land. Rob Bozell, the society’s archaeologist, says the county relies on citizen reporting to be able to enforce the preservation of those abandoned cemeteries.

State law defines pioneer cemeteries as burial sites established before 1900, and have the graves of some of Nebraska’s first white settlers and Native Americans.