Reading Time: 8 minutes

Rick Bieber reached into the soil, pulled out a handful and took a sniff.

Around him stretched fields of green — an unusual sight for late October in Wisconsin, when harvest is ending and farmers are preparing for winter. Oat and barley grasses, sunflowers, purple top turnip and radish plants blew under a gentle breeze. In the soil in his palm, an earthworm wriggled.

Bieber is the soil adviser for Fields of Sinsinawa, a project intended to help farmers understand what’s happening below the surface and why it matters for the health of people and the planet. The fields are owned by the Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa, a congregation of Catholic sisters who have lived for more than 175 years in southwestern Wisconsin at Sinsinawa Mound, overlooking the Mississippi River.

Written into the sisters’ guiding principles is a commitment to share their land for ecological and educational programs to help preserve it for future generations.

As Bieber puts it, “We plant with a purpose.”

Their vision of caring for the Earth as they believe God instructs them is in step with a larger movement happening across the state — and the world — in which faith drives people’s concern for the environment.

Religion can be a powerful motivator for people to pursue environmental stewardship: In a Pew Research Center study from 2022, four in five religiously affiliated Americans completely or mostly agreed that God gave humans a duty to protect and care for the Earth.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a partner of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, is profiling five people or groups in Wisconsin whose environmental actions are driven by their faith. They’re connected by a desire to do good for the Earth, following the writings in their religious texts or the teachings of their spiritual leaders. Importantly, the people drawn into this effort come from different sides of the political spectrum and from many different faiths. That suggests it could be an approach to environmental stewardship that bridges a complicated divide, something especially important as the U.S. government seeks to aggressively roll back environmental protections.

Take the soil, for instance, that Dominican Sister Julie Schwab and the others at Sinsinawa hold so precious.

“Soil is literally the common ground,” Schwab said.

Fields of Sinsinawa

Agriculture is a calling card of the Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa. They once farmed the land themselves and are now hosting an organic farming collective and two father-son teams of dairy farmers who produce milk for Organic Valley.

The idea for Fields of Sinsinawa arose from an Ohio farmer named David Brandt, an influential figure in the regenerative farming movement, who was exploring the idea of creating a farmer-led learning center at Sinsinawa Mound. After his death in 2023, a group of like-minded people made it a reality.

The principles of soil health are simple to understand but can be challenging to achieve because our economic system places emphasis on big crop yields. Those at Fields of Sinsinawa believe that soil should be filled with diverse, living roots year-round, which prevents runoff that pollutes waterways and feeds microscopic organisms that can make the soil better suited to support plant life. They want to minimize practices like tilling, which disturb the soil, and encourage grazing livestock on pastures that have time to rest and regrow.

Demonstration fields at the mound are meant to be a “living classroom” that farmers can visit to learn how such regenerative practices work, and more important, why. They host visitors from the next town over and from across the globe, including at their annualSoul of the Soil conference. The on-site dairy farmers work closely with Bieber to try practices out at minimal risk to their business.

“What impresses me most is the deep, deep spirituality of these farmers. They know they’re working with something sacred,” said Sister Sheila Fitzgerald, part of Fields of Sinsinawa’s administrative support team. “It’s a gift, and it’s up to us to keep this gift for the next generation. We do that by learning about this whole sacred environment — the whole blessing of the life that’s in the soil.”

The sisters are also following teachings they see carefully laid out by the late Pope Francis in his 2015 encyclical letter, “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home.” Earth “cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use,” Francis wrote. “We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth.”

Bieber puts it another way.

“We were formed from the soil, and we’ll go back to the soil,” he said. “Why would you beat it up if it’s going to be your resting place?”

Wisconsin Green Muslims

The same year Francis released his letter, Muslim leaders from around the world published the Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change, which calls for a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels and directs Muslims worldwide to tackle climate change and environmental degradation.

Huda Alkaff was already hard at work. Alkaff founded Wisconsin Green Muslims in 2005 to educate people about Islamic teachings of environmental justice and apply those teachings in real life.

The Earth is mentioned more than 450 times in the Quran, Alkaff said, instructing Muslims to maintain its balance and not upset the order of creation.

“The true practice of Islam really means living simply, treading lightly on Earth, caring for our neighbors and all creatures, standing up for justice, and collaborating with others to care for our shared home,” she said.

Now in its 20th year, Wisconsin Green Muslims has pushed for action on a wide range of environmental issues, including clean drinking water and air, renewable energy, waste reduction and healthy food, with a focus on helping marginalized communities that are disproportionately impacted by environmental problems. The group rotates through these issues monthly, Alkaff said, bringing new people into the fold based on their interests.

Since its beginning, the group has promoted Green Ramadan during the Islamic holy month, encouraging small daily actions to care for the environment such as switching to e-billing or biking to the mosque. Green Ramadan has spread to at least 20 states, Alkaff said.

Alkaff also leads two interfaith organizations: Wisconsin Faith and Solar, which aims to help faith congregations across the state to implement solar energy, and Faithful Rainwater Harvesting for sustainable water collection.

“We see sunlight and water as the commons — everyone should have access to them,” she said. “We need to appreciate them and welcome them responsibly into our homes, congregations and lives.”

Calvin DeWitt

Calvin DeWitt is a household name at the cross section of Christianity and the environment. He lists as friends Al Gore and environmentalist and author Bill McKibben, tells of having given a speech at the ranch of the late Robert Redford, a stalwart environmental advocate, and has been a leading voice for  “greening up” the Christian right.

DeWitt’s story started in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he cared for a pet turtle. For 25 years, he led the Au Sable Institute in Michigan, which offers environmental science courses to students from dozens of Christian colleges. He also taught environmental studies classes at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Now 90, he lives in the Waubesa Wetlands outside Madison, which he helped establish as a nature preserve.

He’s still publishing papers, running field trips and otherwise speaking loudly about caring for the Earth because, as he puts it, “I can’t think of anything more pleasurable to do.”

DeWitt has become a master at tailoring his message to make the most impact. Some of his most storied work is with evangelical Christians, fewer of whom believe climate change is a serious problem compared with other major religions, according to the2022 Pew study. He was a founding member of the Evangelical Environmental Network, which promotes evangelicals “rediscovering and reclaiming the biblical mandate to care for creation.”

“Someone’s twiddling with the thermostat” is a phrase he might say to enter into a conversation about the world heating up with someone who’d get turned off by the term global warming. In other scenarios, “if you come up with a religious point of view, you’re actually asking for trouble,” he said.

Most often, though, DeWitt tries to boil it down to the development of community, which he said is central to overcoming differences.

Several years ago, a neighbor turned to him while leaving a town hall and said, “Cal, this is just like going to church,” DeWitt recalled. A real community is about love, he said, which extends to love for the land.

“It’s contagious,” he said.

Dekila Chungyalpa and the Loka Initiative

Dekila Chungyalpa once felt like she was living two different lives. By day, she worked as an environmental scientist in the U.S. By night, she was a practicing Tibetan Buddhist. She didn’t know how to bring the two together, and it hurt.

Chungyalpa decided to return to the Himalayas, where she was born, to work with the 17th karmapa, head of the Karma Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism. In 2007, she watched him speak to thousands of Buddhists, citing a Buddhist prayer to alleviate the suffering of all beings in his call for those watching to become vegetarians. Livestock production makes up about 14.5% of human-driven greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to climate change.

“That was my moment of awakening. My hand was rising along with all these people,” Chungyalpa said. “People were not doing it because of science or policy, but because a faith leader told them to live up to their faith value.”

The idea that religious leaders could shepherd people toward environmental stewardship sparked something in her. The spark was there when she helped found Khoryug, an association of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and nunneries working on environmental protection and resilience to climate change. It also was there when she began the Loka Initiative inside UW-Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds.

Today, the Loka Initiative has two goals. One is working with faith and Indigenous leaders to bring home environmental solutions that feel authentic to them. The other is developing courses that teach contemplative practices, like meditation, somatic healing and even singing, to combat grief and anxiety over the effects of environmental degradation. One recent course, “Psychology of Deep Resilience,” was taken by more than 1,550 students in 70-plus countries, she said.

Chungyalpa sees the immense power in religiously affiliated people to take action for the good of the Earth.More than 75% of people around the world identify with a religion. And religious groups, as major owners of land and buildings, can do so much, from adopting soil health practices to adding solar panels.

“They reach parts of the population scientists never can,” she said.

North Shore Interfaith Green Team

The group of people who gathered at Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun in River Hills Nov. 3 had many differences: different cities, different political persuasions and different faiths.

What unites the North Shore Interfaith Green Team is a belief that religious people have a duty to care for creation and a desire to make that happen. Reenie Kavalar, of Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun, began the meeting with a reading from the Talmud, a foundational Jewish text.

“‘See My creations, how beautiful and exemplary they are. Everything I created, I created for you. Make certain that you do not ruin and destroy My world, as if you destroy it, there will be no one to mend it after you,'” Kavalar read. 

She paused and reflected, “I’m thinking – if it’s not up to us, who’s it going to be up to?”

The Green Team’s members are from Conservative and Reform Jewish synagogues, Catholic parishes, and Episcopal, Methodist, Lutheran and Presbyterian churches.

Although the group is new, it is ambitious: In April they hosted an electronics recycling drive, which they said saved 20,000 pounds of electronics from the landfill, and they split the money they made among congregations to pursue other environmental projects. For example, Fox Point Lutheran is working on expanding its pollinator garden, said member Anne Noyes. It also spawned conversations about other types of potential efforts, such as clothes recycling and composting.

In 2026, the group will hold two more electronics recycling drives in April and will begin a partnership with Schlitz Audubon Nature Center involving volunteer conservation days. Members hope that by working together, they can come up with new ideas and tackle projects that might be impossible alone.

Susan Toman, of Christ Church Episcopal in Whitefish Bay, said she joined the Green Team in part because she sees it as a way to overcome polarization.

In many respects, her sentiment reflects the movement connecting faith and the environment, whether it’s on Milwaukee’s busy North Shore or across the state on the rural farm fields at Sinsinawa Mound.

“This is a model for how people who could be drawing a line in the sand about our differences instead are saying, ‘Let’s talk about the things that we all agree upon,'” Toman said, “something that comes from the depths of our hearts.”

This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.

Wisconsin Watch is a member of the Ag & Water Desk network. Sign up for our newsletters to get our news straight to your inbox.

For these faithful, nurturing the Earth is rooted in spiritual beliefs is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Lake Pepin, the largest naturally occurring lake on the Mississippi River, is a beloved resource and important economic engine for the Wisconsin and Minnesota towns that border it.

In the summer, its calm, expansive waters are popular for sailing and water skiing — the latter of which was invented on the lake in 1922. In the winter, it’s an ice fishing hub.

But it’s got a big problem: Massive amounts of sediment are eroding from stream banks, bluffs and agricultural fields upstream and settling in the lake. Parts of it have become so shallow that boat travel is impossible, leaving some communities cut off. The upper one-third of the lake could be unusable for recreation by the end of this century.

A new yearlong project aims to understand how to curb an overlooked source of that sediment.

The Lake Pepin Legacy Alliance, a nonprofit organization working to improve the health of the lake, has launched an investigation into how erosion can be controlled in ravines and gullies. Ravines act like fast-moving highways, delivering soil into the Mississippi River and then the lake, according to the alliance. The analysis will be led by Norman Senjem, who retired from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in 2011 and has deep knowledge of the lake’s challenges with sedimentation.

Senjem plans to work with county conservationists and watershed groups in south-central Minnesota, which delivers large sediment loads to Lake Pepin, to identify the best ways to stop erosion from ravines.

Michael Anderson, executive director of the Lake Pepin Legacy Alliance, said with results from Senjem in hand, landowners will be able to take action to stop sediment from ravines on their properties.

“We’re obviously not the people who will be the excavators,” he said. “We’ll help put the pieces together and start to push the snowball down the hill to get momentum going.”

‘Hidden’ ravines deliver massive sediment loads to Lake Pepin

Lake Pepin, which stretches 21 miles between Bay City and Nelson on Wisconsin’s western border, has always acted as a sort of settling pond for sediment. Once river water enters the top of the lake, its slower-moving waters allow silts and other particles to drop to the bottom, and the water that exits the lake and flows farther down the river is cleaner.

But sediment erosion has increased tenfold since before European settlement of the area. Each year, a sediment load as big as a 32-story building spanning a full city block enters the lake, according to the Lake Pepin Legacy Alliance. At this rate, the entire lake could be filled in less than 350 years.

A large majority of that sediment comes from the Minnesota River basin, which covers nearly 15,000 square miles, including many areas that are heavily farmed. There are thousands of ravines that cut through the slopes on the sides of the river, ushering sediment from the farmed landscape quickly downstream.

“But they’re kind of hidden away,” on the edges of farm fields or wooded areas, Senjem said. “I’m going to try to shed some light on them.”

Built structures called water and sediment control basins can intercept sediment from ravines, Senjem said. But increased rainfall across the Midwest due to climate change is rendering the basins less effective. The expanded use of agricultural drainage tile in the Minnesota River basin, an underground pipe network meant to more easily drain farm fields, also contributes to water flowing faster down ravines.

Senjem expects to find that more work will be necessary to control the problem, such as building multiple control basins in a row to slow the sediment or adding so-called “buffer strips,” made of grass or permanent vegetation, to help catch more of it. 

Over the next year, Senjem will study which options like these have been implemented across south-central Minnesota to limit sediment from ravines. Those might offer a road map to members of the Legacy Alliance as to which types are most effective. Since such projects can be costly, he’ll also include in his analysis what kinds of financial assistance are available to landowners to undertake them.

For landowners to want to take action to save a lake many miles away, there’s got to be local incentive, too, Senjem said — like if a restored ravine would protect a road or smooth out a farm field. He’ll prioritize potential solutions that do that as well.

The project is funded by a $15,000 grant from the Red Wing Area Fund, a community foundation on the north end of Lake Pepin.

This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.

Wisconsin Watch is a member of the Ag & Water Desk network. Sign up for our newsletters to get our news straight to your inbox.

Erosion from ravines threatens Lake Pepin — and Wisconsin communities that depend on it is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.