New Climate Land Leader Deborah Jacobi stewards amazingly diverse land in the Driftless Area of Northeast Iowa. We asked Deborah to tell us more about the landscape and her stewardship. What are some distinctive features about the land you steward? Distinctive features at Middle Bear Bluffs Farm include the range of terrain from former cropland,…
The original version of this piece was published on My Wisconsin Woods. Thank you to author Steve Swenson, Program Director at My Wisconsin Woods, for permission to share the story here.
Never have nonprofit organizations needed our support more, especially those that center Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities. We asked Climate Land Leaders which groups they support with their dollars, and here’s the 2025 list. Check out these groups doing wonderful heart work. 1619 Freedom School All Square Appetite for Change Black Iowa News…
At Climate Land Leaders, we envision a world where plant, animal, and human communities thrive through our land stewardship. How will we get there? Our new Strategic Plan provides the roadmap for the next two years. Our mission: to provide community and support for land stewards creating climate resiliency. We are guided by a set…
Climate Land Leader Bryan Simon is owner/operator of Lakeside Prairie Farm, and has a B.A. in Biology from University of Minnesota Morris and a M.S. in Ecology from South Dakota State University. Lakeside Prairie Farm currently offers targeted goat grazing to control invasive species and custom grazes cattle. The land’s most defining feature is the…
by Oliver Luker* As a landowner with a keen interest in addressing the climate crisis, this is a question that I have struggled with myself. The moral dimensions alone can be considerable – what is the best that I can do with my land is a very different question from the very best that the…
Congratulations to Iowa farmer and Climate Land Leader Wendy Johnson, who received the 2024 Iowa Leopold Conservation Award! Wendy was nominated by fellow Climate Land Leaders Maggie McQuown and Seth Watkins. Along with her family, Wendy stewards Center View Farms and Jóia Food and Fiber Farm in Floyd County, IA. Wendy shared the following remarks…
During Summer 2024, Climate Land Leaders met up in Central Iowa at Whiterock Conservancy. There Liz Garst and her partner, Darwin Pierce, gave the land leaders a gift: Insights into their lifetimes of observing, working and restoring the land around them. We asked Liz to expand on some of her “place-based knowledge.” A banker, activist…
By Oliver Luker* In 2022, we discovered a degraded fen on our property in McHenry County, Illinois. Originally transformed in the 1960s into a fishing and camping site, disturbances to the water table have led to multiple water channeling issues. The fen, once vibrant, is now overrun by invasive species, with nettles as its only…
