This article first appeared in July 2008.
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Brenda Fullick
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Roslea Johnson, a 2008 Hagie Heritage Award nominee, is a guiding force in Iowa prairie conservation.
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Roslea Johnson probably never imagined she would become a guiding force in Iowa prairie conservation. But chance led her to the prairie, and she was hooked. Johnson’s leadership in caring for native prairie and creating a conservation community in Madison County have earned her a nomination for a prestigious statewide conservation award.
The Hagie Heritage Award is given annually by the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, a nonprofit conservation group, to a person who has demonstrated extraordinary service and commitment to improving the quality of Iowa’s natural environment while encouraging others to do the same. The recipient will be awarded $1,000 and a hand-carved acorn sculpture.
Johnson was nominated by Jo Hudson, conservation chair of the Central Iowa Sierra Club; Pauline Drobney, Neal Smith Wildlife Refuge biologist; Elizabeth Hill, Whiterock Conservancy ecologist; Brenda Fullick, who covered Johnson as a reporter; Danielle Wirth, biology and environmental education instructor at Iowa State University and Des Moines Area Community College; and the Frank and Angie Stroh family, prairie remnant owners and neighbors of Johnson.
Hill wrote in her nominating letter, “I believe that Roslea Johnson truly stands out amid the conservation community as a world-class educator, volunteer, mover and shaker, and most importantly, an inspiration.”
Johnson grew up in Virginia and attended college in Kentucky. She studied to be a community organizer and worked in Appalachia’s “war on poverty.” She first learned about the environment when she and her husband, Bob, moved to Iowa in 1980 to farm.
The land they bought near Peru in Madison County, an 1850s limestone quarry, happened to contain native prairie and savanna remnants. That “happenstance,” as Johnson called it, was the beginning of her interest in prairie restoration.
The Neal Smith Wildlife Refuge requested prairie seeds from Johnson’s land, and she began collecting them. While teaching human services full-time at DMACC, she worked on weekends to document the plants on her prairie and savanna. She learned about restoration from local experts, eventually becoming an expert herself.
“At some point I realized that I knew enough about that stuff that I thought I could take a leadership role,” Johnson said. And that’s just what she did.
When Madison County officials insisted that farmers in the Conservation Reserve Program plant inexpensive switchgrass next to their prairie remnants, Johnson appealed the decision at the state and federal levels. The grass was invasive and harmful to prairies. Her appeal was successful, and CRP participants can now plant mixes of native seeds.
Johnson again took the lead as an activist when developers wanted to invoke eminent domain to create a lake in the Clanton Creek valley. The project would flood Johnson’s prairie, and she suspected there were more prairie remnants in the area that would be destroyed.
Johnson visited her neighbors and discovered that many of them owned acres of prairie remnants. She led species surveys and introduced the landowners to natural wonders they didn’t know they had.
Then Johnson returned to her roots as a community organizer and rallied her neighbors to protect their natural lands. They lobbied the Iowa legislature to pass a bill that would restrict the use of eminent domain. The bill passed.
Thanks to Johnson, Clanton Creek area residents got excited about their beautiful native prairies. They now work together to steward the land, sharing seeds and information. Hundreds of acres of planted prairie now grow in Madison County. Hudson called the community effort “a 21st century version of traditional rural neighborliness.”
The Stroh family was among the neighbors Johnson inspired. Frank Stroh wrote, “Rosie has sparked a newfound awareness and fun with my family and neighbors for the special characteristics on our lands. We now have many neighbors burning, restoring and protecting our unique heritage.”
Instead of crediting herself, Johnson said she is proud of her community for taking action to save natural resources.
On Johnson’s prairie, her stewardship has brought forth rare species, along with many that indicate the prairie’s high quality.
Wirth summarized Johnson’s achievement: “Roslea turned an abused gravel pit into a marvel of diverse prairie and savanna by carefully tending the landscape…and then sharing her beautiful land with as many people as were willing to learn.”
Johnson hosts tours and field days at her prairie for plant and wildlife scientists, students, farmers and conservation groups. She teaches others about prairie restoration techniques. She “brings people together to celebrate her land,” Drobney wrote.
Johnson said she does it to show people that Iowa, too, has natural wonders worth preserving. “I like to see if I can turn other people on to prairies too because it’s Iowa’s natural landscape,” she said. “Unlike the mountains or the ocean, you really don’t see a native landscape like Iowa’s prairies unless you get close to them. I like to have people see what’s here in Iowa.”
“If all of us followed Roslea’s example and exerted even a fraction of the energy and dedication she has been exerting,” Drobney wrote, “Iowa’s prairies and savannas would not be in danger.”
Johnson retired from DMACC in 2006 after teaching for over 30 years. She remains a professor emeritus and lives in Des Moines. So what motivates Johnson to devote her retirement years to nurturing prairie?
“I once had a thought many years ago that we, people, had destroyed almost all the prairie that exists in the area,” she said. “If there’s a little bit left, those of us that have temporary rights to the land ought to work to protect and enhance it, to give back a little bit to nature for all that we have taken.”
The other nominees for the 2008 Hagie Heritage Award are Roland Bernau of Algona, Susan Heathcote of Des Moines, Erwin Klaas of Ames and Jimmie D. Thompson of Ames. The recipient will be announced later this summer.
For more information, e-mail Cathy Engstrom, Director of Communications, or call (515) 288-1846.