Measuring Success, Quantifying Natural History, and Grasslands with Dwayne Estes

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick!

On today’s episode, we talk with Dwayne Estes, Executive Director at the Southeastern Grasslands Institute (SGI) about Measuring Success, Quantifying Natural History, and Grasslands.  Read his full bio below.

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Showtimes:
3:23  Nic & Laura discuss time travel
8:19   Interview with Dwayne Estes starts
11:10   Grasslands
20:57  Measuring success
29:45  Quantifying natural history
36:39  Field Notes

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This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.

Connect with Dwayne Estes at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dwayne-estes-65135b18b

Guest Full Bio:
Dwayne Estes serves as executive director at the Southeastern Grasslands Institute (SGI).  He is a Full Professor of Biology, Director of the APSU Herbarium, and Principal Investigator for the Center of Excellence for Field Biology. In January 2017, he co-founded SGI with colleague, Theo Witsell. Under Dwayne's leadership, SGI has secured more than $7 million in funding, and in the past several years he and his collaborators have been awarded three grants from the National Science Foundation. Dwayne’s research interests include the flora, ecology, history, biodiversity, and biogeography of the Southeastern U.S. with emphasis on grasslands. He has published >20+ publications and co-authored the Guide to the Vascular Plants of Tennessee published in 2015 by the University of Tennessee Press. He enjoys mentoring his graduate students and working hand-in-hand with a dedicated SGI team. He has been active in building diverse support for Southeastern US grasslands conservation, including bringing together philanthropists, government agencies, non-profits, corporate and small-business partners, private landowners and ranchers, historians, educators, and citizen scientists. 

Music Credits
Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa
Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

Transcript

Transcripts are auto-transcribed

[Intro]

Laura  
Hello and welcome to NPR with your favorite environmental nerds Nick and Laura. On today's episode, Nick and I discussed time travel. We talked to Dwayne Estes about measuring success quantifying Natural History and grasslands. And finally, let's talk about grasslands. There are two main types temperate and tropical and the height of grass depends on the amount of rain it gets. Some grass can be less than a foot tall well others can grow up to seven feet tall. Although the Telus grass is actually bamboo. That's right folks. Bamboo is that type of grass that can reach a maximum height of 137.90. How sad doesn't quite get to

Nic 
it's almost there. Almost there. That's the tallest one ever measured. So how much time

Laura  
and if you drive across it and really dry conditions, it can set your truck on fire. I'm sorry, what? See what happened, folks? Even though there's no yeah, there's a lot of meadows in Florida that we had to do sampling on and I've had colleagues you've driven their trucks out and really dry conditions and caught on fire.

Nic 
Oh, my gosh. traumatize

Laura 
right gotta be aware. Wow. Okay. That music

Nic  
i Another my podcast partners is offering 12 fantastic training courses in conjunction with the annual conference in Malaysia that are taught by I members who are experts in their fields. They hope you will register to attend the AI conference, but it is not required in order to take the training course check it out@conferences.ay ay ay ay.org for more details. fantastic news everyone. EPR is doing an AMA sponsored by STV on Tuesday April 11 at 8pm on our YouTube channel at EPR podcast. Laura and I will be available for you to ask us about career advice, our favorite toppings on pizza movies and anything else that crosses your mind. Mark your calendars and see you there. You know we're where we do in a sponsored by SW

Laura 
speaking sponsors. We need sponsors for episodes, not just our ama so what do you got for us today? Nick, by the way have 32nd jokes.

Nic 
Here we go. All right. So you know we're talking about grasslands what grasslands need fire. You know what people don't love fire very dangerous. Very scary. Now what if what if you could just have grass smoke instead? I'm talking let's go grass smoke.com. I'm telling you right now you will find people who are willing to smoke grass for free. All they ask is that you give them back to chips and a lawn chair to sit on for four to six hours. That's all I'm saying. That's all you need to do. And I'm telling you right now go grasp monster.com It is going to be it's gonna revolutionize the way that we do entertainment in this industry. I

Laura 
can promise someone listening is just looking at it right now.

Nic 
It may already exist.

Laura 
All right. We know you'll love Nick's jokes, but let's get some real sponsors on here. Hit us up in Vermont professionals. radio.com. Let's get to our segment.

[Nic & Laura discuss time travel]

Nic 
If there was a time machine, I mean, where would you go?

Laura 
Oh gosh.

Nic 
Would you step on everything and be like well I'm changing the world you know? Would you like be too afraid to do it?

Laura 
I don't know. I hope when they build a time machine that it's one where like you could be a fly on the wall and just see stuff. Worry about like changing things.

Nic 
Like watching a movie or something. You just go yeah,

Laura 
like I like have you seen on YouTube. They have those like drives through New York City from the 20s that they've like pieced together like those are so cool. Now they're so neat, because it's kind of like, you know, a real life angle of what it would be like, like driving down Central Square or something in New York City. And if that's the place Time Square, I don't know.

Yeah, they're really neat, but I've been waiting for like Google or something to come up with that where it's like, they just pieced the information together and you can go like, instead of going like on a map, I go to a map of Raleigh in 1950. And then I can kind of see and that's not really a time machine but close enough to what we might have seen

Nic 
later. It's about now

Laura 
or you know, like there's an app where you can put it up and see the stars in the sky and they tell you what they are and stuff. You use a kind of like a filter. Like I would love to have that on my phone where I can just like filter and it would show me what it looked like 100 years ago. Yeah, so I hope someone's working on that. assume someone is, but anyway, yeah, would I go back? Where would I go? I don't even know. Yeah, curious about all of it. You

Nic 
know, I know it's hard to choose. But dinosaurs obviously

Laura  
fly on the wall. I don't want to be an actual human standing there like Oh, hi.

Nic  
I'm completely defenseless. Don't worry.

Laura  
Nice one or not nice one.

Nic  
Yeah. So the pointy teeth. Yeah. What is it? Have you seen the trailer for 65 million years ago? No, it's Adam Driver. It looks absolutely ridiculous. And I'm all here for it. But apparently. No, no. It's like, no, it's an amazing it's a terrible action movie. It's like you're on a ship and the ship crash lands but it went 65 million us in the past but he has future technology. So he's trying to you know survive against the dinosaurs and I've lost you.

Laura 
Sounds great.

Nic 
It's gonna be amazing. It looks absolutely ridiculous. But you know, since Adam Driver and I are at the exact same age literally, I gotta support him. I gotta watch it. That's why no other reason.

Laura 
I think that that just makes clear another thought if they do ever invent time travel, we just need to be careful who's allowed to do it?

Nic 
Yeah. Oh, god. Yeah. Yeah, that's totally fair. But yeah, I don't know. It'd be really cool. I don't really go to see how you know what that was actually looked like to you know, because a lot of what yeah, like if we talk about birds and like their fossils, you know, they don't look anything like each other, you know, birds of paradise. Just look at me, tell me that you had that concept in your head when you see a skull, you know, or the skeleton of that thing.

Laura 
It doesn't make any sense. So that'd be really cool to see what they really genuinely look like. Right. Same with like, hominids and hope of Homo sapiens. You know, like I'd like to see what this actually looks like, or how I want to see how they really interacted with each other instead of our like, you know, interpretation of

Nic  
that. Yeah, I know, right? Yeah. I mean, it's kind of cool. It's like where we get the smartest or just the most cutting or whatever it is, you know, all that's kind of neat. There's never one answer that it's gonna satisfy everybody, but it'd be really cool to see for sure.

Laura 
Yeah. I'm gonna think the most just empire building because that in our recent history has been kind of like wedge shaped a recent history, so why not all the way going back?

Nic 
Yeah, yeah.

Laura 
You know, there's a great there was a group who was like, Cool we're just chillin you know, doing our thing. And then homosapiens came we're like, now we're taking it.

Nic  
Yeah. Now it's our thing.

Laura 
That's still our thing.

Nic 
Yeah, this is my ball now. Yeah. Yeah. I'm the captain. Now. That's what it is. There's the taping for everybody.

Laura 
So anyway, yeah, no, I have no idea. I would like to go back to a lot of places and stuff.

Nic 
Yeah, everywhere. I want to see it all. It's funny. It's the what kind of easy do like all of it.

Laura 
Now we'll give you that answer.

Nic  
Nobody likes everything. That's crazy. Anyway, anyway. I think that's good. Why don't we get to our interview?

Laura
Let's do it.

[Interview with Dwayne Estes starts]

Nic 
Welcome back to EPR. Today, we have Dwayne Estes, who is the Executive Director at Southeastern grasslands Institute. Welcome, Dwayne.

Dwayne Estes 
Thank you all for having me. I appreciate it. It's good to be here. Yeah, we're

Nic 
really excited to have you on here and this is a talk grasslands. But can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you became interested in conservation and grassland restoration?

Dwayne Estes 
Yeah, sure. I'm from a small town in southern central Tennessee, kind of near the Alabama Tennessee lawn. And I came from a family with, you know, being the first in my family to go to college. So I definitely never set out, you know, early in life with the idea that hey, I want to be in the conservation field, right? I just sort of stumbled into it literally. And I think with a lot of things, there's all these various coalescing paths that lead us to where we are, and I've thought a lot about now what led me to where I am and how do I get to this point, and I think about all these different life experiences that I draw from, like, becoming a good writer, because of my junior year in high school. I had a really good English teacher has served me very well. You know, the public speaking that I've done, but when it comes to conservation, I literally stumbled into it. I had this this idea in the sixth grade way back 33 years ago 1990 That I was going to read every single book in my middle school hot my middle school library. And, you know, coming into the start of my sixth grade year, I was not a popular kid. I didn't have a lot of friends and I was not an A student. I was a C student. I said, you know, this year, I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna come in, I'm gonna get a girlfriend. I'm gonna make straight A's. My new clothes. I'm gonna read every single book in this middle school library before I get out of here in another two years. Later that week, I went in and I said, Alright, today's library day I pulled this book off the shelf and I looked at us like ah, now I'll come back and read this. Another time. Very next book that I pulled off the shelf literally changed my life. I tell people would save my life. Well, that's amazing because it from then on for the next six years of my grade school education. I studied trees and plants for no less than three hours a day every day, and then opened up a world of opportunity for me that, you know, if I hadn't done that, I would be relegated to a life of probably no education, working a dead end job, and like so many other people from where I come from. So I'm very grateful that I just sort of stumbled into the world of conservation because of a book in 33 years ago.

[Grasslands]

Nic  
Wow. That's incredible. That's a really cool though. And it's really neat to think so it's really just luckily, it's just a little bit of inspiration is all you needed. And you were hooked. So how did that lead to the sunglasses Institute now? What's the mission of the organization and how did you become involved with them?

Dwayne Estes 
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I gave you the way back version, right. I ground on that. But the more focus perspective on that is because by the time I've you know, had gone to college, I was really, really well versed in knowing but, and so I was I was pretty much already, this sort of burgeoning mini expert in the plants of Tennessee and North Alabama, that sort of region. So that naturally led me to go to college and I was able to get a nice position eventually at the University of Tennessee, in a PhD there. And it was while I was a PhD student that I fell in love with southeastern grasslands, these little beautiful prairie remnants and glades and savannas. And that's where I really began to realize that it's these places that have they're the hotspots for our biodiversity here themselves, and their last place is for most of our highly endangered plants and animals. Again, I didn't set out to go create a new organization for grasslands, that love for botany and grasslands paved its way for me into a career where I became a professor. And at first 10 years of my career as a professor, I was teaching and advising and counseling graduate students and conducting research. And then I hit this point in about 2013 2014 I was I was a few years in in the job and I just felt like I don't I don't feel like I'm contributing in the way I want to to conservation because of all the bad stuff you hear about the demise of ecosystems and species all the time. I felt like I could do more than I was doing just writing about it, publishing about it or even teaching about it. As impactful job as being a professor is it wasn't the kind of impact I felt like I wanted to make. I felt incomplete. And so that led into that's a whole other story on its own. But basically, the short end of it is I ran into a single person, much like that book up, pulled off the show. This was another one of those days that literally changed the course of my life. I met one person from New York City who came all the way to Tennessee to the event that I hosted. And he was blown away by the message that I had to share with him about how important and endangered southeastern grassland ecosystems are. And he said, Look, man, what can I do to help what role can philanthropy play in your mission to restore southern grasslands? He encouraged me to do something that very few people in my life have ever encouraged me to do, which is dream big. And with the permission to dream big from somebody who was willing to give us money to do it. We created a one of the most impactful upstart organizations in the eastern United States over the past five years.

Nic 
Heck, yeah. So that is a really great story. And I love how that came together for you. So what is check your day to day? How do you either like specific technologies that you use to kind of help restore and protect grasslands? Is it awareness? Is it a little bit of everything? How do you

Dwayne Estes 
do it's a it's a hectic day, typically, right? So I'm a night owl. I love to work until one to three o'clock in the morning. It's very entrepreneurial, and I never consider myself to be a leader. But leadership is required every day. entrepreneurialship if that's the word is certainly something I do every day, I'm a fundraiser, but I'm also a researcher. I'm still a professor. Ultimately, I have to be very good at delegation. And so I think in the span of a day, I'm on the phone, a lot of always on email course. But it's not burdensome, because what I've done is built a team. And it used to be that you know, all the work sort of failed to me and the co founder of SGI, whose name is Theo Witzel. Every responsibility kind of fell to us in the early days. But we've been fortunate to where, you know, we build some capacity and we have some bandwidth. So we have an administrative assistant. Now we have a director of operations and we have multiple project leads and researchers and so forth. So I don't have to be the jack of all trades. I used to be and frankly, I think that's the hardest part about doing we've done is coming through those first five years and just trying to try to fake it till you make it right and written to people you can do it and and not lose your reputation in the process and not come out. Of the end of five years scarred and marred with a bad reputation that hey, don't trust these guys. They can get the job done. They talk a big game, but they really can't. I think that's the biggest thing is after coming through this. We have our integrity intact and we have a reputation we built we're very proud of but it has come at a very, very hard fast. You know, just the daily grind has been very, very challenging times. But in the end, just to conclude on this point, we're now getting to that point where we're talking about restoring 1000s of acres of grasslands. I never thought in 2017 when we embarked on this journey, I thought it'd be hard to do 30 acres of grass. Like we're literally on the cusp of doing 500 acres here and we're talking about 10,000 acres. So it's impactful work, man it's highly variable, but it takes a team to do it and I'm just glad to be a part of the team.

Nic 
That's quite impressive. And so I kind of want to ask to like what goes into restoring grasslands because I know it's not it's not just okay we've got a plot of land right but there's got to be some other like environmental justice or equity or you know, even just disturbance like human disturbance kind of issues that pop up. So how do you kind of navigate all of those pieces and get to a spot where you are conserving that much that many acres?

Dwayne Estes  
Yeah, well, you know, first it's important for us to make sure that we're based very firmly in science and in cultural history. That's a really firm foundation that is important. It's vitally important for our organization. So when we do projects, we want to make sure that we're focusing our efforts on areas where there were historically grasslands present, right. We also want to make sure that because of that historical connection, we love to pull out of American history, these long forgotten stories and tales that sometimes are so deeply buried. They haven't seen the light of day and 300 years. We like to pull that information out and then couple, but these early settlers said or the first Spanish conquistador said, or what Native American oral history say, and pull that out and then connect it to what the plants and animals needs are and what the landscape says. So that's a really important first thing that we have to marry together. And then so to do that, we have to have a very firm grasp on the science of southeastern grasslands. We have to know what types of grasses there are. So you know, your listeners may be kind of surprised, and now there's 118 types in the entire southeastern United States. That's way more than what you find in the entire Great Plains of the US and Canada combined. We now have to know what those types were like savannas glades, barrens, coastal dune grasslands, prairies, meadows, we also have to then know where they are. And so for that effort, we're really excited. We're partnering with National Geographic and nature surf. And we will be publishing next year in 2020 for a a first science and history based map of southeastern US grasslands. So all that's like the important foundational elements and then in terms of deciding what to do and when to do it. There's a whole slew of things that goes into it, but simply put, I think there's three ways to look at it. A huge chunk of southern grasslands used to be these open savanna, so they were grasslands, like with scattered trees. Just imagine how those would have been kept open by a combination of fire and grazing by buffalo right? If you take fire away and you take buffalo away, those treed grasslands become forest, so much of the southern landscape today, that is today for us historically was open grass and scattered trees. Then you got these, these grasslands that were historically beautiful, open, treeless prairie. They were open praise because they had such fertile arable soil. Well, when the first settlers come through, those are the perfect places to begin to put in crops of corn and cotton, and tobacco. And so those prairies became the agricultural fields that we see today. And then finally, you have this last category, which are these open fertile Meadows. They weren't really great for growing crops, but they were perfect for grazing. And so the very first southerners who came through like off the Atlantic coast, they didn't mean to, but they overgrazed these meadows in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, for example. So we have to kind of know that long history before we can figure out and diagnose how they should be restored today in and going into the future.

Laura 
Okay, it's coming together now. We have a question. Here about your interest in early settlers. Think I guess the answer no to their question.

Dwayne Estes 
I hated history as as I hate history.

[Measuring success]

Laura 
I love this. Yeah, right. Right. Right. As a fellow entrepreneurialship person, I'm really impressed with the amount of funds you've raised over $7 million in five years. So if you are willing to share some of your successes in fundraising, or what you've learned over the years, since it doesn't sound like that was really your background or intention. That's right. Awesome.

Dwayne Estes 
Yeah, that's one of those things where I wish I had more time to stop and reflect on all that because I feel like there are important lessons learned that I could share at some point through some medium, you know, that would be helpful to others who want to go down this journey like me, honestly, I have to credit. A friend of mine, who's a board member of the band Foundation. He was that guy I told you about from New York City, who came down and sort of discovered us but when I met him, I didn't know who he was. I just saw him as the very last person who registered for a three day symposium that we were hosting. He came down and I he asked if he could come us a look. Anybody could come as long as you pay the registration fee. Right? So he comes in he experiences it and then goes away is blown away by that message. And I think that's the first important part is be yourself, be genuine. Spread your love and your message and be kind to anybody. Because if I had said just to any words or a little bit off putting or if I didn't take the time to shake his hand, then none of this would be possible. But because he felt that genuineness and he felt the need the need and the urgency was huge. Then it made it easier for us to have that conversation about, you know, hey, yes, our foundation would conceivably give you you know, $1.75 million over a five year period is what has turned out to be but to get to your question, I guess. So that more specifically, that was absolutely another pivotal point in this sort of life journey that we're on. But to have a foundation who comes out and says we're willing to go in with you guys on this concept. We're willing to put our own money in the game and we're willing to help you find other foundations and other philanthropists to connect to who will join us and so, you know, they didn't give us 1.7 5 million rod off in one day. I naively thought that's the way it would happen. Instead, they made us work for it very hard. So they first gave us $20,000 As a planning grant. We spent all the first year just simply putting the foundational steps in place, developing a concept paper, writing the beginnings of what would become a strategic plan writing a business plan. All those are critical, introspective steps that were essential. If we hadn't done that, I think we would have mismanaged their money for example, I think we had to do that step. Secondly, then they gave us a series of challenge grants. Once we met each one of those hurdles, they said alright guys, you're now ready for your first challenge grant of a quarter million dollars here's the kicker, you gotta raise a quarter million and eight months, and then we'll give you a quarterback. So I never raised any money. And we immediately got to work and we raised the quarter million. And so for there was another series of challenge grants, but as we brought them on what that did is gave us credibility as long as we were able to uphold our reputation and get these proof of concept projects off the ground. And it was a struggle at times to keep all that together. But but as we were successful, then the National Park Service came, and the US Geological Survey came these federal agencies came to the state agencies can then other private philanthropists and foundations came to us. And honestly over the past few years, we've had so much opportunity that has come our way because of those connections, our network and by doing what we say we're going to do, keep it a reputation, and hopefully being good stewards of the funding that we've been fortunate to get to this point. All those are really critical. Now we've got our eyes set on raising a few 10s of millions of dollars over the next you know, few years. But yeah, I'm pretty proud of where we come from.

Laura 
That's awesome. Congratulations. Just a few 10s of millions No, bro Yeah, let me do

Dwayne Estes 
so funny thing when we met with that same board member, we met with him and his brother in law, who's the chairman of the of that particular Foundation? And he says All right, guys, how much is it gonna cost to do this over five year period? I literally pulled out of my rear end this number of think we're going to need 6 million over five years and they said yeah, that sounds about right, he said but over the beyond this to tackle grasses conservation. You guys gonna need hundreds of millions but we believe in you and this is the first step. So it was pretty important. First beginnings for us.

Laura 
That's great. It's incredible. Find someone with money who believes in you. That's the goal. Right? All right. The podcast Yeah.

Dwayne Estes 
We need a sponsor, so I should add to hers. And most grant writing. I mean, we you got to really be a good writer. And that's why I go back to my junior year my high school teacher who taught me how to write that has been an invaluable skill set. To be able to have in this

Laura 
journey. Yeah. Awesome. To want to give them a shout out.

Dwayne Estes 
Yes, shout out to my high school teacher and I'm on the spot now. I can't remember last night. Oh, Abernathy misses every day. Yeah,

Laura 
all right. Yay, Mrs. Abernathy. All right, that's really cool. So you know you have all these funds and you have all this stuff coming up. What are the projects that you're you're working on anything you want to talk about?

Dwayne Estes 
Yeah, man. We got some cool projects. I'll tell you about one and then if you guys want hear about others, I'm happy to tell you we right now our region covers 24 states we don't envision that growing. It's big. It goes from Long Island, New York on the north to Columbia, Missouri, south to Miami and Brownsville, Texas, literally to the border with Mexico is focused on the southeast but it does creep a little bit into what people consider the Northeast and the Midwest. within that region. We're working in about 12 of those 24 states with active projects. So we do a lot in Virginia and Tennessee is our core state right now as well. We're based in Clarksville, Tennessee, just outside of Nashville. We work a lot in Alabama and Georgia. And in these first five years, we've been putting into place these regional coordinators so we have a coordinator in Athens, Georgia. We have a team in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. We've got one in Nashville and we're hoping to expand next year in Roanoke, Virginia. So the of how we've got this growing footprint one project I'm really super proud of is our new partnership and collaborative work we're doing with Google. So we have started right here in our hometown, rebuilding this former prairie landscape. It went from 50 acres now it's about to expand 105 acres and you know, it's really awesome to have a partner like Google join you in this journey. Oh yeah.
________
Unknown Speaker 
Yeah, we're rebuilt. It's not even just about like, Hey, we're working with Google. That's amazing. We're proud of that. But when you look at this prairie we recreated it was a soybean field in 2020 that we planted. And then when you go out there there's there's red tail hawks as bald eagles are northern Harriers flying overhead. There's Bobcats carrying their kittens through the edge of the prairie. There's a there's all these prairie voles and small rodents that need per habitat. And the American Bumblebee is coming back to this site. We've got just all those lives that you can hear, and I think it's a destination for wildlife, but it's also a destination for people. And so we're bringing people to the Google prairie for these community workdays, you know, our volunteer teams, and we're working with the Googlers who are the Google employees, they come out and join us. And we have seen clogs in days and invasive species removal days, and it's just a fun, like, you can just feel the energy. That's just a small project. We've got three or four other really cool projects I could easily tell you about but I'll I'll start there.

Nic 
Yeah, and I love the south to Virginia. That's where I grew up near near Roanoke, so I'm not too far away. Anyway. That was the big city, I should say. Yeah. Okay. I'm excited to hear gonna ask you what town though.

Dwayne Estes
Lynchburg is where I grew up. Okay, well, we're working across the valley near a little town called new cast. That's where we are. Yeah. Yeah. That was really cool.

Nic 
And yeah, I mean, like, you know, familiar with all of that the Appalachian Trail and everything else. It's been outdoors wise, it was great. Put it that way.

Dwayne Estes
And a lot of people think about that part of Virginia like Virginia is for lovers. That's what all the television say. Right. Think about this, the Blue Ridge Parkway and everything in the Shenandoah National Park. People don't realize is that that entire valley that interstate 81 goes down through that was all a grassland highway 300 years ago. It's been an open grassland highway off and on since the Ice Age. So anyway, not to get off on that. But

Nic 
no, no, no, that's really cool. Yeah, yeah. No, I love it. And, and yeah, and you know, the question

[Quantifying natural history]

Laura
how does one know that? So how do you know what it was? I see how you can look up records and read people's notes. And maps and things. But how do you know beyond written human record, like what it was before?

Dwayne Estes
That's a great question. So we look at a few things. I'll give you just a couple of example data points that are out there. So one is that there's really important paleo ecology sites fossil sites recently discovered fossils of the American cheetah from southwest Virginia. Well, cheetahs live in grasslands, cheetahs run 60 miles an hour and chase extinct pronghorn antelope that live in the east. So we have that we have fossils. Those fossils are from the ISA so probably in excess of 20,000 years old. We also have fossils in that area of extinct horse musk ox, mammoth Mastodon, and if you go back even farther, let's say three to 7 million years ago, we have fossils of shovel, Tusk elephant rhinoceros so this big story begins to develop even in a very prehistoric perspective, right? And then you come more recently in time and certainly we have the first accounts written by the very first settlers of what they said about, for example, the region around Roanoke. And so we have for the South and Tennessee we have the very first written record by Europeans period, which is the Hernando Desoto expedition of 1540. And they talk about extensive savannas in north Georgia and East Tennessee, through the 1600s and 1700s. All throughout the very first writings by Europeans who came to those valleys talk about them being open. And then we can overlay that was Sol's data, a lot of the valley bottom soils in places like Western Virginia, some of the soils that have a mala Sol type soil, which is a grassland derived soil. And then finally we can look at the plant animals themselves. It's still called those places. Most of which are highly endangered and are disappearing, but they're very presence. The fact that there are endemic species in those regions that require grasslands. That is good data that suggests that some degree of open grasslands always had to be present in order for those species to exist there and some of them don't move. You know, there may be endemic plants that need grasslands or there may be endemic invertebrates. There even fish and southeastern grassland ecosystems that occupy springs and pools in the middle open prairies. So lots of evidence that we can pull from To me that's what we're drawing from as we begin to map these grasses for our project with National Geographic magazine.

Nic 
Which is, as I said, it's very, very cool stuff. And, you know, I love that, you know, there's just a component of you know, using historical data to get to where you are now, but Okay, say we you know what it's supposed to be right you got your project, and now like, what are those challenges facing you once you actually start to restore? And how do you adapt to changing environmental issues like climate change, you know, because it's a different, you know, there's different water tables than there were before all kinds of stuff like that. How do you kind of pull all those things together to do what you need? Well, you

Dwayne Estes
remember I told you about the sort of the three conditions that most of our grasses were in and they went underwent those changes, right? So we have to take those variables into account. But let's say for example, we're talking about the prairie project we're doing with Google. In that case, it's been swimming field for probably 50 years. It's been often on a cornfield before that, if you go back into the 1800s, at various times, it's been a tobacco field. And eventually you get back to about 1830 When that thing was actually a prairie. But you've got almost rot at just shy of two centuries of change. That is undergone in that case, there's no prairie to come back from. There's nothing to restore from. So we have to one know that from a collection of evidence that it was likely a grassland existed there. Secondly, then we say okay, if we have an opportunity now, Google has given us a grant to bring prairie back, but there is no seed to come back from right. We have to find out where to go to get that seed. So in that case, we go to nearby Fort Campbell army base, so we go into adjacent Kentucky right across the state line, and we harvest seeds from little bitty prairies still managed to exist on the land. Now we're very fortunate in north central Tennessee and Kentucky that we actually have a company called round stone native seed that has most of the seeds we need for ecological restoration. So in that case, we're able to buy that seed on the market. And you know, if you're in Texas, you have that opportunity. If you're in Kansas, Nebraska, you have those places, but guess what, if you're in Virginia, probably more accurately if you're in North Carolina, South Carolina, you don't have a place to go to buy the seeds you need restore those prayers. So once we have the seeds and we have a funder, right, or a willing landowner, then we come in we prepare that site and in case of a soybean field, it's very easy to restore. We use a lot of heavy machinery and tractors and you know, those kind of farm implements, and we use a no till drill to seek to put the seed in the ground and then there's a lot of follow up that you got to make sure the weeds aren't overtaking it or that invasive species are taking over. You might have to be you know, very carefully apply herbicides to that to help manage it or mow it a couple times. And now here we are, you know, three, four years have gone by, it's looking beautiful. And because we carefully managed it, we had all the right partners in place. It's that destination where the people can come and the wildlife can come back to but if you take just as a quick side, you know the meadows near Roanoke, those require a totally different strategy. For restoration. Or if you think about a pond Savanna in North Carolina, let's say out near Wilmington, somewhere that requires you had a totally different strategy even still, so we have to take all that in consideration as we rebuild southeastern grasslands.

Laura
That's really cool. It's really cool. Work makes me miss the restoration I used to do.

Nic 
It's really fascinating.

[Field Notes]

Laura
However, it's the perfect time for field notes. I want to read this like Oprah feel notes. This is the part of the show where we talk to our guests about memorable moments doing the work and we encourage our listeners, listeners, our listeners to share their stories using the hashtag field notes. So we can read them on a future episode and I promise we're going to start doing that. But Dwayne, you must have something interesting and memorable. At least one story you can share with us.

Dwayne Estes
Oh ma about field notes. Yes. Yeah, I've got I've got a decent story for you.

Dwayne Estes
So this was about 10 years ago, we were doing the kind of work we're doing now. We just weren't yet the southeastern grasslands Institute doing it. I was just me sort of in my role as a professor. And we have gotten a small grant from the National Park Service to go and work on conducting these inventories of these very remote grasslands. Now, think about that. We're going on the southeast where possibly could you go to get very remote? I mean treacherous. We're talking about rattlesnakes copperheads dangerous flash flooding, I mean all you know falling and breaking a bone. All these are like possibilities with this this site and we were doing it was part of what's called the Obed Wild and Scenic River. And you never would expect it to be grasslands in the middle of Appalachia is the river canyon, right? So we get this contract because in the bottom of this canyon, and it's walled in by sandstone cliffs in the bottom of this canyon, the floodwaters are so intense. In the winter and spring months that it actually keeps this swath of land beside the river open as miniature prairies that have been there for 1000s and 1000s of years. And so we get this contract with the National Park Service to go and survey this five mile stretch of river canyon right. And so there's all this logistics like we got to park the truck at this point we got to station another truck down here. We got to make sure we have food and water and all this stuff. And so we go all the way through this canyon one day and we're just bone tired. I mean we've we've almost stepped on 11 Copperhead we get out of this thing and I told my guys I said, look, let's just go back to the hotel 50 miles away. We'll get the truck tomorrow because we got more to do tomorrow. Right? Right. So we go to the hotel we come back the next day we do the same thing. We finish going down this long, treacherous River Gorge. We get out and we go back to our truck that is supposed to be parked at this campground at the National Park Service campground. And we get there and like it's 11 o'clock at night at the end of the second night and my man I know we parked the truck right there. Giants ford f 354. Door extended University trap. Yeah. And I go over there and the trucks not there. And I said man, so I go to this camper. It's like 11 o'clock at night and I'm gonna Hey guy. Hey, man. Have you seen a white truck that was parked over here? He says, oh do you didn't know about that? I said, what is there? No. He said, Oh, that thing burned up. Man. You should have seen it last night. About 40 feet high. No couple of kids. They came with their grandparents and we're unsupervised. And one thing led to another. There one grandparent went to the restaurant one went down to the river to fish. And these two kids decided it was a good idea to pour some gasoline on a fire and this explosion happened and as they ran away they led this gasoline Trail and the gas container right beside the front wheel of the truck. literally melted the frame and everything it was there was nothing there. We got back they took it away. And here we've been on the river for two days. totally oblivious to any so that's a I've got lots of stories like that but we'll we'll start without

Laura 
that was a good one. And it just That's great. You never know what will happen in the field.

Dwayne Estes
Let me tell you those Riverside prairies we call it a river scour. They are remarkable and that's really why we were there to begin with and they're home to so many species that occurred nowhere else in the world. They're right down. There in the bottoms of those canyons. Oh, yeah, I believe on a grassland note, right? Yeah, of course.

Nic 
Of course.

Laura
Was that the Ozark Hellbender story? Oh, no. That was that one too.

Dwayne Estes
If you had time I'll tell it to you. But otherwise, I'll keep it brief. If you want to hear it. Yeah, yeah, go. So you remember this guy? We met in New York City, right from New York. Yeah. And he comes to our conference. He says I want to help. And then the next thing he says is we'd like to give you guys $14,000 to just write a report right? So man, you know, at this time, my colleague and I, we both do a lot of side contract work. And so, you know, to a young man in his early 30s with a family like us splitting $14,000 is a big deal. You know, that meant a lot for my income. And so from like June to September of 2016. Our job was to write this report summarizing the current state of grasslands in the south. And so for the month of June goes to July goes to August and I've just got brain fog man and I mean, I've already got the money in hand. We probably already spent it. Yeah. And my buddy feels the same way. And he's, we both have brain fog. We're like, well, we got to get busy. So one day, I think I've still got like a full month left to write this report. And I'm at the Dallas Fort. Worth airport on like a Friday and I get the call from my friend now from New York City with the band Foundation. And he says, Hey, Dwayne, I'm looking forward to getting your report on Monday morning. Oh, you bet. Yes. Sir. Tell you You bet it is. The phone. And I call it Theo with saw our co founder and I said Theo, where are you? He said, Man, I'm in the Mark Twain National Forest in the Ozarks of Missouri acid Stipe wood. I'm flying from Dallas to Nashville and I'm renting a car and I'll be in that hotel with you tonight. We're writing this damn report all weekend. And so he says I can't I've got like 12 hours of field work tomorrow and Sunday. I said I don't care. I'm coming to you. And sure enough, I arrived at like nine o'clock in Arlington, Missouri at this little bitty ratty hotel. And when you commence to work in through the night, that night, he goes and does his day job the next day he's doing a contract for the Forest Service. I continue to work maybe slip 30 minutes, continue to work the second night. And guys it was the most creative energy you have. I mean, there were monster drinks and and and I literally drove back to Tennessee five hours back stayed up all night the next night. And we got their report submitted at 7am on Monday morning. Just to get our big vision survey status report to the band foundation and then so they can determine whether they wanted to give us that $20,000 planning grant which they ultimately did get. But if we had botched that we wouldn't be where we are today. So we worked about 54 hours almost straight with a couple of one or two hour naps and we're able to pull it off. So that's the Ozark what we call a hill Bender because that's actually a species that's endemic the Ozarks but for us it was a nonstop workbench.

Nic 
Oh man. Yeah. And you know, unfortunately, we've all been there. So, but yeah, you know, it's tough. We're run out of time and I hate it because there's there's lots more I want to talk about, like whether or not you are the person that picks the worst way to go into and out of the canyon because I've always found that if there's a group of people, and you have to go into a ravine someone whoever's in front picks the word spa, it's just what happens. But before we let you go, is there anything else you want to let us know?

Dwayne Estes
No, I think I think we've covered the main points. I appreciate the time to be with you guys and share a little bit of our story. Thank you.

Nic  
Yeah, absolutely. And if people want to get in contact with you let them know where they can.

Dwayne Estes
Yeah, the best thing to do is check out our website is Sae grasslands.org. That's the southeastern grasslands Institute. Check us out on Facebook, and then hit me up on LinkedIn and join us.

Nic  
Thank you so much, Dwayne.

Dwayne Estes 
Thank you guys. Appreciate it.

[Outro]

Laura
That's our show. Thank you for joining us today. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday and don't forget to subscribe rate and review. Bye.

Nic
See you everybody.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai