Conservation
The All You Need Institute (AYNI) sits on the Sandhills of Mississippi in the Piney Woods region, part of what was historically a band of longleaf pine savannah stretching from East Texas to Southern Virginia.
When you enter through our cattle gate as the asphalt road ends, you come upon the start of Springhead Branch, the literal springhead of our local watershed. This basin makes perfect grounds for beavers to place their dams, a keystone holding a thriving wetland community in place. We recommend you stop here to gaze at this charming marsh dotted with water lillies…
Our Conservation Philosophy
The indigenous people of the Southeast, on our land the Choctaw (Chahta), intentionally used fire to encourage an herbaceous ground cover, which brought herds of bison to feed on this diverse understory salad mix. As the bison grazed they also trampled seeds into the ground and deposited fertilizer, coaxing the deep rooted grasses to shoot up again once they moved on. As woody plants crept back in, fire was rekindled to set the clock back to understory plants, while also releasing other nutrients in the ashes. So the cyclical succession of fertility, plants, and animals went on, feeding the people and ecosystem in a kind of light-handed animal husbandry/game management practice that the Europeans failed to even see.