National Prairie Day: The Undervalued Landscape of North America
By Erika Pietrzak, June 7 , 2025
From southern Canada to Indiana and Colorado, the American prairie lands were once home to a diverse range of species thriving in uninterrupted geography. In America today, only one percent of native prairies remain.
Source: MKSK
As climate change impacts our agricultural industry and economy, solutions to combating its harms may not just lie in regulations and new technology, but also in prairies. Prairies are flat, vast stretches of grassland with moderate temperatures, moderate rainfall, few trees, and fertile soil. Here, natural factors limit the amount of trees that can survive, but allow wildflowers and grasses to thrive. They are abundant throughout central North America, but many people do not fully understand the importance of prairies.
Source: MKSK
Prairies have uniquely rich and deep soils, known as loess, derived from weathered rock powder that has been blown off the Rocky Mountains over millions of years. This creates very dense and resilient plant communities with deep roots, high biomass, and high diversity. This deep soil also retains rainwater for extended periods, replenishing groundwater and cooling the earth’s soil. About 80 percent of the landscape is covered in grass, while the remaining 20 percent is covered by wildflowers. They have diverse biomes, varying from warm to cool with various regions each possessing unique factors and life. These systems have naturally adapted over millennia to create complex ecosystems.
In addition to this, the buffalo jumps, grinding stones, cairns, and projectile points left behind by various Indigenous communities across the prairies of the United States serve as a testament to the cultural importance of preserving the land. Indigenous communities have lived across these expansive landscapes for over ten thousand years. For many Indigenous communities, prairies represent sacred land: prairies are “places of connection to ancestors, sources of traditional knowledge, and caches of cultural heritage.” Bison hunting in the prairie land is of great importance to many Indigenous tribes, a practice that sustained them as they were pushed further west by colonizers. Protecting prairies is a crucial step in preserving the traditional ways of life for affected Indigenous tribes.
Our natural prairies are in decline, and we must act quickly to save them before they disappear for good. In America today, only one percent of native prairies remain. Before colonizers took over and destroyed the land, 170 million acres of the American Midwest were covered in prairies. The Homestead Act of 1862 encouraged settlers to move west and cultivate the land, leading to the demolition of prairies to use the land for agricultural and transportation purposes in the coming century. Rapid urbanization turned this once vast expanse of biodiverse land that stretched across the continent into a fragmented bundle of land.
From southern Canada to Indiana and Colorado, the American prairie lands were once home to a diverse range of species thriving in uninterrupted geography. Today, grassland birds are now the fastest declining population of wild birds in North America. Many invasive plant species have overrun the existing wildflowers with dire consequences for delicate wildlife. Consequently, existing plant species are seeing their roots shrink and are experiencing reduced fertility. All of this makes prairies a climate change “hotspot.”
Source: National Geographic
Land conversion and development has disconnected patches of original prairies, making management of biodiversity a significant challenge. This is particularly worrisome as the vast, interconnected networks of diverse species is exactly what has allowed prairies to flourish for centuries. This modern, disconnected reality has resulted in significant biodiversity loss. Migratory species have been unable to complete their previous routes. The increase of droughts is further worsening these impacts by increasing the likelihood of fires and decreasing available habitat.
Prairies can become carbon sinks, absorbing more greenhouse gas emissions than they produce, and lessening the effects of climate change. With roots growing up to twelve feet deep, fibrous root systems have portions die each year, decomposing deep in the soil and adding carbon every season. Prairies are capable of storing up to 1.7 metric tons of carbon per acre. However, an estimated 57 million acres of prairie land have been converted for agricultural purposes since 2009, a loss of almost 100 million tons of carbon sink potential. To prepare for planting, 1.3 million acres of prairie land are being tilled yearly, releasing approximately 9.3 million passenger cars worth of carbon dioxide emissions.
Prairies are also essential to mitigating climate change challenges that are worsening realities for millions of Americans by making environments more resilient to climate change impacts. Prairie's deep-rooted systems of tall grass reduce erosion and reduce the spreading of fires while using 20 to 60 percent less water than yard grasses. Prairies’ diverse native plants and sloped features increase groundwater infiltration and reduce surface runoff. They help protect the quality of waterways nearby and ensure that the delicate balance of life in the area is maintained. They can also absorb significant amounts of rainwater, thereby decreasing the likelihood of flooding.
Many individuals are leading the way in rebuilding this vast network of prairies from today’s reminisce. In 2020, The Nature Conservancy released the Seeds of Resilience tool, which collects and shares information about plant populations across American prairie lands. This tool helps “more efficiently manage the collection efforts of his crews and point departments in the direction of species they’re looking for.”
A 2017 study shows the immense benefit of planting strips of native prairie plants in farmland to “sequester carbon, increase biodiversity, decrease water runoff, and increase soil and nutrient retention.” This also increases pollination, which aids in the growth of crops and improves the quality of soil drastically. For farmers interested in this alternative, the organization Farm 2 Facts provides an Ecosystem Services Tool that details how to implement this small but impactful change.
Source: Missouri Conservation Heritage Foundation
Every individual can become a part of saving prairies by planting prairie vegetation on their lawns. By allowing natural wildflowers and grass carpets to grow on our withered and hyper-controlled yards, we can create habitats for pollinators, birds, and wildlife while cleaning the air around our homes. Prairie lawns are low maintenance and cost less than typical suburban lawns. They take less than one-twentieth of the mowing a conventional lawn requires. Artificial prairies quickly mimic natural prairies by attracting wildlife and accumulating soil carbon almost immediately. MKSK has more details on the process of planting and maintaining a prairie in your yard.
Of all the remaining temperate grasslands, the only region with immediate potential for conservation at a landscape scale is the Great Plains. The World Wildlife Fund found that the Great Plains lost more land in recent years than the Amazon has. While they may not see the same immediate results, it is still important to invest in the future of every prairie in North America. Without conserving these spaces, we risk losing these ecosystems forever.
Those who lived on these lands used to live inextricably from the ecology of the region, helping to optimize the land. Today, prairies are one of the world's most endangered ecosystems. Prairies are an invaluable resource to the American environment– must conserve these lands for the hundreds of species that call them home. Prairies are crucial in our global fight against climate change as we strive to mitigate the impacts of our lives on the planet. We must unapologetically fight to restore these lands and protect their future.
Change The Chamber is a nonpartisan coalition of young adults, 100+ student groups across the country, environmental justice and frontline community groups, and other allied organizations.