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The Problem of the Disappearing American Prairie
Prairies are as important as forests in sequestering carbon — so why aren’t we preserving them?
Two gentlemen in their early 70s stood in the Southwestern Wisconsin prairie as they showed me its vastness and flora. It is 2019, and I will soon be leading a group on a prairie hike for a local land trust with the assistance of these two experienced naturalists. I wanted to be prepared.
But an interesting exchange occurred between them as they bantered about which biome — prairie or forest — was more important for climate control. One was pro-prairie and the other was pro-forest. A forest, an oak savannah, loomed less than 500 yards away from the prairie on which we stood.
They finally agreed to disagree and continued to show me the indigenous plants growing between the Big Bluestem Grass (Andropogon gerardii).
These included species such as lead plants (Amorpha canescens), compass plants, (Silphium laciniatum), coneflowers (Echinacea sp.), blazing stars (Liatris sp.), wild white indigo (Baptisia alba), black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia sp.), wild quinine (Parthenium integrifolium), golden rod (Solidago sp.), milkweeds (Asclepia sp.) and more.
The subject fascinated me, as it did them. We were all passionate about Wisconsin’s native biomes and plants, a trait that would be shared with our hikers in the weeks ahead.
But in the twenty-five years I’ve lived in Wisconsin, I’ve seen our prairies in the upper midwest shrink. I watched as the open prairies in West Central and Southwest Wisconsin were replaced by housing tracts, school buildings, parking lots, strip malls, and grocery stores.
But while I could see this change, the prairie loss wasn’t new. It had occurred before, involving larger swaths of land succumbing to more human development and the increasing use of mono-culture-style agriculture, especially corn and soybeans.
It has continued for centuries.
