(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club Iowa Chapter has released a report that summarizes habitat loss in the state and calls for urgent action to expand corridors that connect wild areas. Drake University ecology and botany professor Thomas Rosburg says Iowa has lost more than 90 percent of its wetlands and prairies and around three-quarters of its forests and woodlands in the last 200 years. “And this means of course that millions and millions of individual plants and animals that once were here are now simply gone,” he says. He says what’s left of Iowa’s native ecosystems is largely fragmented, which makes it harder for species to move for food, mates and shelter.

“And that’s of course a tremendous conversion from what once was a tremendously diverse and bountiful and productive landscape to again, a now landscape where biodiversity is threatened,” Rosburg says. He says expanding and improving habitat corridors along streams and rivers could help connect the state’s remaining prairies, wetlands and forests. “The other type of corridor that’s sort of ready to use is our roadways,” he says. He says we could add more native grasses and wildflowers alongside roadways to make a difference.

Sixty-two counties and 25 cities in Iowa do this, according to the Tallgrass Prairie Center