Dear HCN,
Although Jon
Christensen’s story on weeds, fire, and the Great Basin was
informative, he left out an important ingredient to the story (HCN,
5/22/00: Save Our Sagebrush). The same tools that he attributes to
the ecological collapse of the region – fire and grazing – can be
used to restore the region.
Spring grazing by
livestock just prior to seed-set of cheatgrass and fall burning to
destroy seeds of the annual grass can, over time, recover degraded
lands. Doubt it? Ask stewards across the West who are working on
the land, trying to find solutions to the nasty necessity of
eradicating exotics.
Rick
Knight
Livermore,
Colorado
The writer is a professor of wildlife conservation at Colorado State University.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Cows can help.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
