Where has all the Prairie gone???
This was our host Leszek. He is the caretaker of the "little house on the Prairie Restoration" where we stayed. He gave us a short tour of the Prairie land and spoke to us about the history of this particular Restoration.
In the early days, the Barnhart family used their land to produce crops like most farms in the area. After some of the members of the Barnhart family passed, the business gradually slowed down. In 1987 they enrolled in a government Conservation Reserve Program. The program offered a cost-share rental through the US Department of Agriculture to certain farms in an effort to reduce soil erosion. As a result, the Barnharts ceased crop farming and dedicated a few acres of their land to prairie regrowth for a period of 10 years. Originally, only 33 acres were reserved for planting prairie. However, when the family saw that Prairie land in the area was compromised due to a nearby road expansion of Route 45, they decided to add 15 more acres to the Prairie Restoration efforts.
With the help of additional State funding and support, eventually the Barnharts were able to dedicate a total of 100 acres for Restoration. In 2005, they attained Nature Preserve status on their land. Today, the Barnhart Grove Prairie Restoration is located at the edge of the University of Illinois in Urbana and has dedicated the land to research and education of Prairie plants. It serves as an example of what the Prairie of eastern Illinois used to look like before American settlers came to the Mid-West.
In the early days, the Barnhart family used their land to produce crops like most farms in the area. After some of the members of the Barnhart family passed, the business gradually slowed down. In 1987 they enrolled in a government Conservation Reserve Program. The program offered a cost-share rental through the US Department of Agriculture to certain farms in an effort to reduce soil erosion. As a result, the Barnharts ceased crop farming and dedicated a few acres of their land to prairie regrowth for a period of 10 years. Originally, only 33 acres were reserved for planting prairie. However, when the family saw that Prairie land in the area was compromised due to a nearby road expansion of Route 45, they decided to add 15 more acres to the Prairie Restoration efforts.
(Look! I just learned how to embed a youtube video! =)
After hearing the story about the Barnhart's Prairie Restoration efforts, I felt very blessed to be able to see and touch the beautiful tall golden grass. Before this road trip, the prairie existed only as a vague picture in my imagination from history books I read in school. To think that this might not have been here without the concerted efforts of a family of philanthropists, it made me wonder, if the natural landscape of the Mid-west is supposed to be Prairie land, why was there such a need to restore the prairie here in Illinois?...What happened to the Prairie?
Luckily, the next morning, I met a student who was involved in the University's Prairie Restoration Project! Jia (pronounced, Jee-yah :) was starting her volunteer hours for the semester at the Student Sustainable Farm the very same day Phillip and I came out to explore.
Here was our Q&A email correspondence:
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Sunshine: Jia, can you give a little history about the prairie lands in the Mid-west?
Jia: Prairie used to make up the majority of the land in the Mid-west. Prior to the European settlement in the 1850, 60% of Illinois or approximately 220 million acres, was a grassland area. This means that the area was mostly devoid of trees. In fact, it was filled with biting insects that the European settlers were not accustomed to. Back then the settlers viewed the Mid-west prairie as an obstacle to the nation's westward expansion. So as history goes, they plowed down the lush tall grasses in favor of more commercially profitable crops.
Sunshine: I think for many modern Americans, including me, the memory of the prairie has been lost. Now, in a time where industrialization and monopolized farming practices have taken over, the common onlooker would not think that all these corn fields are not actually part of the natural, original landscape of this region. So can you describe what the prairie was like? What kind of plants used to grow in the Mid-west?
Jia: There is a great variety of plants that use to grow on prairies. They include, Little Bluestem, Purple Coneflower, Big Bluestem, Switchgrass, and Goldenrods. Some of these you can still find on prairie restoration sites or the small amount of prairies that remain throughout Illinois. In addition to the unique variety of plants that make up the prairie, there are also an array of wildlife that are inextricably tied to the prairie. Animals such as: Prairie Dogs, Bison, Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrels, Elk, Short-eared owls, and Henslow's Sparrow are just a few examples of wildlife that rely on the prairie as their natural habitat.
Jia: Today, only .001 percent of the original prairie remains in the Mid-west. Of the 22 million acres that was once tallgrass prairie, there is now only about 2,500 acres left.
Sunshine: Jia, that's a travesty... How is that possible? What happened to the Prairie?
Jia: In addition to the development of urban centers in modern times, the rich soil in the Mid-west area was discovered to be very useful for raising crops by the settlers - and that's what the prairie has been converted into today, farmland for our nation's staple foods like corn, potatoes, and soy, as well as cattle-raising for meat.
Jia: A "Prairie Restoration" is an effort to restore a converted prairie land back the original ecosystem that it once had. This is a long term project where people have to continuously put in a lot of hours of pulling weeds and planting seeds to ensure that the prairie species survive against their competitors. A project like this can be started by many different people on many scales. One can simply start planting more prairie species in their backyard and that can be a restoration project. On larger scale, it is usually a community effort to restore a plot of land that is more feasible for a volunteer group to work together on.
Sunshine: How did you become involved in Prairie Restoration? Can you share what the students of University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana are doing?
Jia: I learned about Prairie Restoration projects when the President of Red Bison, an organization ran by students at U of I, was invited to speak in my environmental writing class. Their work involves helping to pull weeds out of prairies and doing restoration work on multiple sites. Also, at an event sponsored by the Student for Environmental Concerns, I heard about a "Restoration Day" and participated. Students at U of I are very active in the restoration of prairies.
Red Bison does work in three areas of Champaign-Urbana. You can check out their work on their website! http://redbison.
Red Bison does work in three areas of Champaign-Urbana. You can check out their work on their website! http://redbison.
Sunshine: Can you share what your experience has been with Prairie Restoration at school?
Jia: There have been weekly restoration and social events to learn more about prairie restoration. For most volunteers, Restoration Days usually involve the pulling of weeds and marking growth of plant species. In addition to the hands on experience, I got to meet and connect with other people who are also very passionate about wildlife and learn about their experiences with prairie plant restoration.
Sunshine: What do you think people can do to support Prairie Restoration, locally or nationally? For example, what do you think someone outside of the Mid-West, outside of prairie lands, can do to help?
Jia: If you are in the Mid-West, the best way to support Prairie Restoration starts in your backyard. Use native plants for landscaping, it will make your garden beautiful and imitate original natural prairies. You can also start or join a local restoration project to help with replanting the prairie.
On a national level, I think people need to be aware of how far humans have altered the original landscape. People need to understand the importance of how our development as a society have taken away much of the biodiversity that originally occupied this land. I am pretty confident to say that people of our generation and beyond will never get to see the vast prairie that once dominated the Mid-west, which is sad. It is important to protect whatever biodiversity that we have left in our natural habitats before it is impaired to the point of no return.
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I want to thank Jia, Dane, Leszak, and especially, Mary Hosier for hosting Phillip and I during our time in Illinois. Our visit to Champaign-Urbana was one of the most fruitful experiences on our road trip.
I believe the two lands resting in contrast to each other represents the current struggle in the hearts of us Americans. Do we keep going with the destruction of our ecosystem in favor of a fulfilling a culture of hyper consumption and mass production? Or try to return to a more natural and sustainable way of living on this land? My hope is, that with more conscious choices between the combined efforts of individuals across the country, we can restore what once existed - not only in the physical landscape - but inside ourselves.
Lastly, I believe the Prairie stands as a reminder to keep looking at the bigger picture, to keep in mind how a decision in one part of the country will affect the greater whole, and how we are all inextricably connected to each other. As prairie restoration efforts continue on, inevitably, it will have to be an issue that reaches the big cities. How our nation chooses to produce food will have to be the deciding factor on the success of reviving the lush, golden land America once had. Whatever the result, one thing is certain: much of the wildlife living on the edges of what is still left of the prairie will be hanging on to the outcome of our choices.
-PEACE~!*
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