[upbeat folk music]
- I wanted to introduce you
to a fascinating member of the Soil Sisters,
[energetic rock music]
who is literally renewing the countryside
through her work in habitat restoration.
[chainsaw whirring]
- Habitat restoration is restoring the native plants
to the land and removing the non-native plants.
[intense rock music]
- Inga: Over years of tireless work, Marci and her husband
have restored 60 acres of land back into native prairies,
oak savannas, and natural habitats
that they've christened Driftless Prairies.
[upbeat groovy music]
- It's important to do habitat restoration
because it's getting destroyed faster
than it's getting restored.
We clear out the invasives or the non-native plants
and trees because they're replacing the natives.
The conflict between non-native plants and native plants
is that the non-native plants are unable to be used
by the insects.
The native plants are what the insects require
for rearing their young.
If there's no insects, there won't be any birds,
small mammals, or herptiles, snakes and amphibians.
[upbeat music]
- What I find most amazing about Marci
is that after doing all of this work
to restore these native habitats, she goes out regularly
and removes every single invasive plant she finds
by hand.
- We patrol it, as I think of it.
If I'm working for herbaceous, I'm scanning for those.
If I'm working on the woody non-natives,
I'm scanning for those.
It takes a bit.
You get out there and you think, "Well, what am I looking for?"
But your eyes adjust to the patterns quickly.
When I remove a plant, it's almost giddy. [laughing]
It feels really, really good.
I think, "Okay, I've allowed space
"for that native to grow in
where I've taken out that non-native."
- Inga: As Marci's efforts to replace non-native species
with native plants became more and more successful,
she started seeing native insects and animals
coming back to the land.
Which then led to her work as a citizen scientist,
monitoring birds and mammals,
and carefully documenting each new variety of insect
that she finds in this restored habitat.
[gentle music]
- Documenting insects has expanded my world.
The smaller I went, the bigger my world became.
And our goal here is biodiversity.
We want insects to be here.
We want the birds to feel like they can be here,
the mammals, and all the other biota
that might choose to live in this area of the Driftless.
[gentle music] [birds chirping]
- So you all have restored 60 acres
into this beautiful floral wonderland
that we're sitting in right now.
What made you do it?
Why were you passionate about doing this?
- We're losing our habitat and we're losing our wildlife.
And Jim and I had a dream
that we wanted to be ones that could help.
- Mm-hmm. - Help these insects to live,
help these birds to live.
Our grassland birds are amongst the most endangered
because of these large swaths of prairie
that have been destroyed. - Right.
What are some things that we can do as individuals,
whether we're landowners
or whether we're living in the city,
to support these native habitats?
- Plant some. [laughing]
If you're in the city, take away some of the cultivars
that you might have planted and put in natives.
- And if we're putting in natives too,
they're gonna be able to host more of our native insects
than a plant that's coming from a non-native plant.
Right? - Right.
Exactly, exactly.
If you plant natives in your yard,
or if you are a farm and you have a non-productive section,
plant some natives there.
Remove any of the non-natives, put the natives in,
and you've just created habitat.
You've been helpful to the world,
to the critters, to the wildlife.
And you support each other
because from one farm to one town to one vast acreage,
these insects have places to move along
and eat and live and reproduce.
- I'm just looking out here at all these plants
helping each other and helping the insects,
and it really brings me right back
to the Soil Sisters and how all these women,
they're helping each other and being there for each other.
What has it been like for your experience
in the Soil Sister network?
- The Soil Sister network has been fabulous.
Supportive, encouraging.
We have good laughs together, we eat good food together,
we share ideas, we share thoughts.
It's been the most supportive network that I have found.
And it doesn't matter whether you are raising pigs,
cattle, or turned your whole land over to native habitat.
[both chuckling]
They are there for you and what you're doing
and to help you reach your goals.
- Perfect, I love this.
I hope that more and more young women will see women
like the two of us and the rest of the Soil Sisters
and understand that they can do not only farming,
not only land conservation, but anything that they wanna do.
- They can do anything.
[upbeat folk music]