"What is life about if we cannot know and enjoy our own heritage? Do we have to bow completely to the economic dictates in which every inch of prairie soil is valued for row crop production? There is an aesthetic value to the prairie. It is beautiful in its own right." - David Monk, 2003.
I have been a preservationist, environmentalist, naturalist, educator, and activist for over 30 years. By the time when I first arrived from Australia to study at the University of Illinois, Champaign County had already lost most of its 600,000 acres of prairie heritage to drained farmland and development. Since then I have worked to restore the prairie and educate the public through several projects: