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<span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal;">Brianna Randall, Discover, December 11, 2021</span><o:p style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></o:p><br>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal;">Summary</span><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></o:p></p>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal;">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.</span><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></o:p></p>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal;">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.</span><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></o:p></p>
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<span class="oahvym-0"><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: black; background: white; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal;">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</span></span><a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/130015" target="_blank"><span class="oahvym-0"><b><span style="font-family:"Nunito Sans";color:#D83C31;background:white;text-underline:none"><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal;"> fighting
trees with fire</span></span></b></span></a><span class="oahvym-0"><span style="font-family:"Nunito Sans";color:black;background:white"><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal;">. A 15-year study published
this summer shows that reinstating fire in the Loess Canyons has</span></span></span><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112550" target="_blank"><span class="oahvym-0"><b><span style="font-family:"Nunito Sans";color:#D83C31;background:white;text-underline:none"><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal;"> turned
the tide on invading redcedar</span></span></b></span></a><span class="oahvym-0"><span style="font-family:"Nunito Sans";color:black;background:white"><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal;">, one of
the first examples that people can halt the transition of grasslands to woodlands at large scales.</span></span></span><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></o:p></p>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal;">Link to article: https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/back-from-the-brink-restoring-prairies-with-fire</span><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></o:p></p>
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