‘Environment’ Archives
Spotlight on Our Small Neighbors
By MARY ELLEN KALUZA Minnesota’s State Butterfly Monarch on a Mexican Sun Flower Autumn. We love the colors, mourn the waning daylight, and turn on the furnace. But we rarely give a thought to the small critters (i.e. insects) preparing for the upcoming cold, despite the royal status some might have. Some insects dig or build shelter to keep warm for the winter. Others, such as the monarch butterflies, migrate to avoid the cold winter. Monarchs are common immigrants to Minnesota, arriving mid May to early June. Entice them to your garden with tithonia (aka mexican sunflower), zinnias, asters, and other yummy looking flowers. Milkweed is particularly appreciated as monarchs lay their eggs on milkweed leaves exclusively and the emerging caterpillars feast on the leaves. Monarchs in our area east of the Rocky Mountains travel to Mexico for the winter, a trip of well over 2000 miles to the mountains in central Mexico. They need to eat and drink on the [...]
Preservation to Restoration
By SHELLEY BUCK - Tinta Wita (Prairie Island Indian Community), president of Owámniyomni Okhódayapi For many Minnesota relatives, preservation of our natural resources is woven into our lives. It’s something we are proud of. For me as a Dakota winyan, a Dakota woman, preservation goes beyond that general sense of preserving a landscape. It means protecting the language, culture and lands of the Dakota people so they continue to exist for future generations. This is something I have dedicated my life to. To do so, I have to walk between two worlds — the white world and Indian Country — and the differences between our world views are vast. One world is rooted in Dakota teachings that have guided our people for countless generations. The other is the modern systems of government, planning, engineering and law that shape nearly every decision about land today. Those two worldviews often approach the same place in profoundly different ways. One [...]
Karen Clark: July 23, 1945 – June 30, 2026
Determined. Fierce. Driven. Passionate. Kind. Trailblazer. Giant. Mentor. Karen Joy Clark, in a spontaneous joyous moment in the success of the Phillips Community’s Roof Depot project. Over decades, Karen provided consistent, steady, fierce, yet compassionate, leadership on behalf of the Phillips Community as a legislator and a community leader----childhood lead poisoning prevention legislation, preventing a HN Cty Garbage Transfer Station built near Little Earth, designation by the EPA of the Arsenic Triangle as a Superfund site, Cumulative Health Impact Analysis to protect residents and more. Photo by Jacquelyn Zita, Karen’s beloved wife, key supporter, and partner in serving the community and seeking justice. By CATHY STROBEL-AYERS These are just a few of the words that come to mind as I remember Karen Clark. And even those words don’t seem like enough to capture her tireless drive to make a better world for communities that had to fight for a place at the [...]
