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This article is part of a special report Climate Solutionslooks at worldwide efforts to make a difference.

BLAINE COUNTY, MONT. — Three generations of Obrecht men may not fit the environmental stereotype.

In a remote eastern Montana prairie near Canada, ranchers Sonny, 78, Sam, 61, and Tyrel Obrecht, 31, are fiercely independent, politically conservative, and keep cattle for their lives—those bulky animals with the blackest part of their carbon footprint—concerned. protectionists.

But things aren’t always as they seem here on the Great Plains.

The Obrechts are at the forefront of an emerging collaboration between ranchers, conservation groups, and government agencies aimed at preserving, restoring, and revitalizing the prairies of the United States and Canada, or what is left of them.

Such majestic pastures that once covered a quarter of North America before ranchers began plowing the land to plant these amber waves of grain. Only a third of local grasslands now survive, said Joe Fargione, North America science director at The Nature Conservancy.

Yet grasslands play a vital role in the storage of carbon – which is the main climate change-related greenhouse gas in the form of carbon dioxide – and therefore act as a crucial shield against rising temperatures and seas. Researchers estimate that grasslands may contain as much as 30 percent of the carbon stored in Earth’s soils. Plowing them to plant crops releases large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

The savannas of Africa and South America, the steppes of Eurasia, and the Pampas of South America are also in crisis. They compete for attention, are losing the battle against conversion to cropland, and are threatened by unsustainable animal grazing practices, urban sprawl, invasive species, climate change and even well-intentioned efforts to plant trees.

Alongside North American farmers, women in Kenya, ecologists in Brazil and United Nations workers in Kyrgyzstan are part of a new global network struggling to save grasslands and secure their place in global climate policies.

“Grassland is pretty much overlooked on global sustainability agendas,” said Richard Bardgett, an ecologist at the University of Manchester in England. “Unless these changes and targets are set for conservation, restoration and sustainable management, the future of grasslands looks bleak.”

Hopefully, researchers 2015 paper In Agriculture, Ecosystems and the Environment, he estimates that improved grazing methods could trap perhaps 300 million tons of carbon dioxide per year worldwide.

This is where farmers like the Obrechts come in.

Sam and Tyrel said the family, which owns 16,000 acres, is “land-rich and cash-poor.” What is often overlooked is that soil is rich in carbon, one of the most vital elements to support life on Earth.

The family’s secret weapon to seize even more carbon from the atmosphere while promoting soil health and biodiversity? cows.

By adopting regenerative grazing practices—specifically, by frequently rotating dense herds and resting paddocks at long intervals—they and a growing number of North American farmers are using cattle to improve grazing health.

“Sometimes livestock is portrayed quite negatively,” said Tyrel Obrecht, whose family has recently begun intensifying its regenerative practices and has signed a deal with a World Wildlife Fund. program To promote this type of farming throughout the northern Great Plains. “I think the ranchers are the original conservationists.”

“Sustainability – it’s not a buzzword, it’s a way of life,” said Randy Stokke, 63, a rancher in western Canada’s Saskatchewan province.

These farmers said they found a common cause with environmentalists, whom their relatives often viewed as enemies a generation ago. Conversely, conservationists have learned to think like agricultural capitalists, citing the economic benefits of healthier soil and their ties to more profitable farming.

Dr. “We have reached a turning point when it comes to climate change, and the need to protect grasslands and all natural climate solutions has gone from important to urgent,” Fargione said.

But conservationists are losing ground in their efforts to harness the power of grasslands as a carbon sink and an invaluable source of energy. biodiversity.

Grasslands approx. 40 percent global terrestrial terrain; only about 10 percent are preserved. More than 80 percent of native grassland has been converted to cropland or pastures.

While these biomes support the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people, the land is progressive. corruption endangering their capacity to sustain animal feed, tourism and water filtration.

World Wildlife Fund recently reported He said that with 2.6 million acres of US and Canadian grassland planted between 2018 and 2019, pristine grasslands continue to shrink.

And now a mega-drought exacerbated by climate change, experts said – NS Destroying the North American West and threatening the livelihoods of farmers.

“People make plans and God laughs,” says 40-year-old Casey Coulter, who lives on the farm 150 miles southeast of Obrechts, and is full of aphorisms like “Poor land equals poor people.”

writers of january paper He concluded in the journal Nature Communications that the destruction and degradation of grasslands worldwide has already released enough greenhouse gases — including methane from herbivorous grazing animals – It eliminates the cooling effect of carbon sinks of sparsely grazed and natural grasslands.

“We will not meet our climate goals if we continue to plow the grasslands,” said Martha Kauffman, who runs the World Wildlife Fund’s Northern Great Plains program.

A big reason meadows don’t get a break is visual. Unlike forests, grasslands store most of their carbon in deep-penetrating roots, out of sight.

Settlers and colonists, prejudiced against the forests that fueled the European economy, often viewed the New World’s grasslands as barren lands begging to be cultivated or traversed. Experts believe that misunderstanding continues.

“We are still a long way from really convincing policymakers that soil carbon is important,” said Ibrahim Thiaw, Secretary-General of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.

Yet grassland roots are remarkably resilient and better equipped than forests to withstand harsh droughts. And unlike forests, grasslands tend to retain most of their carbon in the soil after wildfires. Grasslands are also vastly superior at returning to life after death. big fires that’s climate change – and bad firefighting policy – Have tattoo around the world.

grassland ecologists they warned against the horribly inefficient practice of covering pastures with trees. can result in death in droughts or fires, carbon emitters and depleters biodiversity done twice.

Even invasive tree encroachment contributing to 2018 Day Zero Water crisis in Cape Town, South Africa. The creeping trees in the metropolitan basin were sucking up desperately needed groundwater.

recommended in the United States North American Grassland Protection Act Its supporters claim it will create a cohesive national strategy to protect and restore these biomes.

Oregon Democrat Senator Ron Wyden and the legislation’s biggest supporter, Senator Ron Wyden, said that most people think of energy and forests when referring to the climate crisis. “But if we’re going to tackle this code-red emergency, we also need to look at all industries and sectors. Meadows play an equally critical role.”

A possible solution: Send the cows.

The key is to strike a delicate balance between grazing the land and resting, experts said.

“We’re trying to imitate farm animals, which bison didn’t do so long ago,” said Mr. Coulter. “There are definitely regenerative systems that need large ruminants to convert nutrients into soil.”

In regenerative grazing, ranchers often gather their herds in small meadows. This forces cows to consume a wide variety of grasses so that no single plant species becomes dominant.

Ranchers move cows frequently—almost daily in the case of 72-year-old Bill Milton, a Montana rancher like the Obrechts and Mr. Coulter, who uses portable electric fencing to shift his herd. The animals leave behind a lot of cow pies for good measure, along with scattered and chewed grass particles. All of these strengthen soil health and provide a ground cover that helps keep the soil cooler and increases precipitation absorption.

Ranchers give each paddock plenty of time, sometimes more than a year, to heal and introduce new growth. carbon holder.

“The big question is what kind of impact these practices will have on climate change,” said Mr Milton.

Timothy Searchinger, a senior research scientist in environmental science and policy at Princeton University, said he was skeptical that improved grazing could sequester enough carbon to significantly affect the climate. “However,” he said, “grazing improvements have great potential to increase production per acre, which is vital to avoid clearing more forest and savanna.”

To provide more flexibility in moving herds, ranchers like the Obrechts are running cost-sharing programs with conservation groups and government agencies to build infrastructure that pumps groundwater into gutters in remote pastures.

The family is also considering a cost margin for GPS-programmable electric collars that create virtual fences to keep livestock out of bounds.

“The George Jetson thing,” Sam Obrecht said.

Half a world away, the ecological and economic principles that drive these ranchers similarly, she guides Kenyan conservation groups working to reform the grazing practices of pastoralist herders navigating the African savannah.

Murray Roberts, a Kenyan-born rangeland management expert, and Elizabeth Meyerhoff-Roberts, a social anthropologist with extensive knowledge of the local community, lead the nonprofit Arid Environments Foundation Rehabilitation in Baringo County, Kenya. They work with families, mostly women, to reseed native grasses in their homes. Families make a profit by harvesting grass to sell as hay alongside seeds, giving them the financial flexibility to grow smaller herds to prevent overgrazing.

The foundation also partners with pastoralists to coordinate herd rotations between common pastures.

In the Cerrado meadows of Brazil, Giselda Durigan, ecologist at the Instituto de Pesquisas Ambientais in São Paulo, is fighting the encroachment of pine trees that are not native to the region. This encroachment devastated native plant and animal species while lowering the water table. His team also experiments with the removal of unwanted plants, straw transfer, and grass planting and reseeding. controlled burns.

Nicolas Tremblay and Oliver Mundy of the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development are working with pastoralists to improve the management of heavily degraded grasslands in Kyrgyzstan.

Back in Montana, Tyrel Obrecht talks about the benefits of regenerative farming. “The only way to get carbon from the air is to stimulate plant growth,” he said. “And the best way to stimulate growth is to graze it and let it rest. It’s very, very beneficial for the entire ecosystem.”