Founded in 1978, Bur Oak Land Trust is a land trust located in Eastern Iowa dedicated to protecting Iowa land and advancing biodiversity in those areas. The trust protects eleven preserves and counting and provides details about each preserve as well as a map on its website. Meredith Roemerman, the trust’s communications and program director, explained that the trust receives lands from individuals, generally the landowners themselves.
“They are individuals that want to see these land protected so that plants, animals, all kinds of ecosystems have a place to thrive, and so that we as Iowans have more of our natural heritage to remember that this state isn’t just cultivated land, it’s not just cities and town, it’s whole communities of ecosystems that are very amazing.”
Once the trust receives land, it assesses what plants and animals are already on the land to ensure nothing is disturbed. Then, it begins to reintroduce native plants to the area.
“Some of our goals are to make sure there are larger areas of preserved land in Iowa so there can be more biodiversity,” Roemerman said.
“We have buildings, we have cropland, we have farmland, we have all these things, but there’s not as much real natural area left in our state. So, if we want to continue to have a healthy environment, a healthy ecosystem here in Iowa, we have to take care of biodiversity.”
Biodiversity and fostering the return of native plants help to uphold Iowa’s food web and mitigate climate change. Prairie grasses grow deep and not only help with flooding by taking in water but pull in and store carbon, too.
“Having a diversity of plants helps with a lot of these climate change issues that we’re dealing with. Even when we think about diversity of animals, there’s a huge food web that people are kinda at the top of, but animals depend on other animals and insects to survive themselves, and if we started taking apart the food web and making it so certain species couldn’t survive here anymore, it would sort of wretch the whole system,” Roemerman said.
Bur Oak Land Trust holds events throughout the year to connect Iowans closer to their environment and remind them that everyone depends on it. This summer at Coriell Nature Preserve, the trust is hosting an event called Blooming Cactus Weekend June 14-16. Attendees can tour the preserve and participate in a bioblitz, a biological inventory of the plants, animals and other organisms at Coriell.
“We want to make sure that people don’t forget, that they don’t lose that connection to the earth around them,” Roemerman said.
Along with the events held, the website shares volunteer opportunities as well as ways to get involved through a program called Americorp. Americorp, a national community service program, has been involved with Bur Oak Land Trust for the past five years.
“In that time, we’ve had about sixty members go through [the program.] They start with us fo about a year, sometimes just over the summer. In that time, on average, our members put in about 15,000 hours of service onto those preserves and other protected land.” Roemerman said.
Members work to ensure the maintenance and restoration of trust land through methods such as prescribed burns and invasive species removal. The program includes stewardship positions, members who go out into the field, as well as conservation education positions, where members participate in outreach and education.
Local Iowans can also support the environment in their own backyards by planting native plants and stopping the use of pesticides in their gardens.
“There’s lots of things that people can do to support the natural world around them, just small actions in their own backyard,” Roemerman said.
