Mary Anne Andrei

For Doreen Pfost, the Platte River is a place for respite, escape, and a source of inspiration. She documented her experiences in a book and shares her reflections about the annual Sandhill Crane spring migration in this story.

In the Sandhills of Nebraska, rancher Adam Switzer respects fire. It’s one of his most important tools for controlling invasive species like the eastern red cedar, which steals precious water away from the grasses used to feed his cattle. Ride along with Adam and his crew as they execute a controlled burn on his land in preparation for the grazing season.

**Winner of a 2019 Heartland Emmy Award** North America's largest mammal, the American bison, is an enduring symbol of the Great Plains. Bison once ranged from Canada to New Mexico and from Nevada to the Appalachian Mountains. By 1889, their populations were reduced from 30 to 60 million animals to fewer than 1000. Bison were pushed to the brink of extinction by a number of factors, including over hunting by hide hunters, trains, competition with cattle and horses, and disease. Bison survived near extinction with the help of prescient Native Americans and early conservationists who worked to protect the species through effective federal wildlife management policy. Today bison are considered a conservation success story. More than 500,000 bison now live on the Great Plains in protected herds that range on national, state, local, and private lands, and in 2016 President Obama codified the bison’s place in America’s cultural imagination by signing a law making bison the country’s first national mammal.

In the fields of Nebraska, Jane Kleeb has grown a bipartisan coalition of farmers, ranchers, tribes and environmental advocates to fight an international pipeline. See the full post at BillMoyers.com: http://bit.ly/2xhtWAu

When Covid-19 hit meatworking plants in the spring of 2020, the children of those workers grew concerned about conditions in the plants. With thousands of workers testing positive, falling ill, and even dying, the children launched protests on behalf of their parents. This short video by Mary Anne Andrei and Esther Honig was produced by the Food & Environment Reporting Network in conjunction with a longform audio story on LatinoUSA. You can also read the full story here: https://thefern.org/2020/08/pandemic-and-protest-in-a-meatpacking-town/.