Posts with tag 'St. Louis, MO'

Fire built the Midwest. For thousands of years, periodic wildfire and intentional burns set by Native Americans shaped the prairies, savannas, and open woodlands that defined this landscape. The tallgrass prairies of Missouri, the oak savannas of Illinois, the grasslands of Iowa and Kansas — all of them evolved with fire and depend on it to stay healthy.

Today, less than one percent of the Midwest's original native prairie remains. Without fire, woody invasives creep in, dead thatch smothers new growth, and the diverse plant communities that support whitetail deer, wild turkey, bobwhite quail, and countless other species slowly disappear. Conservationists call this process the "green glacier" — and it's one of the biggest threats to rural land quality in our region.

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