Team Pillars
PILLAR 1: Ecologically Sustainable
Tracks the ecological health of grasslands and flags key threats like invasive species, land conversion, and missing monitoring tools. Builds shared maps, data, and definitions to guide the other pillars’ work.
PILLAR 2: Promote Economic Prosperity for Communities and Grassland Agriculture
Supports economic vitality for ranchers and grassland communities, especially young and beginning producers. Curates practical resources and gathers feedback to improve access to tools and programs.
PILLAR 3: Foster Learning that Nurtures Appreciation
Elevates learning and appreciation through education, storytelling, and curated outreach materials. Shares campaigns, interviews, and curricula that help people value grasslands.
PILLAR 4: Inspire Appropriate Policy and Effective Leadership
Connects leaders and information to shape effective, appropriate policy. Maintains a shared policy resource and coordinates updates, opportunities, and responses across the network.
PILLAR 5: Support Thriving and Inclusive Communities
Strengthens inclusive, resilient communities by building trust and social connections. Welcomes new participants and surfaces gaps and opportunities to deepen grassroots engagement.
Pillar 1: Ecologically Sustainable
The meadowlark’s song signals a thriving, intact ecosystem. Its voice joins a chorus of other grassland birds when their environment is whole.
These valuable ecological indicators soar above, but they depend on the dynamic balance of soil, water, plants, animals, and people living below to thrive.
Like the meadowlark, we know sustainability is not a static state to achieve, but rather a dynamic balance to monitor.
Our team observes and studies the health and ever-evolving sustainability of our grasslands from the birds-eye view, alerting the rest of the Pillars to potential threats and challenges that need our attention.
Co-Leads: Michelle Foss, Fontenelle Forest; Mitch Stephenson, UNL Extension
Pillar 2: Promote Economic Prosperity for Communities and Grassland Agriculture
In the grasslands, grazing animals are part of a mutually beneficial loop — they stimulate growth, cycle nutrients, and return to us the food, fiber, and other goods we need to survive.
Grazing animals regenerate the land when they move in harmony with natural rhythms of rest and recovery. True prosperity grows through these balanced exchanges of reciprocity, not extraction.
In our communities, our team members seek to support economic prosperity by serving the people who have invested their lives in caring for grasslands for past, present, and future generations.
Co-Leads: Sheridan Wilson, rancher & AgSpire; TBD
Email laura@nebraskagrazinglands.org to join this Pillar team’s invitation list.
Pillar 3: Foster Learning that Nurtures Appreciation
The grasslands invite us to slow down and observe deeply. In nature, knowledge grows through connection, not instruction.
To nurture appreciation, we must foster curiosity, reflection, and humility — the qualities that help us truly see what is present.
Our work offers a magnifying lens through which others may see the grasslands for the abundant, life-giving ecosystem it is. We appreciate the people and processes that shape these landscapes, and we offer the outside world a deeper view of that work.
Co-Leads: Ethan Freese, Platte Basin Timelapse/UNL; Larkin Powell, School of Natural Resources, UNL; Carlee Moates, Platte Basin Timelapse; Dakota Altman, Platte Basin Timelapse/UNL
Email laura@nebraskagrazinglands.org to join this Pillar team’s invitation list.
Pillar 4: Inspire Appropriate Policy and Effective Leadership
Bees lead by facilitating life-giving connections. Like the other pollinators who orchestrate thriving grasslands, bees’ leadership is not about control or command — it’s about creating conditions for emergence.
Their work is often unseen, but it is indispensable. Effective policy, like a bee’s path, connects necessary resources and sustains life with a flow of incoming and outgoing information and ideas.
We are the essential pollinators who leave the hive, connecting and carrying our shared intelligence, cross-pollinating, gathering resources, and returning to the team with a more vibrant, thriving ecosystem left in our wake.
Co-Leads: Jenny Prenosil, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission; Alex McKiernan, rancher & Nebraska Grazing Lands Coalition.
Email laura@nebraskagrazinglands.org to join this Pillar team’s invitation list.
Pillar 5: Support Thriving and Inclusive Communities
Roots are the foundation of prairie strength. Each flush of growth above depends on countless connections below. Inclusion and diversity are not optional; they’re essential for resilience.
In our communities, this means honoring all people, all perspectives, and building collaborations where difference is not only welcomed, but needed. We follow the lands’ lead — where thriving begins at the grassroots.
We work to make the space needed for a more welcoming community. Our job is to survey the landscape and see what’s missing, or what might be strengthened with a new idea or perspective and deeper roots.
Co-Leads: Ann Dvorak, World Wildlife Fund; Tyrell Anderson, Turner Ranches
Email laura@nebraskagrazinglands.org to join this Pillar team’s invitation list.