by Laurie Schneider, Co-Founder and Program Director, Pollinator Friendly Alliance

Since I began intentionally working on land stewardship, I learned that there is no shame in feeling small against the massive forces at play around me. 

In fact, it is comforting to know that I am one small piece in this beautiful big mosaic of life.

In the beginning, I wanted results immediately and felt defeated if the seed bank took over.

But natural cycles run on a longer planetary clock. Plants and animals operate on 3-5, 10-20 or even 50 year cycle.

The snowshoe hare is abundant when birch and willow is, which causes the Canada lynx to spike. Eventually, the hares overgraze their food supply and populations crash, causing the lynx population to immediately follow.

The evening primrose or common mullein perennials spend years storing energy as green leaves and once mature they send up one massive spectacular flower stalk, produce seeds and then the entire plant dies. Their populations survive because the seeds they leave behind will start the multi-year cycle over again.

Caribou and reindeer herds in Alaska undergo massive population fluxes that operate on a 40-50 year interval.  Heavily driven by climate, overgrazing of lichens and predator dynamics.

So here we are – the humans – looking at a patch of land and wanting to plant a species or two of perennial grass or flower and expecting to have results that next season.

Patience in land stewardship is the recognition that ecosystems operate on nature’s timeline rather than human schedules. True land restoration requires long-term commitment to continuous monitoring, natural regeneration, and letting go of the desire to force immediate results.

Land Stewardship practices:

  Slow Visual Progress: The changes from one season to the next are often imperceptible. You may not see the results of soil regeneration or native planting for several years. 

  Reversing Decades of Damage: Healing compacted or pesticide treated soil, recovering from erosion, or eradicating invasive species takes significant time to correct.

  Resisting the Urge to Over-Manage: Human intervention can sometimes do more harm than good. Stewards often have to learn to step back, observe, and let natural biological processes take over.

How Patience Manifests in Stewardship

• Observation over Action: Spending time learning to “read” the land (e.g., studying the soil, hydrology, and native plant cycles) before deciding to alter it. 
• Consistent Monitoring: Setting up permanent photo points to document changes over years and adjusting your management plans incrementally based on how the land responds.
• Long-Term Legacy: Focusing on a vision that spans generations, ensuring the land becomes healthier for the wildlife and people who will care for it next.

• Use Native Succession: Instead of trying to instantly establish a mature, dense forest or prairie, plant transitional and cover crops that pave the way for long-term native species.
• Celebrate Small Milestones: Focus on small victories like the return of a specific bird species, the improvement of water retention in the soil, or the first signs of native seedlings pushing through.

Laurie Schneider grew up in rural Wisconsin immersed in the natural world as the youngest in a conservation family and learned from her father’s conservation efforts to save the rivers, mayflies and trout streams. Laurie grew Pollinator Friendly Alliance from a grassroots local group into a dynamic Minnesota conservation organization while she supervised research at the University of Minnesota on pesticide effects to pollinators.  During a long entrepreneurial career, she founded her own successful photography studio and helped numerous other business owners start their own ventures. She finds her job with Pollinator Friendly Alliance to be by far the most important work she has done. Laurie is passionate and dedicated to preserving the natural world and she finds “home” at her Stillwater farm and in nature.

Photos courtesy of The Acreage at Osceola. Pollinator Friendly Alliance, The Acreage, and the Climate Land Leaders Initiative held a Field Day together July 2026.