Protecting Pollinators: Native Plant Prairies Preserve Vital Indiana Ecosystems

Originally founded to preserve the famous Northwest Indiana sand dunes around Lake Michigan, nonprofit conservation organization Save the Dunes has evolved over 72 years of environmental stewardship to address a myriad of additional challenges facing the region, including threats to biodiversity and native habitats. 

In 2019, Save the Dunes joined forces with the Indiana Dunes National Park and other regional partners to increase habitat connectivity and migration pathways for pollinators—some of the most important creatures in the global ecosystem.

“One out of every three bites [of food] you take is made possible by a pollinator,” explains Katie Hobgood, program director at Save the Dunes. “Humans as a species depend on pollinators, and they are in decline.”

Worldwide, approximately 35% of produce and more than 75% of flowering plants rely on pollinators like bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, beetles, bats, and wasps to reproduce. Indiana alone is home to more than 430 species of bees, 2,000 species of moths, and 144 species of butterflies, among many others. These essential creatures not only pollinate food sources for humans, but also help produce the fruit and seeds that make up the diet of an estimated 25% of birds and many mammals.

“The [pollinators] of the world really are the linchpin in our global ecosystem, so seeing them decline is very scary,” says Hobgood. “They're what keep the plants going because they're pollinating them, and then they're also keeping the food chain above them going as well. It’s a very key role they play.”

Today, more than 40% of invertebrate pollinators like bees, butterflies and moths and 16.5% of vertebrate pollinators like birds and bats are considered highly threatened. Factors like climate change, widespread habitat loss and fragmentation, and the increased use of herbicides and pesticides have contributed to population decline for all types of pollinators.

To help address these concerns, Save the Dunes works with the national park to distribute grant dollars from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative to Northwest Indiana partners like Shirley Heinze Land Trust and the Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO). These funds have made it possible for Save the Dunes and its partners to improve up to 367 acres per year and protect pollinators by planting native plant prairies and removing invasive species.

The “before” of an area in Northwest Indiana improved through GLRI funding. Credit: Steve Barker, NIPSCO

The “after” of an area in Northwest Indiana improved through GLRI funding. Credit: Steve Barker, NIPSCO

“The purpose of this project is to connect high quality natural areas by improving marginal lands so they can serve as corridors for pollinators,” explains Hobgood. “Because of how much development there is in our region, it makes it even more important that we take any opportunity we have to restore habitats and put in high quality ecosystems.”

So far, the project has improved habitats on national park property, Shirley Heinze nature preserves, and NIPSCO-owned utility rights-of-way. These rights-of-way “run through everything,” says Hobgood, and present unique opportunities to establish habitat connectivity along roadsides, beneath powerlines, and in other traditionally overlooked places.

Restoring habitat connectivity allows migrating pollinators like butterflies, hummingbirds, and bats to overwinter in other locations, a process that protects them from extreme temperatures and provides safe passage to necessary food sources and breeding grounds.

“[NIPSCO] owns or manages miles and miles of rights-of-way,” Hobgood says. “[This project] is literally connecting the entire region.”

As an additional environmental boon, investing in native plants requires less human intervention than traditional lawn grasses, helping conserve resources that would otherwise be used for maintenance like mowing, fertilizer, and watering.

“That's one of the perks of planting natives. They've evolved to live here without your help,” Hobgood explains. “In other areas, there’s all this mowed grass everywhere. It serves no ecological purpose.”

Native plants not only feed and house wildlife, but also play other vital roles for the environment, like cleaning and storing soil and water via their root systems and filtering the air by absorbing carbon dioxide.

A pollinator watering station. Credit: Save the Dunes

“Native plants are great sponges for storm runoff and improve soil health, which in turn improves water,” says Hobgood. “It's all connected. Habitat restoration has a really positive impact on our rivers and streams—and eventually Lake Michigan.”

Each year, Save the Dunes supplements this work by hosting events such as pollinator presentations and garden clean ups that educate the community on the importance of these habitats and the creatures that rely on them. In 2024, Hobgood and her team are installing a pollinator garden at their headquarters in Michigan City, Indiana, and have invited the community to participate in activities like killing grass, installing new native plants, and creating pollinator watering stations. The finished garden will include informational plaques to give visitors insight into the native plants and pollinators on site.

Hobgood says she hopes projects like these encourage people to think about small changes they can make to protect pollinators on their own properties.

“We’re trying to lead by example and show people how it works so that it’s a little bit easier for them to replicate at home,” she says. “Your backyard is a waystation. … It's on all of us to do our part.

In addition to planting native species, Hobgood recommends eliminating pesticides, providing water sources, and creating homes for insects in the form of fallen leaves and wood piles.

The cover of Save the Dunes’ free pollinator guide. Credit: Save the Dunes

To demystify that process, Save the Dunes has published a free pollinator guide, which includes photos and detailed information about a variety of native pollinators—such as sweat bees, hummingbird moths, and monarch butterflies—and native plants like wild geranium, witch hazel, and great blue lobelia. The visual guide also features proposed garden layouts and provides readers with a list of ten of the region’s most invasive plants, making them easier to avoid.

“We create a ton of free resources to try and get information in the hands of the people who need it,” Hobgood says. “We're trying to connect with communities to educate them when that's appropriate and help them become stewards of the land themselves.”

Save the Dunes, which currently operates in Indiana’s Lake, Porter, and LaPorte counties, also addresses water and industrial pollution in and around Lake Michigan. Hobgood says the organization’s projects in conservation, advocacy, and community engagement aim to “highlight for the general public the incredible [natural landscapes] that we have here in Northwest Indiana.”

Visit SaveTheDunes.org