The National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative’s (NBCI) Fire Up Your Beef Production – A Ranchers’ Perspective of Prescribed Burning for Range Management is one of 23 videos/documentaries from nine countries accepted for a virtual fire ecology film festival that runs now through October 20. The winner will be selected by a public vote, which ends Oct. 20. The winner will be invited to show the film at an international fire ecology conference in Italy in 2021.
NBCI’s entry was filmed and produced by NBCI Grasslands Coordinator Jef Hodges. The video features ranchers who use prescribed fire on their ranches and share their experiences related to woody encroachment control, animal performance, forage production, utilization, and economics.
“Opportunities like this help put bobwhite and grassland issues in front of more people—not only the US, but around the world,” said NBCI Director John Morgan. “It also characterizes the quality and currency of content the NBCI partnership provides for its 25 state agency, federal, university, and non-profit investors.”
The film festival is in conjunction with a free two-day webinar series Oct. 20-21. Each day of the webinar series will feature a panel of international fire scientists and managers providing short presentations. The webinar series is serving as a prelude to an in-person Fire Across Boundaries conference scheduled for Fall 2021 in Florence, Italy. The winner of the film fest, which will be announced during the webinar series, will be invited to present the film at the conference.
The film festival, the webinar series, and the Fall 2021 conference are sponsored by the Pau Costa Foundation and the Association for Fire Ecology. To view and vote on the films, go to http://fireacrossboundaries.org/virtual-film-fest/.
About NBCI
Headquartered at the University of Tennessee’s Institute of Agriculture/Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries, NBCI is a science and habitat-based initiative of the National Bobwhite Technical Committee (NBTC) to elevate bobwhite quail recovery from an individual state-by-state proposition to a coordinated, range-wide leadership endeavor to restore wild bobwhites on a landscape scale. The committee is comprised of representatives of 25 state wildlife agencies, various academic research institutions and private conservation organizations. Support for NBCI is provided by the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Program, 25 state wildlife agencies, the Joe Crafton Family Endowment for Quail Initiatives, the University of Tennessee, Roundstone Native Seed, and Lotek. Media contact: John Doty, jdoty3@utk.edu
