Who We Are
The Minneapolis Natural Areas Alliance is a coalition of more than 30 volunteers working across the city, most of them registered as Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) Park Stewards.
We restore and care for natural areas including woodlands, shorelines, wetlands, and prairie remnants that are essential to the health of our park system. Some of us have been doing this work for decades. Others joined more recently after recognizing visible signs of ecological decline such as invasive species spreading, habitats thinning, and water quality slipping.
Our work is coordinated with the MPRB Natural Resources Department and supported by staff across departments. Much of the field work including removing invasive species, restoring soils, and planting and tending native vegetation is carried out by volunteers.
Collectively, Park Stewards contribute tens of thousands of hours each year. Recent Natural Resources reporting shows more than 23,000 hours of field work in a single year, representing an estimated value of nearly $900,000.
That contribution exceeds the Park Board’s annual Natural Resources operating budget of about $700,000, which supports the active management of roughly 400 of the system’s 1,200 acres of natural areas.
The remaining acres depend heavily on volunteer stewardship.
Despite this scale of effort, our voice has been fragmented, working site by site and group by group without a unified way to communicate what we see.
The Minneapolis Natural Areas Alliance was formed to change that.
What Is a Natural Area
Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board defines natural areas as lands made up of native plant communities or areas restored with native plants.
These include prairies, savannas, woodlands, forests, wetlands, and shorelines. Together, they make up nearly one quarter of the land in the Minneapolis park system, totaling more than 1,100 acres.
Healthy natural areas support biodiversity, protect water quality, stabilize soils, and sustain the ecological systems that make our parks and city livable.Why We Exist
We see what is happening on the ground.
Natural systems are under stress.
Habitats are thinning.
Water quality is declining.
Native species are disappearing.
These are not abstract concerns. They are visible, measurable, and increasingly urgent.
At the same time, there is a gap between stated values and actual priorities. Nature is consistently described as essential to the park system, yet less than one percent of the Park Board’s operating budget is directed toward natural resource management.
Other needs are real and important. But without a healthy ecological foundation, everything else rests on weakened ground.
Natural areas are not an amenity.
They are foundational infrastructure.
They are living systems that support water, habitat, climate resilience, and human well-being.
What We Do
The Alliance brings together Park Stewards to:
Share what we are seeing across the system
Clarify priorities grounded in field experience
Inform public understanding of natural areas
Advocate for decisions and funding that reflect ecological reality
We speak not as a single site or project, but as a collective voice shaped by thousands of hours of hands-on work in Minneapolis parks.
What We’re Working Toward
We believe nature deserves a seat at the table when decisions are made.
That means:
Aligning resources with stated values
Recognizing natural areas as foundational infrastructure
Investing in long-term ecological health, not just short-term visible outcomes
Without that shift, we risk losing the very qualities that make Minneapolis’s park system exceptional.
With it, we have the opportunity to restore and sustain these landscapes for generations.
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