Unfortunately, the environmental costs of this high-tech fix are only now being seen. On the Great Plains, in particular, the damage has included the depletion of aquifers through irrigation, the poisoning of groundwater with agricultural chemicals, and the overfertilization of entire river systems. There is now an enormous dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, caused by an influx of nutrients, mostly nitrogen and phosphorus, from artificial fertilizers applied to farmlands in the Missouri/Mississippi drainage.
But perhaps the most serious and unexpected downside of the Green Revolution was the collapse of world markets. As the supply of farm commodities outstripped demand, prices dropped to levels that hadn’t been seen since the Great Depression. In response to this economic disaster, many producers rooted out fencerows, shelterbelts, wetlands, and other uncropped lands in an attempt to increase their salable harvest. And as if pressure from the marketplace were not enough, farmers often received extra inducement from government income-support programs, in which entitlements were based on the area under cultivation. The more you plowed up, the more you stood to receive. The result of these combined forces has been an incremental loss of habitat from the farm landscape and a corresponding decline in the abundance and diversity of wildlife.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Since about 2006, world grain prices have come out of their decades-long doldrums and begun spiking up, doubling, tripling, and quadrupling to record-high levels. Although partly driven by global consumer demand, the price rise has really taken off because of the rocketing market for biofuels. Crops like wheat and corn, once valued as foodstuffs, have now become feedstock for ethanol production. While the biofuel boom has provided welcome relief for farmers (especially the big players in the game), it has done nothing to ease the pressure on prairie landscapes. In fact, the drive toward industrial intensification has itself intensified. In the U.S., for example, thousands—perhaps even millions—of acres of marginal farmland that were seeded to grass under the Conservation Reserve Program in the 1980s and 1990s are being brought back under the plow, at an untold cost to grassland birds and waterfowl. Meanwhile, carbon that had been sequestered in the soil is being released when the land is worked, putting the lie to biofuel’s promise of a low-carbon future.
The grain-based ethanol industry has developed as an instrument of public policy, backed by millions in public funds. Fortunately, public influence is also being exerted in less ambiguous directions. The last decade has seen the creation of innovative programs (typically underfunded but important nonetheless) that pay farmers for managing their private land for the public good by providing services to the environment. Both the 2008 Agricultural Policy Framework in Canada and the 2009 Farm Bill in the U.S. provide limited compensation to farmers who fulfill specific agreements to reduce effluents and emissions, conserve soil fertility, provide habitat for wildlife, or provide other benefits to society.
Of course, long before these programs existed, there were already farmers who set high standards for themselves and managed their lands for conservation. For some, it was a simple matter of taking a little extra time to maneuver around marshes and ponds or delaying their haying operations until late in the season when the ground-nesting birds are gone. But others have made a day-in, day-out commitment to farming with, rather than on, the land, using methods that attempt to mimic the natural ecosystem. Sometimes disparaged as hopeless romantics with a nostalgic attachment to the past, these organic, or holistic, producers are practitioners of a high-yield, knowledge-based, thoroughly modern system that continues to evolve as agroecological science advances. Drawing on research and personal experience, organic farmers use a variety of techniques, such as green manures (crops that are grown and then plowed under to build the soil), intercropping (green manures and crops sown together), and crop rotations (a sequence of crops planted in a field in succeeding years), to add diversity and complexity to their fields. New methods for controlling weeds without tillage, by using cover crops as mulch, are the focus of intensive investigation. Although not a panacea, organic techniques achieve many well-documented benefits, including improved retention of organic matter in the soil, increased diversity of soil organisms, fewer plant diseases and pest infestations, more variety in cropping systems, reduced runoff of inorganic nutrients, and a lower burden of environmental toxins. Despite the inevitable disturbance to wildlife caused by field work, organic farms also generally support more species in greater abundance—everything from spiders to bees to birds—than are found on their conventional counterparts.
Concho water snake, at risk
Texas blind salamander, at risk
Neosho madtom, at risk
Yields from organic fields are often lower than those achieved on other farms, and organics are sometimes derided as boutique agriculture. But researchers in South Dakota have found that organic methods can be highly productive, especially during droughts, with yields that equal or even outstrip those of high-input farms. And a recent analysis by scientists from the University of Michigan suggests that organic farming has the potential to meet the caloric requirements of a hungry world, without increasing in the area under cultivation and at a reduced cost to soil, water, air quality, and life in general.
Managing for Wildness
All of these complexities—of rangeland and farmland, easements and frameworks, opportunities and options—can be summed up in two basic concepts. They are the mantras of prairie conservation. The first is to protect and enhance wild prairie wherever it still exists, whether as large, connected landscapes or, where no alternative is left, as one-of-a-kind fragments. The second, often overlapping priority is to manage the working landscape for wildness so that it not only serves the interests of people but also supports a diversity of swimming, flying, walking, and crawling forms of life. Achieving these goals will not be easy. Failing to achieve them will mean a continuing downward trend for many of the prairie region’s unique ecoregions and species.
These priorities take on even greater urgency in the context of climate change. The grasslands as we know them emerged thousands of years ago, at the end of a three-million-year-long ordeal of glaciation. The difference between the desolation of the Ice Age and the birth of the prairies was a natural warming trend that caused the average global temperature to rise by about 9˚f (5˚c). Now, the experts tell us, we are about to experience a perturbation of similar magnitude but one that we ourselves have triggered. The problem, of course, is the thick, insulating blanket of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and other industrial emissions that envelops the Earth and prevents heat from radiating away from the surface. Depending in part on how successful we are in curbing this process, the average world temperature is expected to increase by somewhere between 2.0˚f and 11.54˚f (1.1˚c and 6.4˚c) before 2100. If these predictions are even close to being accurate, the Earth may soon be hotter than at any time in the past million years, and the change will have occurred more rapidly than any on record.
Protection and enhancement of the prairie’s uniquely productive wetlands is a top priority everywhere on the Great Plains.
A female mule deer keeps watch over her investment in the future.
Despite the clamor of dissent in the media and the blogosphere, climatologists are increasingly united about the probable, large-scale consequences of the greenhouse effect. In addition to atmospheric warming, the outlook includes the melting of polar ice packs, a rise in sea levels (with consequent flooding), and an increase in natural disasters such as droughts, fires, hurricanes, and tornadoes. But although the big picture is clear—even distressingly so— attempts to produce localized forecasts have so far been far less clear-cut. In the case of the Great Plains, for example, the predictions call for the climate to be hotter and more extreme than it has been in the past, with lower water levels in rivers and lakes and a reduced area of wetlands. But nobody knows what will happen.
The wild prairies are, in the deepest sense, a manifestation of the climate. From the g
round up, the living world is attuned to wind and rain, sun and snow, seasons of death and seasons of growth. As these basic realities are altered, everything will be touched, and change will ripple and ricochet through the ecosystem. On the one hand, human land-use patterns are certain to be transformed, as people attempt to adapt to a rapid-fire succession of opportunities and challenges. Whether these shifts in human activity will be good or bad for wildlife is anyone’s guess. At the same time, the changed climatic regime will also affect wildlife directly, by opening up new prospects for some species (especially generalists) and closing in on others (particularly those that are isolated or have specialized requirements). Are we heading toward a nightmarish future dominated by weeds and pests, in which the prairies are stripped of their special beauty and begin to look like everywhere else?
There is no way to hold back the future. But we can shape the course of events by engaging—fully, deeply, and passionately— with the present. The survival of the wild prairie and its creatures will depend, in no small part, on our ability to ensure their well-being right now. By protecting and enhancing wild prairie and managing the working landscape for wildness, we can strengthen and enhance the ecosystem, in all its diversity and abundance, both for our own sake and for those who come after us. This approach is sometimes referred to as a strategy of “no regrets,” because the work is worth doing now, no matter what happens next.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION }
A complete catalog of the written sources that were consulted in the preparation of this book would fill a volume of its own. This list is therefore selective and is primarily intended to provide a starting point for further study and engagement. Your bookseller will be able to direct you to references that are appropriate for your area, and local conservation groups can guide you to opportunities to learn and participate.
CONSERVATION CONNECTIONS: PLACES TO BEGIN
American Prairie Foundation, www.americanprairie.org/
Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, www.voiceforthewild.org/
Great Plains Restoration Council, www.gprc.org/
Intertribal Bison Cooperative, www.itbcbison.com/index.php
Nature Conservancy of Canada, www.natureconservancy.ca/
The Nature Conservancy, www.nature.org/
World Wildlife Fund, www.worldwildlife.org/what/wherewework/ngp/
LOCAL GUIDES/GENERAL REFERENCES: A SAMPLER
Acorn, John. Bugs of Alberta. Edmonton: Lone Pine, 2000.
———. Butterflies of Alberta. Edmonton: Lone Pine, 1993.
———. Tiger Beetles of Alberta. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2001.
American Ornithologists’ Union. The Birds of North America:Life Histories for the 21st Century. Washington, D.C., 1992 onwards. A series of authoritative monographs.
Brown, Annora. Old Man’s Garden. Sidney: Gray’s, 1970.
Brown, Lauren. Grasslands: National Audubon Society Nature Guide. New York: Knopf, 1998.
Costello, David. The Prairie World. New York: Thomas Crowell, 1969.
Davis, William B., and David J. Schmidly. The Mammals of Texas. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, 1994. www.nsrl.ttu.edu/tmot1/.
Foresman, Kerry R. The Wild Mammals of Montana. Special Publication No. 12. American Society of Mammalogists, 2001.
Grasshoppers of Wyoming and the West. www.uwyo.edu/grasshoppersupport/Html_pages/ghwywfrm.htm.
Handbook of Texas Online. Information on a wide variety of subjects. www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online.
Hoberg, Ted, and Cully Gause. “Reptiles and Amphibians of North Dakota.” North Dakota Outdoors 55 (1992): 7–19. www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/herps/amrepnd/index.htm.
Johnsgard, Paul A. Grassland Grouse and Their Conservation. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian, 2002.
———. The Nature of Nebraska. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001.
———. Prairie Birds: Fragile Splendor in the Great Plains. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001.
———. This Fragile Land: A Natural History of the Nebraska Sandhills. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.
Jones, J. Knox. Mammals of the Northern Great Plains. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983.
Kindscher, Kelly. Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1987.
Krausman, Paul R., ed. Rangeland Wildlife. Denver: Society of Range Management, 1996.
Ladd, Doug. Tallgrass Prairie Wildflowers: A Falcon Field Guide. Helena: Falcon, 1995.
Laurenroth, William K., and Ingrid C. Burke. Ecology of the Shortgrass Steppe: A Long-Term Perspective. Oxford: University of Oxford Press, 2008.
Madson, John. Where the Sky Began: Land of the Tallgrass Prairie. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982.
Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center. Information on a wide range of prairie organisms and issues. www.npwrc.usgs.gov/.
Preston, William B. The Amphibians and Reptiles of Manitoba. Winnipeg: Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature, 1982.
Raventon, E. Island in the Plains: A Black Hills Natural History. Boulder: Johnson, 1994.
Reichman, O.J. Konza Prairie: A Tallgrass Natural History. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1987.
Russell, Anthony P., and Aaron M. Bauer. Amphibians and Reptiles of Alberta: A Field Guide and Primer of Boreal Herpetology. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2000.
Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management. Natural Neighbours: Selected Mammals of Saskatchewan. Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, 2001.
Vance, F.R., et al. Wildflowers Across the Prairies. Vancouver: Greystone, 1999.
CHAPTER 1: WHERE IS HERE?
Alt, David, and Donald W. Hyndman. Roadside Geology of Montana. Missoula: Mountain Press, 1986.
Boal, Frederick W., and Stephen A. Royle, eds. North America: A Geographical Mosaic. London: Arnold, 1999.
Bolen, Eric G. Ecology of North America. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1998.
Bragg, Thomas B. “The Physical Environment of the Great Plains Grasslands.” In The Changing Prairie, edited by Anthony Joern and Kathleen H. Keeler, 49–81. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Brown, Robert H. Wyoming: A Geography. Boulder: Westview Press, 1980.
Fenneman, Nevin M. Physiography of Eastern United States. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1931.
———. Physiography of Western United States. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1931.
Fung, Kai-lu, ed. Atlas of Saskatchewan. Saskatoon: University of Saskatchewan, 1999.
Griffiths, Meland, and Lynnel Rubright. Colorado: A Geography. Boulder: Westview, 1983.
Hart, Richard H., and James A. Hart. “Rangelands of the Great Plains Before European Settlement.” Rangelands 19 (1997): 11.
Holliday, Vance T., et al. “The Central Lowlands and Great Plains.” In The Physical Geography of North America, edited by Antony R. Orme. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Jordan, Terry G., et al. Texas: A Geography. Boulder: Westview, 1984.
McKnight, Tom L. Regional Geography of the United States and Canada. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1997.
Nelson, H.L. A Geography of Iowa. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1968.
Ostlie, W.R., et al. The Status of Biodiversity in the Great Plains. The Nature Conservancy, Arlington: 1997.
Radenbaugh, Todd A., and Patrick Douaud, eds. Changing Prairie Landscapes. Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, 2000.
Rafferty, Milton D. Missouri: A Geography. Boulder: Westview, 1983.
Ricketts, Taylor H., et al. Terrestrial Ecoregions of North America: A Conservation Assessment. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1999.
Sims, Phillip L., and Paul G. Risser. “Grasslands.” In North American Terrestrial Vegetation, edited by Michael G. Barbour and William Dwight Billings, 324–56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Trenhaile, Alan S. Geomorphology: A Canadian Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Weaver, J.E., and F.W
. Albertson. Grasslands of the Great Plains: Their Nature and Use. Lincoln: Johnsen, 1956.
World Resources Institute—PAGE, 2000. “Global Extent of Grasslands.” http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/forests-grasslands-drylands/map-229.html.
CHAPTER 2: DIGGING INTO THE PAST
Anderson, Wayne I. Geology of Iowa: Over Two Billion Years of Change. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1983.
Beaty, Chester B. The Landscapes of Southern Alberta: A Regional Geomorphology. Lethbridge: University of Lethbridge, 1975.
Belcher, C.M. “Impacts and Wildfire: An Analysis of the K-T Event.” In Biological Processes Associated with Impact Events, edited by Charles Cockell, et al., 221–43. Berlin: Springer, 2006.
Beveridge, Thomas R. Geologic Wonders and Curiosities of Missouri. Rolla: Missouri Division of Geology and Land Survey, 1980.
Bluemle, John P. The Face of North Dakota: The Geologic Story. North Dakota Geological Survey Education Series 11, 1991.
Buchanan, Rex, ed. Kansas Geology: An Introduction to Landscapes, Rocks, Minerals, and Fossils. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1984.
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