The International Grassland Congress is a global organization committed to cultivating grasslands and forage crops, with an overriding mission of benefiting humanity through sustainable food production and preserving critical biodiversity. Grasslands are a unique environment with important ties to soil, animal, and human health.
Large expanses of open space and grass define a grassland's biome. The biome occupies a place between forest and desert and is prevented from becoming the former thanks, in part, to frequent grazing and occasional wildfires. Grasslands can be found throughout the United States, and in select regions, they may be referred to as prairies or steppes, while African grasslands are more commonly known as savannas.
Grasslands primarily fall under two main categories: tropical and temperate. Tropical grasslands are synonymous with the savannas of sub-Saharan Africa and northern Australia. Temperate grasslands include the prairies of the American midwest and the Eurasian steppes. Rainfall can range from 10 to 40 inches per year, depending on location, and individual blades of grass can grow between one and seven feet.
Regardless of what they are called or the specific grass species that make up the land, grasslands develop in places where annual rainfall levels have not supported a forest's growth. While the exact definition of grasslands can vary, as much as 40 percent of the planet's land area can be classed as grasslands.
Antarctica is the only continent on Earth that does not feature grasslands, which means the biome is plentiful but frequently under pressure from human activity. In addition to excess wildfires caused by humans, human-based threats that can negatively impact grasslands' health include overgrazing and farming, illegal hunting, invasive species, and climate change.
Studies have shown that old-growth grasslands are disappearing throughout the United States and the world and that marginal, less productive regions will give way to the loss of critically needed grasslands. Losing grasslands to climate change is especially damaging because grasslands can be used as a countermeasure. Despite studies showing that grasslands can absorb more carbon than forests and trees, less than 10 percent of the planet's grasslands are under formal protection.
A wide range of fauna relies on the sustained health of the planet's grasslands, including both herbivorous and omnivorous animals. A few of the herd animal species graze on grasslands include zebras, giraffes, deer, and bison. Some grassland environments support up to 25 large plant-eating species, which attract predators such as coyotes and foxes.
The loss of habitat can have an incalculable impact on these and other species. For example, Yellow Stone National Park removed wolves from the area about one century ago. In the years that followed, deer populations exploded in the park. Soon the park's forests and grasslands were completely denuded. This led to countless problems, from a decline in songbird populations to riverbank erosions. The loss of grasslands poses a direct threat to both the predator and prey species that rely on the environment.
To learn more about the world's grasslands and how to help sustain them, please visit internationalgrasslands.org.
