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Welcome to the 2024 Midwest Grasslands Summit Webpage!
Flyer for the Midwest Grasslands Summit.
Overview and Next Steps
Summit Overview:
The Midwest Grasslands Summit, held from August 27-29, was a noteworthy success, gathering over 100 participants. The thoughtful engagement and diverse perspectives shared about Midwest grasslands led to meaningful discussions and strategic planning. For a closer look at the event, the booklet agenda offers a detailed overview of each day’s activities.
Next Steps:
As the momentum continues, we’ve released a comprehensive Summit report summarizing key outcomes and discussions of the Summit. Participants highlighted the importance of coalition building to effectively implement the strategies outlined in the report. Stay tuned for further updates as these initiatives progress!
What is the Midwest Grasslands Summit and why was it needed?
The Midwest Grasslands Summit took place August 27-29, 2024 at the Greater Des Moines Botanical Gardens in Des Moines, Iowa. The summit engaged a broad and diverse audience of representatives from government agencies, Native Nations, NGOs, industry and agricultural organizations, and private landowners to develop a collective vision and identify collaborative actions to advance grassland conservation in the Midwest. Ranchers, farmers, water resource managers, wildlife biologists, agronomists, corporate sustainability officers, and policy makers have all voiced their desire to see a collective, collaborative approach to conserving and managing grasslands. The final agenda can be viewed and downloaded here.
Who attended?
This Summit was intended for organizational leaders with responsibility for setting strategic direction and allocating resources as well as staff who have responsibility for directing programs and actions. Attendance was limited to invitation only so that we could adequately manage an agenda and diverse voices represented in the physically limited space.
What were the goals of the summit?
- Shape a unified vision for native and surrogate tallgrass habitats across the Midwest that focuses on collective impact of all partners and organizations.
- Build an active coalition of people invested in increasing grasslands on the landscape.
- Identify collaborative actions (policy, funding, management, etc.) to pursue as next steps moving forward to realize the vision of this effort.
What did we achieve?
Partners participated in facilitated discussions to advance grassland conservation in the
Midwest, and through active participation achieved the following outcomes described in the Final Report:
- Explored individual and shared interests for midwestern grasslands.
- Identified barriers to and opportunities for extending, enhancing, and empowering grasslands conservation activities that are inclusive of the collective’s values.
- Explored activities that could deliver short-, mid-, and long-term impacts for grasslands conservation.
FAQs
How can I be involved moving forward?
Our engagement with partners beyond the Summit is just getting started. An MLI sponsored webinar on March 27, 2025 at 1 pm CT will review the Summit Report and next steps. Click here to register for the webinar.
How does this effort fit into other conservation efforts, particularly the Central Grasslands Roadmap and JV8?
This summit seeks to leverage the success of the Central Grasslands Roadmap and JV8 while focusing on threats and opportunities specific to midwestern grassland conservation. Close coordination and communication with the Central Grassland Roadmap and JV8 partnerships are occurring and are critical to our shared success.