Health Hotline Magazine | November 2023

By Charity Isely Environmental Victories to Celebrate As we prepare to close the chapter of another year, it’s easy to define it by the bad things that happened, so instead, let’s bid 2023 farewell celebrating positive works in progress. Here are three stories of individuals and communities working together to seed hope and healing for people and the planet.

Bison return to indigenous tribes

Changing agricultural paradigms in the Midwest Grassland 2.0, a five-year project based out of the University of Wisconsin Madison, aims to seed a radical transformation of Upper Midwestern farmland, from 75 percent corn and soybeans to 75 percent perennial grassland. Focused on livestock and milk production, the project has received $10 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and three years later, with the project still underway, it’s a story worth paying attention to.

Mushrooms to aid wildfire mitigation In Colorado, a potentially game-changing addition to wildfire mitigation strategies is brewing from an unexpected source— fungi! Mycologists like Zach Hedstrom of Boulder are honing the process of transforming wood into nutrient-rich soil with mushroom mycelium, with efforts focused on the thousands of “slash piles” scattered throughout Colorado forests. These massive heaps of sticks result from the current wildfire mitigation necessity of thinning the forest, and they must be eliminated through methods like controlled burns or hauling out for use elsewhere—both unsustainable strategies.

As the New York Times reported in July, bison are returning to indigenous tribal lands, bringing promises of healing and restoration. After westward expansion and the U.S. government-sanctioned mass slaughter of the animal reduced its numbers from the millions to only several hundred by the late 1880s, the slowly rebuilt conservation herds of around 20,000 have been primarily housed in parks and wildlife refuges. Now, aided by the InterTribal Buffalo Council's (ITBC) leadership and collaborations with public and private parties, bison are returning to the indigenous tribes whose cultures and survival are intertwined with the animal.

In March, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland issued a "bison conservation order," which includes $25 million in funding for aiding tribal bison restoration. Her own words say it most eloquently: "This holistic effort will ensure that this powerful sacred animal is reconnected to its natural habitat and the original stewards who know best how to care for it." It also signals hope for a critically endangered North American ecosystem— prairie grasslands. Bison are the prairie's original "ecosystem engineers," and studies have found that where the animal is reintroduced the biodiversity of native plants, birds, and other wildlife increases, and the prairie experiences an improved resilience to climate change.

Hedstrom’s company is working with the Boulder Watershed Collective and other collaborators to inoculate wood chips with native mycelium, igniting rapid decomposition and transformation into activated organic matter that could turn slash piles into a benefit for farmers and forest restoration projects alike. Hedstrom told local Boulder news outlet KDVR that they are seeing “significant degradation and the transformation of this waste material into healthy soil” sometimes in as little as two years. He is currently experimenting with methods that can be used on large-scale applications for slash piles.

Randy Jackson, a professor of grassland ecology at the University of Wisconsin Madison and the project’s lead researcher, says that the project “will build the infrastructure and policy support necessary” to help farmers transition and scale, adding that the only concept that “will not be tolerated at the table is the idea of continuing the status quo.” Although Jackson recognizes that such a transformation will ultimately take decades and require the support of policy incentives, the seeds this project is sowing are worth celebrating!

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