The practice of land stewardship, central to sustaining biodiversity, grew out of restoration pioneers — notably Aldo Leopold.
A century ago he taught the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s first-ever class on wildlife ecology. He also directed research at the UW Arboretum, which is considered the birthplace of ecological restoration.
Leopold’s family lived his land ethic too on a parcel along the Wisconsin River outside of Baraboo, Wisconsin. That’s where today, the next generation of conservationists are being nurtured.
The family legacy lives on as The Aldo Leopold Foundation, where over the years Buddy Huffaker has shouldered practically every job there is.
“You can see some of our savannah restoration restoration,” Huffaker explains as he gives me a tour.
At the foundation’s welcome center and offices, the buildings are fashioned in part from wood harvested from Leopold land and ooze sustainability. Huffaker then drives through a bit of the 4,000 acres the foundation’s small team stewards.
“A bird survey that we did told us that the grassland bird community was really important and the grassland birds are a suite of species that are on steep decline because of habitat loss in the upper Midwest,” he explains.
That survey led to gradual, strategic tree and brush clearing “to convert from low quality woodlands to high quality grasslands,” Huffaker continues.
It takes lots of land to support birds that thrive in this habitat, especially one of Wisconsin’s threatened species — the Henslow’s sparrow.
“They need 150 acres of contiguous grassland to have a breeding habitat,” he says.
But the Henslow’s sparrow isn’t the only beneficiary. Huffaker says the ambitious project supports other species: “You could have meadowlarks and bobolinks all breeding in the same area, it just has to be big enough."
Huffaker says the foundation’s land management is guided by the past, present and future. “Part of why we’re doing this work is because grassland birds need help now, they don’t care what it was in the past, they care what it is today. And then we’re also looking at tomorrow and future climate forecasts."
We reach the heart of the Leopold family legacy. In the 1930s and '40s, it's here that Aldo, his wife and five children planted thousands of trees — over 50,000 pines alone.
Huffaker sounds more like a movie director than a nurturer of birds and grasses as he says, ”Let’s have the sound of the saw and then the whoosh of the tree.”
That’s because Huffaker wants the Aldo Leopold legacy to shine.
Turns out, he has nothing to fear. Fellows Max Sorensen and Sarah Woody are two of the current batch of future leaders who’ve been immersed in land stewardship for nearly a year.
Woody has a newly-earned masters in biology from UW-Oshkosh under her belt. She calls tree felling and brush clearing a profound experience.
“Being on the same landscape where Aldo and his family were, learning the tools and techniques — they did it with an axe, I’m doing it with a chain saw — but the principals remain the same,” she says.
Woody says as the fellowship began, being the only female on the stewardship crew challenged her. But soon her confidence grew, as did a deep sense of community.
“There are currently seven of us living in a house called the Future Leaders Center. We have our own private space with our own rooms, but then have a chance to be social and share meals together. Just the other night we were making music together.” Woody adds, “So it’s really amazing to have experience like that and feel very connected to the people in the same way we are connected to the land.”
Fellow Max Sorensen agrees — community is essential to fuel future conservation leaders and says he too initially found crew work overwhelming. Sorensen jumped into the fellowship two weeks after graduating from Grinnell College with a double major, biology and studio art.
“Coming here and working 40 hours and like being exhausted from the field work was tough,” he says.
Sarah Woody chimes in, “Yeah, we just showered and slept, but now we are more physically capable and have energy to do other things after work.”
For Sorenson that meant getting to know the native plants and grasses they were nurturing, and drawing them.
“Recently I’ve being doing a series of botanical illustrations that we’re able to find on the property. It’s almost kind of mirrored the way I’ve experienced this fellowship," Sorenson says. "Starting each drawing by just sitting quietly with the plant and first going in with pencil just very loosely and moving through the drawing thinking about the ways I interact with that plant or that plant species through the conservation work here and my personal interests in botany and ecology and then coming back with pen at the end."
The fellows get back to work, slipping on their hard hats and picking up chain saws.
Foundation executive director Buddy Huffaker says nurturing more of the Max Sorensons and Sarah Woodys of the world is key to our planet’s future.
Here’s how Aldo Leopold expressed that thought: "When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."
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