Iowa Wilderness

Matthew Digman, West Des Moines

Millions of years ago water covered Iowa blessing the land with beautiful limestone formations and fossils making waterfalls and cliffs. It also made flat plains and hills. But, some fossils were not covered in limestone formations. These others took a much different path. When they died silt built up around them, preserving them. Over the years pressure built up and these dead bodies carbonized, leaving the land with something black. That something was none other than coal. It was left undisturbed for many years. But, as you know these rocks are not the only beauties of the land.

            The next beauty Mother Nature bestowed upon the land happened like this. During the ice age glaciers covered the land. When they melted, they washed thousands of tons of soil down with them. Much of this excellent, fertile soil was left in Iowa. Some eroded away making tall bluffs and hills, which are amazing sights. Now many have been destroyed and leveled to make way for roads and fields. But here is the question-why is 91% of Iowa now farmland, when there are so many other features? The reason is this: When the glaciers melted they covered the land with twenty inches of the best topsoil in the world. Not only that, but the land was large and flat, making it the ultimate farmland. For thousands of years forests and vast fertile plains remained undisturbed. When the trees died they decomposed. This compost only made the land more fertile.  Buffalo roamed the plains. All of this made Iowa a large example of wilderness. But, when the influence of the Europeans came, it could not stay this way.

            For centuries Native Americans lived here, tilling small patches of the soil, but otherwise leaving the land undisturbed. Then, white men came. They destroyed many of the wild plains where animals roam, driving animals that once numbered in the millions, like the bison, near extinction. When the resources were discovered, roads were built running into Iowa and increasing the number of people there very quickly. It was not long after that the railroads were built, making it more desirable to come to Iowa due to the increasing ease of transportation. Soon almost all of Iowa was farmland. At some point miners discovered the coal and its potential to produce power. They stripped it from the land, and in the process, destroyed much of the underground beauty of Iowa-the limestone caves. They then stripped the beautiful limestone from the ground too, and used it to make buildings and walkways. Many of these caves are lost forever.

             You may think that despite the large amount of land used as commercial farms and the destroyed caves that much of Iowa is still national, state, and city parks. That is where you are wrong. Less then two percent of the land area in Iowa falls into those categories, putting Iowa in forty-ninth place for land set aside for “recreation.” Of that two percent, just five percent remains native prairie, or one tenth of one percent of the total land in Iowa. When considering this, realize that nearly one hundred percent of Iowa was originally prairie.

You may think that there is no way to reverse these statistics. You may think that it is impossible to return land to its natural state once it has been farmed. This is far from true. Studies show that farmed land can return to its natural state in less than ten years.  It may take more or less depending on the amount of fertilizer that was used, rainfall and other variations.You may also think that even though it can return to its natural state, it would be impossible without destroying Iowa’s economy. In fact, It is estimated that twenty percent of the land in Iowa can be turned into recreational land without causing significant change to Iowa’s economy. Twenty percent is a much more acceptable number than two percent.

I am a Boy Scout and as a result camp often. I have seen first hand much of the remaining wild in Iowa. There are beautiful forests with evergreens and oaks so tall and old, giving way to a grassy plain with a river meandering slowly through it. In the morning the sun rises in many colors and a slight fog covers the land. In another part there are caves with beautiful limestone formations that range in color from pure white to a deep red. They are nestled into a lush, green forest with all kinds of flourishing plants and animals. There is a stream peacefully running through the hills. It cascades into a gigantic cavern with the biggest formations of all. The stream flows deep into the cave, eventually disappearing into the ground. These may seem like a fantasy, but they are very real. Places like these are scattered across Iowa. Places like Chichaqua, Makoqueta Caves, Eagle Cave and Yellow Banks. There are many more.

It is important for Iowans to understand that wilderness should mean land that is not affected by the presence of human beings. Sometimes people’s perception is that we can only experience the wild in places far from here, like Mount Everest or the Amazon Rainforest. Those places are wild, but it can be found everywhere. People rarely think of Iowa as “wild” Although right now we have moved away from the wild in Iowa, if we work together to preserve it and leave some land unfarmed, we could return Iowa to wild.

Biography:

I am a seventh grade student. I participate in activities such as Boy Scouts, where I learned much of what I wrote in the essay.  I also participate in Band, Student Council, the Talented and Gifted Program, and am a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.