Under a program funded by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), prisoners in six states are planting sagebrush, a plant native to western grasslands that has been depleted by development and by ranchers’ preference for other grasses that make better forage for livestock. Sagebrush provides valuable habitat for big game and birds, while providing enough shade to keep moisture in the soil.
“The Oregon-based nonprofit Institute for Applied Ecology … [has] worked with 11 prisons in six states to grow sagebrush seedlings within the prison walls, nurturing them carefully until the plants are about 8 inches tall,” says Outdoor Life. “In 2016, Montana crews alone planted 11,000 of the prison-reared plants. The seedlings are planted in areas that have recently burned to get an edge against exotic weeds, or places where sagebrush is being restored.” Most of the 170 million acres of sagebrush-steppe habitat in the U.S. are managed by the BLM.