Opinion: Iowa's present ecology cannot be sustained and needs healing

• Mark Edwards of Boone retired after 30 years from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources in coordination and policy.

Ecology is the understanding of our relationships with where we live. The foundation is simple — the more diversity, the healthier the ecosystem. The healthier the ecosystem, the healthier the individuals. We are currently in the midst of the highest extinction rate in 65 million years.

Iowa is now known as the most biologically altered state in North America. About two-thirds of our 36 million acres are reduced to just two annual species — corn and soybeans. These require massive amounts of fertilizer, insecticides, herbicides and petroleum.

Today, roughly 87% is cropland, 6% cities and roads, and 3% in pasture, farmsteads and animal confinement buildings. All public land amounts to less than 3% of Iowa, with 60% in roadside ditches. Almost every single acre of public land was logged, heavily grazed, plowed, drained or mined before public protection.

Public lands contain hundreds of miles of roads, picnic areas, lodges, golf courses, sport fields, artificial lakes, campgrounds, parking lots, nature centers, sewage lagoons, shelters, beaches, houses, offices, storage buildings and a resort. In total, state-owned land managed by the Department of Natural Resources comprises less than 2%.

This loss of diversity is directly related to the decline in monarch butterflies and pollinating insects such as bees. As the historical monarch migrations of millions have died off the situation is dire. Hundreds of organizations are calling for the monarch to be declared endangered and going extinct.

Their loss is directly due to the killing of native plants such as the milkweed. We attempt addressing this loss by asking individuals to plant milkweed in their yards. A few farmers are being paid to install prairie strips containing milkweed along fields. None of these practices address the ecological relationships between massive soil erosion, chemical warfare, and deteriorating water quality on other species.

We could continue this kind of farm economy, mining the carcass of the previous prairie and forest soils. But we have lost well over half of the topsoil in a few generations. We could weigh the value of more corn, beans, petroleum and pipelines compared to bugs and birds. 

We could continue being the main culprit in creating the “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico. Here at home, we warn the public not to let your dog drink from our public lakes. Common sense says not to swim in our streams.

We could continue our dependence on foreign lands to buy our excess produce and provide for our desires. Iowa now declares “we feed the world” while we import 85% of what we eat from an average of 1,500 miles away.

As we better understand our history, the ecology and relationships we have to our homeland, the more we need to look ahead. This means our present tactics, politics and blaming/shaming are not working. Our only future lies in the freedom to re-wild, to reimagine where we want to live while we encourage our ecosystem to heal and heal us.

Mark Edwards of Boone retired after 30 years from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources in coordination and policy. Contact: markedwards60@gmail.com.