“ Meadowlarks are extremely charismatic and anyone who ’ s spent time in grasslands throughout the country knows meadowlarks . They ’ re really an excellent symbol for our nation ’ s grasslands . Meadowlarks won ’ t tolerate degraded habitat .”
-- Ron Wilson , Editor , North Dakota Outdoors our natural resources .
“ Let ’ s stop plowing grasslands ,” Kauffman said . “ Just allow them to keep storing and sequestering carbon , and providing irreplaceable habitat for wildlife and pollinators as they have done for millennia .”
Sequestering carbon is a reference to carbon dioxide -- a heat-trapping greenhouse gas that grass naturally pulls from the air and stores in the soil .
The Northern Great Plains , a region that includes the western Dakotas , is one of the last four intact , temperature grasslands globally . It experienced an increase in conversion with 400,000 acres in 2021 , up from 385,000 in 2020 .
The report said prime lands for agriculture were converted decades ago , meaning recent conversions may not yield significant agricultural returns . The report attributes habitat destruction mainly to economic factors , often driven by government policies that inadvertently promote conver-
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