Debra has been the Executive Director of The Prairie Enthusiasts since 2020. She brings more than 25 years of nonprofit leadership and development experience. Debra has an entrepreneurial approach to solving problems, focusing collective energy and building momentum. She’s passionate about saving the rare biodiversity and beauty of ecosystems in the Upper Midwest, and is actively restoring prairie and oak savanna at her homestead outside of Viroqua.
As a teenager, Peter Hartman had the opportunity to live on a Wisconsin dairy farm for several summers and work with the Youth Conservation Core in Northern Wisconsin. Peter attended UW Milwaukee where he earned undergraduate degrees in Botany, Zoology and Chemistry. An advertisement for jobs in soil conservation led him to UW Madison where he took soil and conservation engineering classes. Peter was inspired by soil and the five soil forming factors: parent material, climate, biota, topography and time. Soil tied together his love for geology, plants, landforms, and earth history. Peter became a Soil Scientist and a soil mapper for years, first in Indiana then in Minnesota with a mapping detail in Florida. He mapped over a million acres. Peter then became an Area Resource Soil Scientist in Rochester, MN for NRCS. That job gave him the opportunity to dig into soils even deeper and work with engineers on soil conservation projects. This opportunity got Peter involved in Soil Health and opened his eyes to the damage conventional farming practices are doing to our environment. Peter briefly retired, but then did a contracted NRCS project: an ecological site description project on bluff prairies in the Driftless Area. Peter retired again from NRCS over ten years ago and now spends a lot of his time with his family, volunteering, and studying the world and our place in it. For Peter, it has been a great joy to be a volunteer with The Prairie Enthusiasts. The good work The Prairie Enthusiasts does is his motivation. He is thrilled by all the things he has learned about fire ecology and loves spending time in the natural areas we are preserving.
Alice was one of the original founders of The Prairie Enthusiasts. Her skills have contributed to the creation and growth of The Prairie Enthusiasts with her 25 years of experience in public policy, legislative action, and grant writing with the State of Wisconsin. In her career, she managed budgets, planned and managed projects, planned and performed quality assurance and quality improvement activities, and managed staff state-wide. Alice has dedicated her knowledge and time to The Prairie Enthusiasts, acting as treasurer, board member, membership coordinator, and vice president. She is also an active member of the Glacial Prairie chapter and, with her husband Walter, assists in making and shipping makutus.
Jim began his term as President in the summer of 2022. He retired from a career as an aquatic ecologist with the United States Geological Survey, where he worked on the Upper Mississippi River Monitoring Program. Among his many skills, he has experience with statistics, Geospatial Information Systems, surveying, and database management. When not devoting his time to the many committees within The Prairie Enthusiasts, he is restoring hill prairies on his property. He and his wife started their journey learning about prairies when they purchased land in 1990 and discovered an opening with many flowering species. After purchasing some additional acreage with two more hill prairies, Jim began learning about fire-dependent ecosystems and was determined to steward them. “I began to realize I needed some advice on what to do, and in 2002, I came across an organization that is solely dedicated to preserving prairie remnants in the Upper Midwest. I find The Prairie Enthusiasts to be a perfect community for sharing knowledge among those dedicated to prairie and savanna restoration.”
Written by Sarah Barron. Photos by Joshua Mayer
March 21, 2024
Newark, WI—As spring begins, nature lovers anticipate the first sounds of sandhill cranes and spring peeper frogs. However, habitats that can support these species and others like them have become increasingly rare. That’s why the protection and stewardship of these threatened places and the life they support is more important now than ever.
Since the early 1980s, Beloit College has been caring for Newark Road Prairie which consists of nearly 33 acres of high-quality wetland, prairie and oak savanna. To maintain its rich diversity, the land requires active stewardship consisting of frequent prescribed fires and invasive brush removal. For decades, Beloit College has had passionate volunteers, contractors and staff like Professor Richard Newsome stewarding the land. Recently, The Prairie Enthusiasts approached the college to collaborate on habitat stewardship. That relationship resulted in Beloit College generously donating the property to The Prairie Enthusiasts on March 21, 2024. The Prairie Enthusiasts will continue the site’s long legacy of stewardship, ensuring that the prairie will be a haven for wildlife for generations to come. “Newark Road Prairie is one of the most ecologically diverse areas that we are now stewarding,” says Debra Behrens, Executive Director of The Prairie Enthusiasts. “We’re grateful for the decades of care that many organizations have provided and look forward to continuing that land legacy.”
The property, which was originally protected in the 1970s by The Wisconsin Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, has been managed by college students and volunteers, Rock County Conservationists and The Prairie Enthusiasts. It is home to an incredible array of plants, insects and animals. Crayfish burrows create small mounds throughout the wetland, and rare plants draw in students and researchers. The diversity of wildlife there is so abundant that the Wisconsin DNR named it a State Natural Area in 1974.
The property has also served as a place of ecological and geological education for Beloit College students who have examined the behavior of red-winged blackbirds, monitored streams and completed floristic surveys. Yaffa Grossman, Professor of Biology with Beloit College stated, “Newark Road Prairie’s rich floristic diversity provides a glimpse of southern Wisconsin’s rich prairie heritage. Beloit College students, faculty, and staff, the Rock County Conservationists and others have engaged in many field trips, research studies and prescribed burns at Newark Road Prairie during the past 40+ years. As The Prairie Enthusiasts assume the stewardship of this site, I expect that these activities will continue and grow.” Newark Road Prairie will continue to be a place of education for the college as well as be open to the public.
All are welcomed to lace up a pair of boots and enjoy walking along the mowed path where one can observe the many birds and blooms. The Prairie Enthusiasts also encourage anyone with or without land stewardship experience to take part in caring for this special place. The immediate need is to remove invasive brush. Anyone interested in getting involved or wanting to support this work should contact The Prairie Enthusiasts at Info@ThePrairieEnthusiasts.org.
This article appeared in the Summer 2024 edition of the Prairie Promoter, a publication of news, art and writing from The Prairie Enthusiasts community. Explore the full collection and learn how to submit your work here.
The Prairie Enthusiasts is an accredited land trust that seeks to ensure the perpetuation and recovery of prairie, oak savanna, and other fire-dependent ecosystems of the Upper Midwest through protection, management, restoration, and education. In doing so, they strive to work openly and cooperatively with private landowners and other private and public conservation groups. Their management and stewardship centers on high-quality remnants, which contain nearly all the components of endangered prairie communities.