Grasslands

Grasslands are one of the planet’s most important, yet most overlooked habitats. Follow scientists as they discover animal species with the power to transform and restore our grasslands, turning them into carbon sinks that could slow climate change.

Jonny Bearcub Stiffarm and others from the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes on the Fort Peck Reservation come together to celebrate a momentous occasion. As all the way from Yellowstone National Park a new herd of Buffalo are returned  to their land.

Plant life on our planet is reacting to the changing climate. So scientists like Jane Zelikova are turning to the soil for an insight as to what is going on. Here in Kansas we see her and her research colleague Dr. Megan Machmuller digging down to take soil and root samples. She explains how grass systems play a vital role in carbon sequestration and the importance of necromass.

After vets eradicated rinderpest, a disease which impacts both cattle and the wildebeest of the Serengeti. Wildebeest numbers grew and grew from 300,00 to over a million. At the time experts were worried they would overgraze destroying the ecosystem but instead the opposite happened, a key relationship was restored and the whole environment started to flourish.