2. a) Rangeland Ecosystem Resilience and Restoration - Carissa Wonkka, USDA
Given the mounting stress on native rangelands from increased frequency and intensity of drought events, land-use change, and invasive species, understanding ecological attributes that confer ecosystem resilience is important for management and restoration. We conducted studies to determine if resilience-based restoration strategies could provide sustainable long-term results. Conventional restoration has not often been effective at restoring grass-dominated ecosystems following conversion to shrublands or woodlands. This accords with perceptions that such shifts are irreversible because of hysteresis in the system – whereby it takes more input to return a system to its previous regime than it did to shift out of it. Several experiments across the Great Plains assessed the potential to overcome hysteresis following undesirable regime shifts. Our work highlights the potential to use resilience theory to restore degraded rangelands. However, these opportunities will remain unidentified without a move toward ecological experimentation designed for threshold detection under a range of conditions outside of the historical range of variation.
2. b) Can It Really Grow? How we harnessed seeded native species on our farm. – Julie MacKenzie
(Fast Forward to 33:00)
While seeding native species has become very common in reclamation and restoration projects, harnessing the usefulness of native species on-farm lags behind, for many reasons, including agronomic considerations, production goals and end-uses, flexibility in mixes, and cost.
Julie will share their farm’s experience seeding native species and using them for the past 10 years in the Hazenmore SK area. Although seeded native species have been a success for M-over-C Land & Cattle Co., it is not without many learning moments. Julie hopes to give producers the confidence to try seeding the right native species on their farm or to give your clients extra insight to meet their needs.
2. c) Restoration/climate change - Kansie Fox
(Fast forward to about 1:03:00)
Blood Tribe Land Management Environment Division is developing ecocultural restoration methods to restore degraded native prairie ecosystems. Healthy prairie ecosystems are a valuable source of carbon sequestration and successful restoration will reduce greenhouse gases and mitigate climate change. These areas are also important places for community to gather, harvest, practice ceremony and reciprocity, recreate, and learn. As signatories to the Buffalo Treaty, our restoration work is based in “Conservation Article 1”, which recognizes Buffalo as a practitioner of conservation and that we respect the interrelationships between us and ‘all our relations’ including animals, plants, and mother earth; to perpetuate and continue spiritual ceremonies, sacred societies, languages, and bundles to perpetuate and practice to embody the thoughts and beliefs of ecological balance. Restoring healthy prairie also restores health in the community.
With advisory from KEPA and existing Indigenous restoration programs, and through partnerships support, we are braiding Blackfoot Ecological Knowledge (BEK) and Western Science (WS) to build holistic ecosystem-based restoration practices.
By building capacity in Bison, fire, targeted grazing and indigenous seeds ecocultural restoration methods, we aim to restore native prairie and mitigate climate change impacts.
