| VOLUME 2 ISSUE 4 WINTER 1992
EDITORIAL - NO TREES
I just put two and two together. After being plagued by week-long stomach problems I went to the doctor. An ulcer. How can that be? I don't fit the profile. Then it donned on me, it all began about the time I saw what I consider one of the most tragic circumstances possible.
I had been driving through a portion of Missouri's last remaining areas of true native prairie. Home to some of the last vestiges of Missouri's struggling Prairie Chicken population. There it was. I couldn't believe my eyes. Small red flags, the kind surveyors use, in perfect rows like tombstones in Arlington Cemetery; and just as those tombstones memorialize the death of an individual they were marking the impending death of a prairie. Each flag marked a tree.
Trees in a CRP planting in the middle of prairie country. I just couldn't believe it. Who could be so irresponsible as to allow this to happen? Trees! Let alone the fact that this was an unexcusable invasion of one of the most rare and precious ecotypes in the nation, we don't need more trees. Don't get me wrong. Trees have their place, but not in prairie. Ninety-nine point nine percent of all native grasslands have been lost.
The policy which regulates CRP gives no consideration to the landscape surrounding the CRP planting.
In the absence of any policy outlining a landscape consideration, in my opinion, the responsibility then falls upon the resource professional. It is the responsibility of the resource professional to inform the landowner of the importance of maintaining landscape continuity. Unfortunately, until policy is changed if the landowner chooses to plant trees, trees will be planted. Government policy in general has been detrimental to grasslands. For example, the recently announced Stewardship Incentive Program (SIP) promised to be a well rounded integrated plan which the landowner could choose any number of stewardship practices and receive cost share assistance. Now that the program has been implemented, we find out that a landowner must have at least 10 acres of forest or be willing to establish ten acres of forest. Landowners have millions of acres of former native grasslands which coulduse many stewardship practices but unless they agree to plant trees the SIP is not available to them. Is that equal opportunity? In essence, government policy is thumbing its nose to grasslands.
The problem is really much bigger than that though. Who among us mourns the loss of something that we know nothing about. However, we are the first to cry when it is something we are intimately aware of. There is no real education of native grasslands going on at any level in education. The only exception being upper level college courses at universities and those are usually those most closely associated with the remaining native grasslands in America. By the time a student gets to the point to enroll in one of those classes they have already developed a knowledge and interest in grasslands. That is not exposing new people to the loss and importance of our native grasslands. When no one knows of our grasslands, who mourns?
I think a good example of this whole problem stems from a talk I recently gave to my daughter's 4th grade class on native grasslands. I took a survey before my presentation to see what these 10 year old kids thought were the most endangered ecosystems. Seventeen voted for forests, fourteen for wetlands and eleven for native grasslands. That confirmed what I have always suspected, the media and educators have put more emphasis on trees and wetlands than grasslands. Each of those are important but none more than the other. We have to quit looking at individual entities as self supporting and self reliant and begin looking at the bigger, totally integrated picture.
Insinuating that the CRP planting in prairie was responsible for my ulcer is made tongue-in-cheek. I guarantee you though there is an inarguable nausea in the pit of my stomach every time I see these types of scenes.
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