Initiatives to foster native wildflowers, grasses and shrubs are turning utility corridors into wildlife corridors.
From the article:
"Power lines zig-zag across North America, strung between towers that rise 100 feet or more into the sky. Beneath lie vast swaths of often barren land up to 100 feet wide and stretching for hundreds of miles. “I think that there’s an incredible opportunity to use these really large tracts of land that cross our landscapes for good,” says Eliza Meyer, program administrator for the Right-of-Way Stewardship Council (ROWSC). Founded in 2013, ROWSC provides accreditation to power companies that work to improve the biodiversity of the land along utility corridors (under power lines or above pipelines). [...] “There’s a lot of regulation that dictates what can grow, and how high it can grow,” Meyer says. With this in mind, ROWSC promotes practices that foster low-growing, native vegetation, such as wildflowers, grasses and shrubs. According to Meyer, this type of vegetation not only protects power lines but also creates new habitats for pollinators, small mammals and birds, and helps outcompete non-native vegetation once established."
One study comparing the land under power lines in mowed versus non-mowed conditions found that insect diversity doubled and plant diversity increased by 150%.
