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 the Northern Great Plains more than 30 Indigenous nations have established bison herds to restore and protect tens of thousands of acres of grasslands on tribal land. In the Dakotas, progressive ranchers are adopting conservation grazing techniques to protect grass, soil, water and wildlife. 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?

To learn more about Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie , click here.

Our scientific understanding of mushrooms and other fungi has been shaped and impeded by mycophobia, a condition of fear and revulsion to the peculiarities of this kingdom of life. However, fungi show us cooperative, alternative, entangled, interdependent, and more-than-human modes of living that are worth studying, imitating, learning from. This talk is oriented towards scientists, academics from the humanities, and anyone who seeks to engage critically with science and who is interested in how discourse ripples across various disciplines and areas of life.

To learn more about Patricia and her work, click here.