ST CROIX VALLEY Presentation
The Fight to Save America’s Prairie — A Public Talk in the St. Croix Valley
A quiet tragedy is unfolding on the American prairie: We are plowing up the continent’s remaining grasslands at the rate of roughly 1 million acres a year— nearly as fast as we are destroying the Amazon rainforest.
This is a disaster for wildlife, climate change, clean water and the lakes and rivers of the heartland. But across the prairie many beacons of hope are emerging.
In Minnesota, Montana and other states, conservation groups are restoring and re-wilding large grassland expanses. There is even hope in Washington: the American Grasslands Conservation Act would reward farmers, ranchers and other landowners for preserving healthy grasslands.
Yet prairie enthusiasts are battling some of the mightiest forces in America: Agrochemical conglomerates that profit from row-crop agriculture; commodity lobbyists who fiercely defend federal subsidies that drive the plow; a food industry built on endless supplies of cheap corn and soybeans. In the 19th century we lost 99 percent of the tall-grass prairie to the plow.
Today, can we save the great grassland expanses that remain?
Date: May 7 (Thursday)
Time: 5:00 pm: Tour of church prairie labyrinth and 2-acre restored prairie
6:00 pm: “Sea of Grass” talk
Location: Memorial Lutheran Church, Afton
15730 S Afton Blvd, Afton, MN 55001
Our Speakers
Dave Hage
Independent Journalist
Dave Hage oversaw environmental and health reporting at the Minneapolis Star Tribune for a dozen years, editing projects that won a Pulitzer Prize and an Edward R. Murrow Award, among other honors. His previous books include No Retreat, No Surrender: Labor’s War at Hormel, and Reforming Welfare by Rewarding Work. A Minneapolis native, he lives in St. Paul with his wife.
Josephine Marcotty
Reporter • Star Tribune
Josephine Marcotty is an award-winning environmental journalist who has spent her life in the Midwest. She was a reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where she covered complex, science-based topics. Sea of Grass is a natural expansion of her reporting on the vanishing prairie and the consequences of intensive agriculture. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband.