"Burning Tussock," Plains Folk #578 (Copyright Hoy & Isern)

Even as the smokes of this spring's burn in the Flint Hills of Kansas rose skyward, Jim and I were talking about this phenomenon at a conference on grasslands of the world held in Lincoln, Nebraska. We were there to present a paper comparing experiences of burning bluestem pastures in the Flint Hills of Kansas and tussock grasslands on the South Island of New Zealand.

Pasture burning, an established folk practice in Kansas, was viewed with disfavor by range scientists and environmentalists for many years. From the 1970s on, though, pasture burning was vindicated by scientific research, mainly at Kansas State University. Nowadays you see more and more burning in other grasslands of the plains, such as the Smoky Hills.

So when I was in New Zealand in 1991, I spent a lot of time looking into the practice of burning tussock grasslands on that country's sheep stations. What I discovered was that when the tussock country was occupied, from the 1850s to 1870s, there were some astonishing fires. Pioneering pastoralists burned everything off in order to open the grasslands, choked with spiny brush and rank foliage, to grazing.

The sheep raisers continued over the years to burn when it seemed necessary to renew forage or kill scrub. Over the years, however, there developed a powerful public condemnation of burning. Burning was blamed for deterioration of vegetation and for erosion of the land.

According to things said in the press and the parliament, these sheep raisers were utterly irresponsible, burning every year, any time of the year, thoughtlessly. Consequently, the government implemented permit systems and closely restricted the practice.

Three things helped me see that there was more to this issue than was publicly known. First, I read the scientific literature and found that at about the same time as the scientists at Kansas State were bringing in data that vindicated burning, scientists in New Zealand were doing the same. They found out that tussock grasses were well adapted to burning and concluded that burning did not contribute to erosion.

Second, I found a collection of sheep station diaries recording the work routines of a number of stations over long periods of years. The entries in these diaries made it clear that the sheep raisers were discriminating in their burning. They burned only certain areas, and only at certain times of the year, and only when they reckoned the land needed it.

And third, I traveled all over the tussock country of the South Island, visiting sheep stations, going over the ground. There were plenty of environmental problems out there--rabbit infestations, weed invasions, and other things. But none of them were connected with the practice of burning. In fact, the best-husbanded properties I saw were ones where the proprietors, in open and calculated fashion, used prescribed burning as a tool in range management.

I don't have anything profound to conclude from this, except that if you study what people are trying to do on the land, and ask them why they're doing it, most of the time it makes pretty good sense.

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