by Brianna Randall | Audubon Magazine
For generations Great Plains ranchers saw fire as a foe. Now they’re banding together and embracing it as a tool to restore grassland habitat.
On the right spring morning you might see Liza Grotelueschen walk the edge of a blackened grassland, stamping out any lingering embers. But don’t mistake the retired educator for an enemy of fire. Quite the opposite: She’s a staunch believer in its power to rejuvenate the Nebraska prairie she loves.
Grotelueschen is a member of the Loess Canyons Rangeland Alliance (LCRA), a cooperative burn association made up of 75 landowners who share time and equipment to save their disappearing grasslands. Over the past 16 springs, she has helped to burn vast swaths of prairie, including 600 acres she and her husband lease to ranchers. “I didn’t necessarily picture myself working on fires at 73 years old,” she says. “But it certainly is rewarding.”
More details at: https://www.audubon.org/magazine/summer-2022/in-nebraskas-loess-canyons-setting-trees-ablaze