Kyle Lybarger Wants to Save the Planet
Source: https://www.insidehook.com/article/culture-miami/kyle-lybarger-wants-save-planet-and-kill-your-lawn
Author: Claire Young
With a forestry degree from Alabama A&M, Lybarger has spent his professional career managing forests in the southeastern United States. He spends his days helping landowners get their timber milled, orchestrating controlled burns of prairie lands and, because he can’t help himself, keeping tabs on declining ecosystems. “Ironically I’m a forester that’s passionate about grasslands,” he says. “In the Southeast, our grasslands are by far the most at risk. We’ve lost 99 percent to forestation and agriculture.” So when Lybarger began stumbling upon errant, neglected, natural grasslands at his day job, he asked the owners if he could manage what he found - for free. If native plants are our heroes, invasive plants are their arch-nemeses. These plants are both non-native and grow and spread so quickly they can disrupt and choke out natives. And the bad news is they are probably in your yard right now.