FEATURE Holism: The Future of Range Science to meet

Global Challenges

Allan Savory and Jozua Lambrechts The Savory Institute e-mail: [email protected]

Introduction and Background

The perfect storm approaches - with global population rising, agriculture producing more eroding soil than food, and the world's vast grasslands turning to ± leaving in its wake man-made droughts, poverty and violence. I hope to inspire you to take the steps needed to avert this storm and, thus, to attain great achievements as professional researchers and managerial custodians of the vital grasslands and savannas of the world including this Mediterranean region in Jan Smuts - Harris & Ewing Collection ZKLFK \RX PHHW 7KH ZRUOG¶V VHDVRQDO Wikimedia Commons rainfall rangelands, I believe, hold the key to the survival of civilization as you will The theoretical foundation of my work learn. over the past half century was provided by Jan Smuts which makes it appropriate that Never in history has humanity faced the we meet today on his home ground where extreme dangers we do today of man- he was born on 24 May 1870 near made and . Riebeeck-Wes. It is no exaggeration to state, for reasons I will shortly explain, that the entire future As you know, Jan Smuts - lawyer, of civilization hangs on the slender thread botanist and soldier - fought a hard and of learning to manage livestock properly bitter campaign against the English as a RQ WKH ZRUOG¶V JUDVVODQGV WKDW DUH Boer War General. But he went on with desertifying rapidly on your watch. the rank of Field Marshal to command British forces and to serve as an advisor to two British cabinets during both world wars, due to English magnanimity and appreciation of his intellect. Grassroots August 2012 Vol. 12 No. 3 28 FEATURE It is no secret that the international range Agriculture is not crop production alone, science profession and your institution as commonly believed. It is the have waged a bitter war against my work, production of food and fibre from all of and holistic planned grazing, for almost WKH ZRUOG¶V ODQG VXUIDFH DQG ZDWHUV 2I half a century. I do believe our war is ending, and that your magnanimity in WKH ZRUOG¶V ODQG OHVV WKDQ  LV XQGHU inviting me to address you today is cropland production with the remaining testimony to your integrity and caring for 80% under non-cropland agriculture, the future. predominantly livestock and wildlife on the vast grasslands, savannas and man- My interest in the grasslands and made deserts of the world. In many savannas resulted from my passion to African countries the amount of land save Africa's wonderful big game animals. It did not take long to realize that under crop production is less than 10% the destruction of habitat was the greatest with some as low as 1%.In the entire danger to wildlife. From there, it was but region stretching from North Africa a small step to understanding that this through the Middle East to Pakistan and habitat destruction, threatening wildlife, on up into China, one of the most troubled did not differ from the habitat destruction in the world, many countries have only that had destroyed many civilizations, and today presents a global threat greater than 1% to 5% cropland with the rest being all the wars ever fought. grasslands essentially under livestock and wildlife and little else. Agriculture, its Importance and Impact

Global proportions of croplands and Vast region across North Africa to China non-cropland agriculture - Foley et al 2011* desertifying seriously - Google Earth

*Reprinted by permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd: Nature  Foley et al 2011, Solutions for a cultivated planet), copyright 2011 Grassroots August 2012 Vol. 12 No. 3 29 FEATURE Agriculture made civilization possible. I do not believe any informed scientist Without agriculture we could not have would dispute what I have laid out over cities and towns, a government, an army, the last five minutes. Yet, we repeatedly a university, businesses or your hear that agriculture will need to adapt to profession. But agriculture, today climate change while mainstream produces more eroding soil than food institutional scientists forge ahead even in the U.S. And agriculture, mainly promoting more of the very cropping and pastoralists, caused the major man-made range management practices causing deserts like the and Tihama. climate change. Desertification being exacerbated by annually burning more than a billion Why is your profession so important? It hectares of grassland a year in Africa is because the world (ordinary people, alone. All leading to ever increasing people working the land, political leaders droughts, floods, poverty, social developing policies etc.) looks to you for breakdown, emigration, violence, cultural expert opinion on the greatest areas of the genocide and suffering. Further, these ZRUOG¶V ODQG VXUIDFH - essentially two symptoms of faulty agriculture have WKLUGVRI(DUWK¶VODQGDUHD± and restoring nothing to do with climate change, though that land mass is crucial to averting they are now seen as effects of climate climate change, restoring fresh surface change. and ground water resources, feeding humanity and mitigating poverty, violence Agriculture, when we weigh up the soil and war. carbon emission from the destruction of soil, expanding desertification and I can think of no single profession more biomass burning, as well as the vital to the future of global civilization destruction of tropical forests and millions than range science! of cattle being fed grain, is contributing as ,QWKH¶V ZKHQ WKH VHULRXVQHVVRI much as, or maybe more than, fossil fuels WKH GHVHUWLILFDWLRQ RI WKH ZRUOG¶V to climate change. What is more serious is grasslands and savannas first dawned on that climate change is likely to continue me and I began seeking practical even in a post-fossil-fuel world unless we solutions, I was an institutional scientist address desertification and agricultural working for a government. Realizing that destruction of soil causing it to no longer political and other pressures made hold both the carbon and water it formerly scientific integrity well neigh impossible did. for me, I became an independent scientist, supporting my work in any way I could.

Grassroots August 2012 Vol. 12 No. 3 30 FEATURE I was fortunate to be able to stand on the Whole atoms forming whole molecules, shoulders of people like Jan Smuts and whole cells, organs, organisms, the French pasture scientist Andr e populations, communities and so on to a Voisin in particular. I regretted not whole universe. studying range science at university. This failing of mine, however, proved Some try to explain holism using the fortuitous. Just as the finest candle makers clich that the whole is greater than the could never have conceived of nor sum of the interconnecting parts. Whilst a developed electric lights, so too step in the right direction, this fails to breakthroughs in ecology, range science capture the idea because parts and and management were bound to come interconnections are mechanistic concepts from people on the fringe. having no counterpart in nature. Nowhere is our lack of comprehension of the Holism holistic nature of our ecosystem better illustrated than in the case of the three Einstein said he believed two great issues of today ± loss, constructs would prove important to the desertification and climate change. future of humanity - his own of relativity DQG-DQ6PXWV¶FRQVWUXFWRIKROLVP Each is being addressed separately by different institutions and even within such Holism is a concept that has been institutions ± universities, environmental hijacked to mean many things to many organizations, governments and people with little understanding. We have international agencies, and in separate had one major global paradigm shift in international conferences. Yet they are history, from the Earth being the centre of one and the same inseparable issue. our universe to the sun being at the centre. We are currently in the early stages of the Desertification simply does not occur second global and probably greater shift without . Desertification in our world view. The shift from a is only a symptom of biodiversity loss ± mechanistic to a holistic world view. i.e. the loss of plant mass and biological cover of the soil, leading to the available It was Smuts who first warned us as rainfall becoming less effective. And scientists that we would never understand desertification and soil destruction nature (the main aim of science) till we generally leads first to a change in micro- understood that nature only functioned in climate and ultimately macro-climate - a wholes and patterns. Because of our process greatly accelerated since the mechanistic worldview, the simplicity of exploitation of fossil fuels. this concept is difficult to grasp. Grassroots August 2012 Vol. 12 No. 3 31 FEATURE Without addressing soil destruction and They are self-organizing and thus able to desertification, climate change is function with components missing, and impossible to prevent or address. when problems occur they are extremely difficult to solve. That management needs to be holistic and can never be reductionist was initially Humans (including farmers and range strongly resisted but is increasingly being scientists) make decisions to achieve accepted. I also believe we all accept objectives. No conscious decision is made management should be based upon good that does not involve an objective ± grow science. maize, eradicate alien plants, control soil erosion, buy a car or run livestock. No Good Management - the need to range management action is taken without manage holistically an objective and no development project, or government policy, is formed without Let us first look at what management an objective. What is most important is that is holistic means, and then look at that all objectives need a context. Without current range science. Many today context objectives become loose cannons confuse holistic management with on the deck liable to lead to unintended integrated management in which many consequences. disciplines come together in management situations. Desirable and useful as A simple example makes the point. I combining different disciplines is, it does say I intend to light a fire (my objective) not in any way constitute holistic and ask your opinion if I should do it or management. not. You have no idea what to say as my objective lacks a context. If the context is Allow me to explain. Management, to cook our food - great, if the context is especially in agriculture, involves making to burn down our home - not so great. So and acting on decisions that are always it is with every objective of every person, dealing with social, economic and institution or government. Objectives - environmental complexity. Complexity is without adequate or appropriate context the essence of soft systems (human are loose cannons. organizations) and natural systems (nature) as defined in Systems Science. Such arrangements have emergent properties, including unpredictable emergent properties.

Grassroots August 2012 Vol. 12 No. 3 32 FEATURE The context for almost all objectives This we witness culminating in the global given our mechanistic world view, if we problems of chaos in financial and think deeply, narrow down to one of three economic systems, mounting violence, things - ³QHHG´³GHVLUH´RU³DGGUHVVLQJD increasing desertification and climate SUREOHP´ 7R KHDO DQ HURGLQJ JXOOH\ change. ZDJH D ZDU RQ ³DOLHQ´ SODQWV VHWWOH wandering pastoralists, clear invading You do not need to look far in any brush, reduce livestock, or feed starving direction to see how our focus on solving mothers and children in the Horn of problems without a holistic context leads Africa all fall into one of the three to ever escalating problems in range common contexts - need, desire or science. A hundred years of rotational and addressing a problem. other grazing systems, livestock reductions, technological interventions to With development projects, and with prevent soil erosion, poison alien plants, policies of governments or international clear encroaching brush and control agencies, we find ± if we analyze a broad gullies -- only to see desertification array of them - the context is almost expand -- increasing the severity and without exception the need to address a frequency of both drought and flood, problem. poverty, violence, migration, cultural genocide of ranchers and pastoralists. All Now, because of the holistic nature of this contributing to climate change the ecosystem, societies, cultures and unintentionally. agriculture as well as economies they all function in complex wholes and patterns. We see such unintended consequences In this unavoidable daily reality of great from objectives without an adequate FRPSOH[LW\ WKH WKUHH FRQWH[WV ,¶YH holistic context in other fields than range presented - need, desire or addressing science - examples include feeding grain problems - simply do not provide a real to livestock, producing ethanol from corn world or adequate context to make sound or now biofuels leading to land grabs and management decisions or to develop social turmoil and of course the war on sound projects and polices. The context is drugs leading to crime worse than in the generally too simplistic for the real world heyday of the prohibition of alcohol. So complexity. Thus, not surprisingly, most common is the phenomenon of of our objectives when achieved are unintended consequences, first noted by followed by unintended consequences ± HFRQRPLVWV WKDW VRPH XVH WKH WHUP ³ODZ some good some not too good. And in the RI XQLQWHQGHG FRQVHTXHQFHV´ DQG ERRNV case of development projects and have been published on the subject. government, or international policies, few objectives are ever achieved while almost all result in unintended consequences.

Grassroots August 2012 Vol. 12 No. 3 33 FEATURE Defining an appropriate holistic context in This was simply because all of their any managed situation is not difficult. It objectives lacked a holistic context. Those involves people describing the lives they American scientists covered almost all the want to lead based on their deepest same sort of policies being advocated in cultural, spiritual and material values ± most nations including your own by your followed by forms of production to ensure profession. Similar work I did with such lives and a description of their life- officials in Lesotho and India led to supporting environment in such condition similar conclusions. that it would sustain such lives for thousands of years. Now let me move on to my second point earlier, namely that management Given a holistic context, as we do when needs to be not only holistic, but based on using the holistic framework in good science. management situations, we find objectives can be assessed more sensibly, Good Science - the brittleness scale achieved more easily and do not as easily lead to unintended consequences. This we I believe using currently available have observed over the many years that it knowledge, good science and defining a took for me and the thousands of people holistic context for policy and project working with me to develop the holistic objectives, we can reverse agricultural framework. And we have observed this degradation of the environment in about a encouraging success from households to third of the world's land where farms, ranches, pastoral communities and atmospheric humidity is well distributed in the analysis of a great many projects throughout the year. and policies. However, that is not enough in the During the Carter Administration the greater two thirds of the world of a U.S. Department of Agriculture engaged seasonal rainfall nature. This is because me to put some 2,000 scientists through current management practices and training in the analysis of policies and policies dealing with these vast areas are projects using the holistic framework. not founded on good science but rather on These officials, and university faculty deep beliefs that have assumed scientific members, evaluated many of their own validity. projects and policies dealing with symptoms of the serious desertification of the United States - increasing droughts, floods, noxious weed invasions, brush encroachment, soil erosion, disappearing wildlife, failing rural towns and more. They found no project or policy that would not worsen situation due to unintended consequences.

Grassroots August 2012 Vol. 12 No. 3 34 FEATURE Let us look at the tools available in range While these tools have worked very well science to manipulate our environment at in environments where humidity was large, including reversing desertification spread throughout the year, unfortunately to address climate change. Humans have there is no tool here that could prevent, or had two tools for about a million years ± reverse, desertification in two thirds of the technology and fire ± to impact our world where humidity was not spread environment. Technology includes throughout the year ± the savannas, everything from sticks and stones to axe grasslands, Mediterranean and arid areas or spear to hunt, spade to plant, of the world. Thus, It is not surprising that herbicides, genetic engineering, tractors, Elisabet Soutouris describes us ± when ploughs etc. seen from space - DV D ³GHVHUW PDNLQJ VSHFLHV´ About 15,000 or so years ago, with the advent of domestication of plants and The reason desertification was animals, we developed the idea of using inevitable and defied all range science rest, or non-disturbance, as a tool. Early attempts to understand or reverse it, and examples were shifting agriculture and also why discovering it's cause evaded us pastoralists moving livestock. Today we for thousands of years, is simple and see this in concepts like national parks logical to explain in hindsight. It is where we leave it to nature, and we see it EHFDXVHWKHEXONRIWKHZRUOG¶VODQGLVRI in removing or reducing livestock as seasonal rainfall nature and no technology practiced by your government or that of even imaginable, fire or resting the land the US, Israel or China. can maintain the effectiveness of the available rainfall the way that vast grazing Over all of human existence the only herds and pack hunting predators once other tool we developed was using small did. Today in practical terms only much organisms to make cheese, wine, vilified livestock properly managed to medications, compost, compost teas etc. mimic these natural patterns can do what is required on the scale and with the Train in any profession in any frequency required. Let's investigate this university in the world and you are further. unknowingly trained to use human creativity, money and labour through The vast grassland, savannah regions technology, fire or non-disturbance/rest to experience seasonal rainfall and thus dry deal with our environment at large. or dormant periods in every year ± high or low rainfall. They do not enjoy the more even distribution of humidity of even low rainfall areas in much of Europe or some,

mainly coastal, areas of the U.S.

Grassroots August 2012 Vol. 12 No. 3 35 FEATURE In such seasonal environments perennial What follows varies with amount of grass plants, and their dead litter, provide rainfall but generally leads to healthy most of the soil cover and more so as grasslands shifting to some form of rainfall gets lower and insufficient for a woody or tap-rooted plants and bare soil full canopy of tree cover. Such grass covered with algae. As plant spacing plants co-evolved with their living soils, opens up and bare soil increases, the with vast herding herbivore populations available rainfall becomes less effective and pack hunting predators. Most leading to desertification. This process perennial grasses have growing points happens more rapidly where rainfall is FORVH WR JURXQG OHYHO RXW RI KDUP¶V ZD\ lowest. because they co-existed with billions of grazing herbivores. From a holistic Good Science - the predator-prey perspective one can say they used to relationship function in wholes or patterns of soil, soil life, plants, herbivores, predators and In such environments the functioning more in functional communities whole in the past included those masses constantly sequestering vast amounts of (billions) of large herding herbivores and carbon and water in the soil and playing a their pack hunting predators, ensuring role in cycling the necessary ambient bunching for protection, and constantly atmospheric carbon to all life forms. Soil moving ± breaking soil capping, was the greatest fresh water storage place trampling down plat material, grazing, ± greater than all lakes, rivers and dams. dunging and urinating and planting of seeds - to maintain overall soil cover and Grass plants grow profusely during the grassland health. growing season, but every year as the atmosphere dries off most of the plant As humans over much of the world ± above ground dies. This plant mass dying over a very long period of time - killed off every year during a compressed period of most large herbivores, using their ability the year, needs to decay biologically and to organize through language, driving rapidly for growth to continue animals over cliffs, into wetlands, uninterrupted in the following season. surrounding with fire or using stone However in the absence of adequate driving walls into killing grounds and herbivores digesting lignin in a symbiotic more, they soon learned that the relationship with micro-organisms, the grasslands shifted from rapid biological old material that stands upright breaks decay to gradual oxidation and weathering down gradually through oxidation and and it was but small step to using fire to weathering. This gradual chemical/ maintain grasslands. physical breakdown leads to smothering of growth points and the death of many grass plants.

Grassroots August 2012 Vol. 12 No. 3 36 FEATURE The other tool acceptable to your profession and mainstream science is some aspect of technology but no technology imaginable is likely to ever replace biological breakdown and decay over so much of the world every single year, nor is it needed when animals can do all we need.

So, to avoid or reverse desertification Grassland oxidizing and shifting to mainstream scientists are left with only woody vegation following 15 years of the tool of resting land. This is done, to resting from grazing. Atlanta Research varying degrees, under the name of Station, - Photo: Allan Savory ³FRQVHUYLQJ´ ODQG RU ³OHDYLQJ LW WR QDWXUH´ )RUWXQDWHO\ WKHUH DUH PDQ\ ,QWKLV¶VSLFWXUH ZHVHHVORZO\ research plots, long rested from oxidizing grass, dark grey to black in livestock, as well as national parks and colour, after fifteen years of no areas in seasonal rainfall livestock leading to nature filling the environments that we can study. vacuum with woody plants in high but seasonal rainfall in Zimbabwe on the Atlanta Research Station.

Unfortunately, fire is merely rapid oxidation that while it removes the dead mass of plant life stifling grass growth thus keeping adult plants alive, it also leads to exposed soil between plants, massive atmospheric pollution and to less effectiveness of the available Chaco Canyon New Mexico, managed rainfall, or desertification over time. by US National Parks Service following 70 years of resting from all grazing and vast sums spent on soil conservation measures - Photo: Allan Savory

Grassroots August 2012 Vol. 12 No. 3 37 FEATURE If we do study these sites, we note Long ago range scientists, presumably extreme desertification as we see in this observing the damaging effects of resting picture of land managed by the US such environments, realized the beneficial National Parks Service. This land has effects of millions of animal hooves. In been rested for over 70 years while fact, as you know, because of this having vast amounts of money spent on realization, but also a belief that livestock many technological interventions to caused desertification, American prevent soil erosion. Desertification as we universities developed giant machines, see is a bad as anything in Africa or such as the Dickson Imprinter, to mimic China. That rest, or inadequate the essential periodic high disturbance of disturbance, led to desertification escaped large herbivores. us because of our beliefs. I also fell into this trap for years and am today Many of those range scientists also embarrassed by papers I published in developed countless ways to reseed dying which I, like other scientists, interpreted grasslands and the machinery for a the data to fit our beliefs. In the Tuli plethora of soil conservation measures. Circle on the Botswana border thousands Today one has only to drive around the of cattle died as the land degraded in the desertifying United States to see millions ¶VDQGZHWKRXJKWLWZRXOGUHFRYHU of hectares of failed check dams, contour But then some 50,000 head of game died ridges, reseeded ranges and failed and it became even worse, and I published poisoning and mechanical removal of so- a paper noting that the land had degraded called noxious plants. Despite all these to a point of no return. How wrong I was techniques the desertifying grasslands to learn when later we were able to restore continue their march toward woody plants perennial grassland in such areas using and bare soil, drought, flood, poverty and nothing but greatly increased numbers of cultural genocide of ranching cattle and holistic planned grazing. communities.

I also did the research and wrote the Travel hundreds of miles through the first reports saying we would have to cull desertifying United States and you will elephants causing damage in newly see a handful of cattle on over-rested formed preserves due to excessive ranges. At the same time, hundreds of numbers. A team of scientists formed to thousands of cattle are crowded into evaluate my work agreed with me. We feedlots being fed grain. And, this model subsequently shot some 40,000 elephants of cattle management is being spread in Zimbabwe only to see the situation around the world. worsen. We were all wrong. Grassroots August 2012 Vol. 12 No. 3 38 FEATURE Any relatively intelligent person knows Secondly, although the idea that that this model creates many unintended is connected to numbers of consequences from excessive pollution, animals is the foundation of range resistance to antibiotics, meat of low science, I have never been able to find a nutritional value, public reaction against single peer-reviewed paper that in any eating meat and millions of humans way connects these two things - undernourished as grain goes to feed overgrazing of plants and number of animals that cannot digest it well. The animals. Throughout these studies, the unintended consequence of the objective assumption has been consistently made of grain feeding cattle still not understood that any overgrazing of plants occurring is the consequent increased desertification meant too many animals were on the land. of the US rangelands due to too few Belief assumed scientific validity - despite livestock overgrazing plants while over- lack of evidence. resting the land.

Good Science - time versus animal numbers

When I first realized we had no option but to use livestock in high numbers instead of machines and planting grasses, shrubs and trees to reverse desertification, I still faced the problem of overgrazing. As you know, overgrazing is blamed for causing desertification. The range science position, as you also know, is supported by thousands of peer reviewed studies of grazed and overgrazed rangelands in countless rotational and other grazing systems. This research presented two difficulties when viewed holistically. First, rangeland cannot be grazed or overgrazed. Only plants can be grazed or overgrazed, and so much more than grazing of plants is happening on Andr Voisin* rangelands supporting animals.

* Reprinted with permission from Mme.Marthe Rosine Voisin

Grassroots August 2012 Vol. 12 No. 3 39 FEATURE Fortunately, the French pasture researcher modern rotational and others grazing Andr e Voisin provided the needed systems ± had accelerated desertification breakthrough when he established that even in higher rainfall seasonal plants became overgrazed only when environments. Early Afrikaaner farmers exposed to grazing for too long, or re- had noted this but were ridiculed. This exposed after insufficient recovery time includes John Acocks, the botanist who between grazings. And, this information ILUVW VWDWHG LQ WKH ¶V WKDW 6RXWK was published in five major languages $IULFD ZDV ³RYHUJUD]HG´ EXW sixty years ago now. Changing animal ³XQGHUVWRFNHG´ numbers only changed the number of plants overgrazed or over rested. On The essence of the problem was finding relooking at all the research available a way to address the complexity of from earlier plant physiologists, as some dealing with the needs of livestock, of the first range scientists seemed to be, I wildlife, plants, soils, soil organisms and IRXQG 9RLVLQ¶V SRVLWLRQ FRQVWDQWO\ erratic weather simultaneously while still supported and never refuted. Finally, I making a profit. Grazing systems were could see that managing the time the designed to simplify this complexity, and plants were exposed to the animals was pastoralist herders had never accounted the way to greatly increase livestock for it adequately. numbers without overgrazing plants. And, if that could be done, we might also , ILUVW WULHG 9RLVLQ¶V UDWLRQDO JUD]LQJ achieve the amount of trampling and Voisin, having understood the failings of grazing required, and that I had observed , had developed rational on healthier land still supporting large grazing ± meaning thought out or planned herds of wildlife with pack hunting predators. and never simply rotated. While rational grazing had proven so successful in the Using the science to improve relative simplicity of European more management - the need for holistic humid climates and pastures, I quickly ran planned grazing into trouble dealing with the greater complexity of seasonal rainfall Realizing that livestock could be used rangelands, where we were also to mimic nature's herds of old I still did integrating wildlife and croplands - and not know how we might do this. Herding dealing with very erratic rainfall while seemed out of the question with some also beginning to incorporate social and 15,000 years of highly knowledgeable economic factors. pastoralists constantly moving

Grassroots August 2012 Vol. 12 No. 3 40 FEATURE Ecologists, wildlife and range scientists Holistic Management to semi-literate had never addressed such complexity in pastoralists and agro-pastoralists from management. So, rather than reinvent the Zimbabwe, Namibia to Kenya, Somalia wheel, I simply took the hundreds of and Ethiopia. years of European experience as taught at Sandhurst, the British Royal Military Let me use but one example of how Academy, and the planning process they planned grazing restored degraded had found best suited to immediate grassland. battlefield conditions. Military planners having established a process of building the best possible plan at any moment through simple sequential steps building on one another, I had only to develop a chart to plot the emerging plan that could cater for the dimensions of time, area, numbers and behaviour for which military planning did not cater. Planning on a chart also provided other advantages such as the ability to plan grazings backwards at critical times, to plan animal moves through a minefield of other Entire ranch was devoid of grass when some appeared on recently graded airstrip considerations concerning wildlife, in 1978. Photo: Allan Savory weather, fire, cropping and other land uses. It also provided me with the ability to plan constantly for droughts on the Here is a picture of my plane on a basis of time not areas of land, thus recently graded airstrip in the Karoo area keeping production of both animals and QHDU%HDXIRUW:HVWLQWKH¶V$VZH land higher than conventional planning know from the historical record, and work for drought reserve grazing. All of these of John Acocks, this was once grassland necessary things no imaginable rotational teeming with millions of antelope of or other grazing system could address. many types but with low and erratic UDLQIDOO %\ WKH ¶V WKLV UDQFK ZDV RQO\ Holistic planned grazing as it has able to support a few sheep living on become known was immediately bushes and we actually measured 6 successful in restoring grassland health km from one annual grass plant to the under increased livestock numbers and next. has continued to be successful wherever used since the 1960s. Today holistic planned grazing is being practiced on well over 20 million hectares on four continents and it is being taught by the Africa Centre for

Grassroots August 2012 Vol. 12 No. 3 41 FEATURE Some annual and a few perennial grasses I should mention that in the 1960s apart appeared after the grader making the from the international Charter Trial in airstrip had broken the hard capped soil which we established that a doubling of surface, so we took the picture. On this livestock numbers could be safely ranch we then doubled the livestock conducted with planned grazing, we also numbers using holistic planned grazing to ran an "Advanced Project" on Liebig begin reversing the desertification and we Ranch in the southern lowveld before based all timing on the needs of grass expanding planned grazing too widely. plants not desert bushes. For this project designed to push the stocking rate to what was considered extreme, the worst land possible was selected. Land on which there was not a single perennial grass plant to be seen in over 100 mile drive. On this land we increased the stocking rate by 300% in the first year. And over the following 8 years with planning of the grazing done twice a year it became productive perennial grassland once more, producing five times as much meat per acre as the surrounding 220,000 acre control area.

Grassland at same site in 2012. No range management measures, Photo David Jack. feeding or seeding were required and the total cost of water and fencing was $1.80 per acre. Now in 2012 the ranch looks as we see in this picture, with the old airstrip in the This project was then subjected to three background. Once more grassland is years of rotational grazing when the returning because of increased livestock managers stopped using the holistic properly managed. planned grazing process using one to two day grazing periods at the same stocking rate. By the fourth year so many plants were seriously overgrazed that it had to be destocked entirely.

Grassroots August 2012 Vol. 12 No. 3 42 FEATURE A great lesson was learned in that even And here I need to make an appeal to you experienced managers in that case could to try to understand the difference not substitute planned grazing as a between a planning process that can never process with a rotational grazing system. be replicated and prescriptive grazing systems that can be replicated for I believe, after nearly fifty years of research. Over the years I have observed consistent success with holistic planned vast sums of money and man hours of grazing in many countries and through all effort researching and publishing papers manner of seasons, that we can assume it comparing grazing systems that could safe to replace grazing systems with a never work. There is nothing wrong with planning process to deal with complexity. management systems when used in all situations where things are predictable. Examples are inventory management, vehicle maintenance, accounting systems and the like in any business. However no business would endeavour to run on the basis of a management system to deal ZLWK LW¶V GD\ WR GD\ FRPSOH[LW\ DQG unpredictability. Likewise no grazing system can ever account for the complexity involved in managing soils, plants, livestock wildlife, erratic weather, cultural and social issues, economy, fires and more.

Liebigs Advanced Project, Zimbabwe, In all my years of planning grazing, designed to push holistic planned over four continents and many countries grazing to see if failure could be caused from small mixed farms to giant ranches under extreme pressure, before and pastoral rangelands, I have never seen widespread adoption. Land representing two plans the same. Some plans involve the worst that could be identified in the many herds, others one, some have most country was selected, with not a single perennial grass found within many animals moving through paddocks, or miles. Cattle were then increased 300% herded using virtual paddocks. Some using holistic planned grazing, resulting plans have some animals on continuous in the formation of healthy perennial grazing to allow other animals to move grassland Photo: Allan Savory faster. Some have herds entering a paddock as another herd vacates it and some have herds allocated certain areas of land and so on. Sometimes the animals are grazing plants severely but most times not doing so.

Grassroots August 2012 Vol. 12 No. 3 43 FEATURE We even developed one plan with a single Condemnation of livestock cow herd of 500 and single sire bulling using one bull to 90 cows. The only name In summary let me return to the that fits what is done is holistic planned vilification of livestock. Nothing is grazing. And this is what ranchers and endangering humanity and currently pastoralists world wide are gradually causing more suffering and violence more being taught to do when the objective or than this condemnation of the only thing goal of running livestock of any sort is that can practically and realistically within a holistic context. DGGUHVV GHVHUWLILFDWLRQ DQG LW¶V UROH LQ climate change if properly managed. Your The results I am personally most profession is strangely silent on the excited about are those where we are matter. Let me deal with the main reasons running 400% more livestock on planned one hears and answer each argument grazing fully integrated with a substantial made. wildlife population and we see in these before and after pictures at the Africa Livestock overgrazing causes land Centre for Holistic Management in degradation or desertification. Yes, Zimbabwe. livestock are certainly causing land degradation or desertification, but entirely due to the way we have always run them. Run as we have done for centuries without holistic context and simplified grazing systems, livestock have led to both carbon and water moving from soils to atmosphere. But run in a holistic context mimicking nature and by planning their grazing, livestock result in both carbon and water being sequestered in grassland soils. There is no option but to use properly managed livestock if we want to address desertification, heal the Liebigs Advanced Project four years after land and make rainfall effective. abandoning holistic planned grazing in favour of high intensity rotational grazing system Photo: Allan Savory

Grassroots August 2012 Vol. 12 No. 3 44 FEATURE Livestock emit methane. Yes they do, as While planting trees results in carbon does any animal or micro-organism moving from atmosphere to plants almost capable of digesting or decaying lignin all such carbon is subsequently released that humans cannot digest. New research over the life of the trees to maintain the is suggesting healthy grassland soils vital ambient carbon cycle vital to all life. include methantrophic bacteria that And helpful as tree planting is, it cannot oxidize methane. The resultant carbon address desertification where rainfall is dioxide having no more carbon than the too low for full soil cover under trees with original cattle feed contained. Assume me WKHLUOLWWHU6RZHDUHOHIWZLWKWKHZRUOG¶V wrong. Assume livestock emit ten times grasslands and livestock properly the methane they do. We still have no managed as the key to survival of option but to use properly managed civilization as we know it. The main place livestock to address desertification and where we can address drought, flood, carbon retention in the largest areas of the poverty and violence while sequestering ZRUOG¶V ODQG ZLWKRXW XQLQWHQGHG WKH ZRUOG¶V OHJDF\ FDUERQ ORDG ZLWKRXW consequences. any fear of unintended consequence ± is the realm of your chosen profession. Livestock consume too much water. This is true when cattle are run in factory- No technological solution can ever, as I like settings being force fed grain that have explained, reverse desertification they did not evolve to eat, and when we and any such solution to sequestering factor in all the water consumed in FDUERQ ZKHQ GHDOLQJ ZLWK QDWXUH¶V growing the feed and lost on monoculture complexity on this magnitude, is an grain fields with over 95% bare soil objective without holistic context and thus pumping water out of the soil night and carries a high chance of unintended day through capillary action and consequences. evaporation. Cattle properly managed on the land increase the effectiveness of the I hope that I have given you much food available rainfall resulting in greater soil for thought. I have made many strong water retention far in excess of any water statements that no scientist in his or her cattle could ever consume. right mind would do unless basing everything stated on the best science Summary available. The years of academic attack and ridicule, without highlighting any Finally, as the perfect storm approaches flaws in either the science or the planning we have not only to reverse desertification methodology have been hard to endure RQ WKH ZRUOG¶V UDQJHODQGV EXW DOVR WR but have also had the unintended sequester the excessive or legacy load of consequence of sharpening the rigour of atmospheric carbon. thought and practice.

Grassroots August 2012 Vol. 12 No. 3 45 FEATURE We are in what I call the greatest, and if lost, the last war humans will fight. The war to learn to live in harmony with ourselves and our environment. And you in the range science profession have a major role to play. It is a role and responsibility you will fail to carry out if you continue business as usual studying and developing grazing systems that do not address social, economic or environmental complexity.

I believe that some of your leaders are very aware of this and that is why they so magnanimously invited me to address your gathering today for which I thank them.I believe a whole new world of opportunity is opening up for you; An opportunity to live truly meaningful lives Allan Savory leading vast change serving the needs of The Savory Institute our nations and the world. Opportunity to do exciting new research of which so much is needed in support of management; opportunity to break discipline boundaries in management in the spirit of holism. ³0DQDJHPHQWQHHGV to be Holistic and can Earlier I mentioned biodiversity loss, QHYHUEH5HGXFWLRQLVW´ desertification and climate change being one issue, and not three barely associated issues. What profession could pull all together better than yours? Promoting such change against institutional inertia and paradigm paralysis to save mankind will require keen minds, moral courage and leadership from you. I envy the opportunity before you to rise to the occasion and I wish you success.

Grassroots August 2012 Vol. 12 No. 3 46 FEATURE

Left ground largely bare for over 30 years regardless of seasons and right following heavy impact with cattle and holistic planned grazing. Pictures taken October two seasons apart. Dimbangombe Ranch, Zimbabwe - Photos Allan Savory

Left bare and eroding for more than thirty years. Right following very heavy animal impact and holistic planned grazing four seasons later. Dimbangombe Ranch, Zimbabwe Photos Allan Savory.

a) Top left, grassland close to river. b) top right, typical river view in Hwange communal lands, Zimbabwe. c) lower left, grassland close to river and d) lower right, river flow on Dimbangombe Ranch, Zimbabwe. Pictures taken same day at end of rains when land at LW¶VEHVWWKURXJKRXWWKH\HDU Photos Allan Savory Grassroots August 2012 Vol. 12 No. 3 47