[APWG] ARTICLE: Back From the Brink: Restoring Prairies With Fire

[Park, Margaret E]

Brianna Randall, Discover, December 11, 2021

Summary
A half-century ago, you would be hard-pressed to find a Christmas tree on Nebraska’s wide-open plains. But these days, as eastern redcedars invade the Great Plains grasslands, trees are a dime a dozen.

The main culprit for this woody takeover? Fire suppression. Historically, these grasslands burned every year, allowing soil to recharge and spurring new perennial plants to grow. Frequent fires also kept redcedars relegated to rocky, wet places, incinerating any seedlings sprouting amid the grass. But when European settlers began dousing flames, trees started encroaching.

Until recently, this transition from grasslands to woodlands — a common problem worldwide — was thought to be irreversible. But ranchers in Nebraska’s Loess Canyons are proving it’s possible to restore healthy grasslands by fighting trees with fire<https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/130015>. A 15-year study published this summer shows that reinstating fire in the Loess Canyons has turned the tide on invading redcedar<https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112550>, one of the first examples that people can halt the transition of grasslands to woodlands at large scales.

Link to article: https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/back-from-the-brink-restoring-prairies-with-fire
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