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The future wildlife biologist had a dreamof becoming a Rhodesian game war-den. Even though he knew the mini-

mum age was 25 (due to dealing withdangerous animals), he got an exception andstarted at age 20. “I only had a B.S. degree,majoring in botany and zoology,” AllanSavory says, “but I was fanatical.” He wasinterested in everything, but thought collegea waste of time. One professor told his class,“You are useless little buggers when youcome in and useless little buggers when youleave, but we will teach you how to learn.”

Savory always knew how to learn andconstantly explored his beloved Rhodesianbush in southern Africa. When trackersbecame afraid to follow man-eating lionsand told him they’d lost the spoor, he learnedhow to track. Passionate, insatiable, relentlessand sometimes annoying, he often travelsbarefoot. As a former soldier and statesman,he fears nothing—except, perhaps, bureau-cracy and nonprofit boards of directors.

In more than 50 years of working withland and animals, he’s watched constant

deterioration: ever expanding bare ground,dried water sources, overgrazed plants. Hewrote reports on his research, and afterintense discussion and public exposure,sometimes found out he was wrong. But thatnever fazed him. He just read more,researched more, and tested his analyses overand over again.

His introduction to the game departmentin Kafue Park was driving through with parkranger Len Vaughn in a Dodge Power Wagonand flicking out matches, setting it on fire.“The result of that was bareground.” (The U.S. ForestService seems to have thesame view. A deputy chieftold RANGE they weren’tconcentrating on manage-ment of overgrown forestsbut wanted “to let it burn.”)

Soon after startingwork, Savory began to real-ize that what he’d been taught and what hewas seeing were very different. The gamewardens’ lives revolved around stopping

poaching. “I realized that the poachers werenot as dangerous as we biologists who weredestroying wildlife habitat.” He began hisown education and studied fields that he’dnever trained in. “I was desperately seekinganswers—reading books and articles on eco-nomics and statistics and range manage-ment.” He was forced out of his job in thegame department when his analysis wentagainst the prevailing view and he would notback down.

“I did the research and wrote a report onwhat I now know waswrong, where I proved therewere too many elephantsand too many buffalo. I’dworked out that in thenational parks we wouldhave to cull game and thatwas an extremely unpopularidea. Nobody in the worldhad suggested culling ani-

mals in a national park and I was saying weare going to have to kill them to prevent totaldestruction of the game and the vegetation.”

Saving the WorldGood management and the peculiar and beautiful blessings of bovines.

By C.J. Hadley

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Savory believed the long-term survival ofwildlife depended on their habitat and thehabitat was deteriorating badly. His researchwas submitted to an expert panel thatagreed. The killing went ahead with thou-sands of animals culled but the land gotworse, not better. “They had concluded that Iwas right. But it turned out we were allwrong.”

Good cowboys have what’s called “try.”Savory also has that, so when he gets intel-lectually bucked off, he gets back on. “If youbelieve in something deeply, and it was mycountry and I can say it in my old age now—any younger I would have been ashamedto say it—but I’ve sat on the banks of theUmzingwane River surrounded by bareground, trying to work out what to do, andthe river came down in flood with treestumbling in the water and I just sat thereand cried. That was my country beingdestroyed, so my feelings ran very, verydeep. I fully sympathized with the WorldWildlife Fund and The Nature Conservancyand George Wuerthner and all these peoplewho condemn livestock because I did too. Iwas on public record saying I was preparedto shoot damn ranchers because of whatthey were doing to the land. Then I foundagain that I was wrong, that we had to havetheir livestock.”

By the time he was 26, he had helpeddamage even more land with his conven-tional thinking. “We had very, very healthyland with wonderful reed beds and beautifulriparian areas and we made national parksout of those areas. There were people beatingdrums and firing muzzle-loading guns tokeep animals away from their crop bedsalong the river. This was old Africa with lionsroaring at night. More than once in my lifeI’ve seen 40 lions in a day just walking onfoot. I watched all that deteriorating and stillcouldn’t work out why. I concluded therewere too many elephants and buffalo. Assoon as we made these healthy places intonational parks, immediately the damagebegan. The reed beds began to disappear. Alot of the vegetation along the river began todisappear. I never blamed weather ordrought but attributed it to too many ele-

phants, just like range scientists blame toomany cattle. After rain, grasses green up butthat’s not recovery, that’s just fluctuation invegetation and the soil is still deterioratingand it’s still bare ground between the plants.”

As a researcher, Savory was constantlyprobing, spending thousands of hours sittingon his own in the bush, staring into hiscampfire trying to do mental experiments.“Okay, today I saw this. Why?” He finally fig-ured out soil was the key issue and discoveredthat the healthiest soil was where there werethe biggest populations of natural wildlifewith intact pack-hunting predators.

His passion for his work and commit-ment to improving the world for people andanimals is obvious, but endless attacks on

him have bruised. “The greatest crime ayoung scientist can commit is to actually dis-cover something new. What I found, particu-lary in America and South Africa, was thatyour peers tear you apart, not your work. I’vebeen called a character, a guru, a charlatanand worse, and asked what my motives are. Ihave begged academics to pull my workapart, to show me where I am wrong. Insteadthey get personal and even criticize the Eng-lish cap I wear.”

One time he was so frustrated he said toan academic group haranguing him: “OK, Iam a total shit and I am incorrigible andyou’ll never be able to change me. I’ve trod-den all over your toes, I’ve hurt your egos,and I’m beyond repair, so let’s leave me alone,

ABOVE: Woman and sons at the employees compound at Dimbangombe Ranch. It consists of mostly mudhuts and a couple of taps offering community water. Water heating and cooking is done on open firesunder a thatch roof. The Centre is building new ablution huts for showers. Its goal is to have a tap besideevery home. “Most African men have two or three wives; one guy had 11 wives and 57 children,” a farmersays. “Having children is a badge of honor. They live off very little, grow some crops. Half the country isHIV-positive.” BELOW: Impala at a water hole, with a kudu in the middle. They need to get to water daily. OPPOSITE: RANGE publisher C.J. Hadley offers a snack to Dojiwe (“lost orphan”), a tame baby elephantat Dimbangombe Ranch. Her mother was killed and two herders take turns walking with her from sunupto sundown. They kraal her at night to protect her from predators.

LEFT: Cattle are moved in a tight bunch, foragingonly where ranch manager Shane Bartlett tells hisherders to take them. They run on a strictmanagement plan. There are eight herders, twoshifts during the day of three or four. Half stay atthe temporary kraals at night to protect thelivestock from lions. The kraals are moved often.

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no more attacks on me. Here is the holisticframework that we are learning, there it is, upon the wall. Now I want you to tell me wherethat is wrong. Attack that.” A highly educatedgroup was present but there was total silence.[See p. 44.]

“When something new is discovered,everybody attacks it, everybody is against it.Then you get a period where it becomes con-troversial, with some praising it, some con-demning it. Then you get a period whereeverybody says, ‘Oh, we always knew that. Wedid that all along.’ For the past five years, I’veheard people say there is nothing new aboutthis. I just thank God I lived at the time I didbecause at least they didn’t burn me at thestake.”

Savory is anxious to move beyond thedestructive attacks which he realizes are notpersonal but simply a matter of how humanshave always responded to paradigm-shiftingideas. His receipt of Australia’s internationalBanksia Award in 2003, given to the person“doing the most for the environment on aglobal scale,” did much to begin changingacademic attitudes.

Many environmentalists still believe—asdid young Savory and much proof to thecontrary—that livestock are causing deserti-fication and land degradation. “That belief isancient,” Savory says. “Hebrew texts blamed

the nomads for causing the desert. They weremoving their cattle in mobs, people havebeen herding now for over 6,000 years andthe secret to what we are doing isn’t the herd-ing, it isn’t mob grazing or short-durationgrazing. The secret to it is the simple plan-ning process that can deal with complexityand make socially, environmentally, and eco-nomically right decisions for the people, thepastoralists, the ranchers. It’s no good herd-ing your cattle if you go broke. It’s no goodherding your cattle if you are destroying theland as pastoralists have been doing for thou-sands of years. Those ancient herders createdthe great deserts of the world.”

When Savory went to Pakistan for a job, hewas shown a spring the nomads have beencoming to for 5,000 years. “The spring hadnever gone dry, but officials blamed the dev-astation around it on too many animals. Pas-toralists had arrived at this water point withsheep, goats and camels and so on, unpackingtheir tents, kids running around, animalsmilling around. It had a high level of animalimpact and no rest. Almost every plant hadbeen overgrazed. For about 100 yards awayfrom the spring the ground was really tram-pled. You couldn’t hide a rabbit at 200 yards.But we couldn’t put our feet on the groundwithout touching a living plant. It was downto one species that could resist overgrazing

and that was it but with tight ground cover.” As they traveled away from the water, he

asked how the pastoralists behaved. “Theyare extremely knowledgeable,” the guide said.“They herd their stock in a tight bunch andhave been protecting them from wolves forthousands of years.” Savory coined a newphrase and calls that “partial rest” because thestock are there but the predators that oncekept them bunched are not and thus there’snot enough disturbance to benefit orimprove the soil. They agreed to stop everymile and sample, and as they got fartherfrom the spring, the taller the grass became.“There were more species in it, but the spacesbetween the plants got wider and wider. Wetook the last picture 16 miles from the springand you could have built one of my mudhuts on that bare ground and not touched aplant. The ground was hard, black andcapped with algae. It would shed moisture,evaporate moisture—in other words, severedesertification. There were not enough ani-mals so they had been minimizing overgraz-ing but they had not been maximizingdisturbance.”

In 1979, Rhodesia became an indepen-dent Zimbabwe under President RobertMugabe. Over the next 20 years, it becameknown as the breadbasket of Africa. Then, adecade ago, agriculture production plum-meted when productive white African farm-ers who employed thousands of familieswere forced to leave their properties, many ofwhich had been in the family since the 1800s.Over 60 percent of the farms had been

CLOCKWISE FROM RIGHT: Villagers wash upafter working in the bush. ➤African children

entertain themselves with very little. ➤Aherder guides the goats and cattle to the feedhe wants them to eat and the land he wants

them to disturb. With the right plan,extraordinary improvement is made.

Dimbangombe Ranch needs more cattle. It isrunning 480 head and needs to get to 800 to beself financing on the ranch side—a thousand

would be better for the soil. If you’d like tohelp, contact asavory@savoryinstitute.com

or info@achmonline.org.

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bought after independence with the govern-ment’s assurance that the land was not need-ed to settle people. More than 4,000 ranchesand farms were taken, mostly for politicians,heads of army, police, civil servants and presi-dential cronies.

Prior to political unrest, Savory gave hisranch, Dimbangombe, to the Africa Centrefor Holistic Management in 1992. Earlier hehad deeded a larger ranch to the people ofZimbabwe as a national park because he didnot value ownership as deeply as workingwith people and wildlife for the nation’sgood.

According to Savory’s wife, Jody Butter-field, they lived hand to mouth at the Centrefor many years, in tents. Hunting brought alittle revenue to the ranch and a donor builtan open-air rondavel as a meeting room anddining room. Other donors helped financebungalows for guests. “The first students atthe Centre slept under tarps,” Jody says. “Itwas an adventure. There was no kitchen.Women from the community came andcooked and it was very rudimentary, but wegot some people trained and made someprogress.”

The Dimbangombe Ranch is run bymanager Shane Bartlet under five local chiefsand Savory as trustees. When bare ground isdeveloping at the ranch because they don’thave enough stock, herders mill their cattlearound to disturb it. “We bring them on to itwhen it’s raining to pockmark and disturbthe ground,” says Savory, “to add dung andurine, because the big agent of desertificationis overgrazing of plants. You cannot over-graze ranges, you cannot overgraze land, youcan only overgraze or graze plants.”

The ranch has 480 head of cattle and aherd of goats—not enough to heal the over-rested ground. But since ranch managementwas changed, water has come back in places ithasn’t been seen for generations, and theriver the ranch is named for has water year-round.

It’s a common (but incorrect) belief thatresting land in brittle environments andremoving cattle is the answer to desertifica-tion. But when the land is resting too muchthere is no improvement. When there are toofew animals, behaving calmly and walkinggently, the soil and most plants are resting.“You are not laying litter and breaking thesurface and disturbing the ground enough,”Savory says. “Then the other thing is fire. Sopartial rest, fire, and overgrazing plants arepracticed by almost every pastoralist in the

world, every rancher in the world, so that’swhy the land keeps deteriorating and pas-toralists are now fighting each other, killingeach other over diminishing water. They can’tsustain their families anymore, their culture isbreaking down, and ranchers are goingbroke, selling their ranches to developers, etcetera. There’s no need for any of that. Andthat’s been going on for 10,000 years.”

Many ranchers came to Savory’s HolisticManagement seminars because they weregoing broke, with nothing else to try. Theywanted to find out how to double theirstocking rates. “That’s what they did andthere were wrecks all over the place. Theythought the secret was in the wagon-wheel

fencing layout and I kept saying, no, that’sjust a tool. There’s nothing wrong with aradial fencing layout but the secret was in theplanning.”

Deb Steiner at Ohio State University did astudy and looked at early adopters of HolisticManagement across the United States. Nearlyall were ranchers. They averaged 300 percentmore profit. In the same time span, 600,000American farm and ranch families wentbroke, in the same markets. Unfortunately,there is resistance to the decision making andplanning process. “Ranchers say it’s too com-plex, too difficult,” Savory says, “but they canwatch their families go broke and lose the

ABOVE: The living room, dining room, meeting room, pipe-smoking room, reading room and kitchen atthe Savory compound at Dimbangombe Ranch. Thulani Ndlovu takes care of the place and makes lots oftea while monkeys and baboons like sharing their stuff. BELOW: The Savory huts at the edge of theDimban gombe River, which used to be dry. The office is on the right, where Allan and Jody communicatesporadically via a tall aerial from a satellite at headquarters to use their wireless computers. “We are onbroadband, slow and erratic, but at least it works,” Allan says. “We also have three deep-cycle 12-voltbatteries that are charged by six solar panels. From those we can convert current to U.S. 110 volt to useany small U.S. devices and a 12-volt light in the study. All other lighting is from battery-operated lamps.”

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There’s an old saying, “A mule is as goodas a horse, till you need a horse.” Or, ofcourse, the revorse!

I saw a photo in the newspaper of a manstanding in the surf trying to throw a ropearound the tail of a beached baby humpbackwhale. My first thought was, “A Marinemammal biologist is as good as a cowboy, tillyou need a cowboy.”

How many times have you thought thatyourself? “If only I had a cowboy.” Like twoyears ago when your cat got stuck up a tree:Sure, you called firemen. They showed upwith sirens blaring and lights flashing! Thenthey broke out the ladders and attempted toclimb up the tree. A cowboy would simplyhave roped the limb, dallied and bent thelimb back double. Then, with true cowboyclarity, he would have shucked the dally,released the limb and catapulted the cat intothe neighbor’s stock tank where the NavySeals could have rescued him!

Or, say you were being picketed by HSUS,PETA, and the lunatic fringe for texting non-organic messages to caged hens encouragingthem to “Lay one for the team.” You realizethat reasonable dialogue with moon-eyedzealots is futile, so you call a cowboy. He ridesthrough the protesters scattering a wag-onload of Hefty bags filled with chicken noo-dle soup which drenches the crowd. Then he

calls the dogs who rush in and lick the whin-ing protesters who slosh down the road withthe dogs nipping at their heels.

Remember those times when the pigs gotloose in the house and uprooted all your pot-ted plants? Or when your pet camel fellthrough the swimming pool cover whilegrazing on the algae? Or when your daughterbrought home a suitor with his head shavedlike a soccer ball, a stolen credit card, and wasa recidivist paint-can sniffer? Oh, what youwould have given for a cowboy.

Maybe we should start a nonprofit foun-dation funded by the United Cowboy Way,wherein each county could maintain a cou-ple of cowboys-on-call. They would functionlike a cross between a paramedic, a dogcatch-er and a psychologist, to handle the myriad ofemergencies that cry for a man with a horseand a rope.

Think about that the next time you acci-dentally drop your heirloom Donald Ducklunch bucket down an abandoned missilesilo or a rhino gets loose in the high schoolgym.

Remember, a 35-piece marching band isas good as a cowboy, till you need someoneto rope a renegade tuba! ■

Baxter Black is a syndicated columnist/cowboy poet/humorist from Benson, Ariz.www.baxterblack.com

ranch rather than doing an hour or two ofpaperwork a couple of times a year. Theyprefer riding horses and fixing fence beforethey will change and save themselves. Theyare human and that’s what they do.”

Allan Savory’s drive isn’t toward money.He wants to make a better world. And he’sgot the scars to prove it. In Africa there isdeteriorating land and water and rising pop-ulation—as there is in the United States andmost other parts of the world. “Historyshows that a hungry man knows no bound-ary and that leads to violence, family break-down and everything else. African men pridethemselves on their number of children. Thedo-good world steps in with a knee-jerk reac-tion and provides more water by putting inbore holes. But the desertification accelerates,the land degradation accelerates, so the situa-tion gets worse. Overgrazing of plants, moreplaces to destroy. You can see this from spaceshots—where they have put in bore holes,the desert spreads. Other knee-jerk reactionsare to come in as a humanitarian and feedthe starving mothers and provide health carefor the dying children or measures toimprove the local economy. What happens isfamily size increases so the situation getsworse. We have been dealing with this situa-tion for 40 years and there are now five timesas many people killing each other.

“The answer lies in education of womenand training people to reverse desertificationbecause healing the land and feeding morepeople is imperative for our futures.” Savoryhas often said that America’s biggest export iseroding soil, outweighing all other exportsevery year in value. “You will never stop thatuntil you start managing the ranges holistical-ly. And ranchers could be doing that andevery rancher would be better off, everyrancher would be making more profit andwould be saving their culture. The land is par-tially resting and it doesn’t need protection. Itjust needs more people balancing family sizewith resources—and more livestock.” ■

C.J. Hadley, publisher/editor of RANGE, lovedAfrica and the ranch, and appreciates the hospi-tality extended by Allan and Jody, and the manywarm and gentle Africans. “Dangers are alwayslurking in the bush,” she says, “but I was neverafraid—even on a moonless black night whileeating supper lit by flames of a tiny fire that heat-ed our dinner—until I heard drums throbbingthrough the jungle and Allan exclaimed, ‘Lions!’And I could see nothing.”

WHEN YOU NEED A COWBOYReasonable dialogue with moon-eyed zealots is futile.

By Baxter Black, D.V.M.

SAVING THE WORLD(Continued from page 43)

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Recently my wife and I drove 600 milesfrom Albuquerque to enjoy Thanks-giving with family. Eleven hours dri-

ving through scenic western rangelandallowed time to think about things that I amthankful for in my life, which, with luck, willlast another five to 10 years. Always living inthe future, I wondered how our actions todaywould affect the lives of my four grandsons.Like a flickering compass needle, my mindkept returning north to their future. Not justtheir future, but young people of all cultures,colors, tribes and religious persuasions livingin the largest land areas of the world—therangelands composed of grasslands, savannasand man-made deserts—including most ofthe vast American West.

Just like a cattleman who hasweighed thousands of cows is able toaccurately judge any animal’s weight asit steps on the scale, so too am I used tojudging quickly the “weight” of anyrangeland after over 50 years of work-ing around the world. Endlessly, we cruisedthrough millions of acres of dying (“lowweight”) western rangelands. As usual, I kepta sharp eye out for the hordes of cattle caus-ing such degradation but did not see one. Mywife tells me I missed a couple of cows shesighted while I dozed at one point.

The single most important measure ofdesertification is, of course, the amount ofbare soil between plants. Over our entirejourney these rangelands consistently hov-ered around 80 to 95 percent bare soil. Rangescientists, and ranchers influenced by them,would judge such rangelands healthy becausethey have the “right” species and few “nonna-tive” plants and most tourists would see onlyopen grassland in magnificent scenery.

Throughout history, land in such condi-tion has never led to abundance, prosperity,stability or peace and harmony but inevitablyto increasing man-made droughts andfloods, poverty, social breakdown, violenceand collapse of economy and society. Is thisgoing to happen in the United States? It isalready happening. In fact, it is welladvanced, although masked by environmen-tal illiteracy and temporary wealth, based onfossil fuels, combined with a low and declin-

ing rural population. One of the clearest indi-cators of the inevitable cancer of desertifica-tion, as such terminal rangeland is called, isthe dying of the rich, heartwarming westernranching and cowboy culture so much a partof the nation’s psyche. Dying in reality whilekept in mind by romantic cowboy poetry,films and rodeo entertainment.

How sadly those vast rangelands devoidof animal life and consequently turninggradually to desert contrast with my alternatehome in Zimbabwe, Africa, where I live asimple life on a ranch I once owned. There,because the people practice Holistic Manage-ment and because they have increased live-stock stocking rate 400 percent with holistic

planned grazing, they are now struggling tokeep up with grass production even in thedriest years. With no fear of droughts theyalso now enjoy permanent water in poolsthroughout the long dry season where nonewas known in living memory. Permanentpools with water lilies, fish, otters and geeseamidst teeming animal life are entirely due toincreased cattle and goats properly managed.

How sadly America’s dying rangelands, sodevoid of animal life, contrast with a recentvisit by a Chilean rancher proudly showingpictures of two flocks of 25,000 sheep eachon holistic planned grazing, resulting in boththe sheep and the land increasing 50 percentin productivity in the first year.

How sadly mainstream fear of animalscontrasts with historical information aboutthe many millions of bison in the past (them-selves a remnant of former species diversityand numbers) or with this record of similardry country in Africa:

“The year 1896 saw the last of the greatmigrations,” a Mr. Gert Van der Merwewrites. “At last the sound of a faint drum-ming could be heard. The cloud of dust wasdense and enormous, and the front rank ofthe springbok running faster than galloping

horses could be seen. They were in suchnumbers that I found the sight frightening. Icould see a front line of buck at least threemiles long but could not estimate the depth.All night long the buck passed. The morningair was clear, the day bright. Then I saw thelandscape which had been covered with treesof a fair size were gaunt stubs and barebranches. The buck had brushed off theherbage in their passing and splintered theyoung trees so they would not grow again.”

How sadly rancher fear and persecutionof wolves contrasts with our running live-stock in a predator-friendly manner withinsignificant loss to lions, wild dogs, leopards,cheetah and hyena because we realize thesepredators are vital to running more livestockand enjoying more wildlife, just as theyshould be in America. We have achieved har-mony through herding and overnight hold-ing of livestock. Ranchers all over Africa, liketheir American counterparts, said this could

not be done because labour is too expen-sive. We found that employing a few cow-boys (herd boys in our language) costs farless than buying three more ranches torun the animals and proper herdingenables far more animals to be run withfar better results for land, profit andwildlife. Now ranchers as far afield as

northern Kenya are adopting our methods,as will happen one day in America if thewestern culture is to be saved.

RANGE magazine and its feisty editorC.J. Hadley have done as much as anyone totry to keep the western culture alive but allare losing the battle. Many explanations canbe put forward for the failure of a culture orcivilization, and are, but in the end it seldomdiffers from the failure of more than 20 civi-lizations through history around the worldbecause of environmental degradation.

Some time ago I extended an invitationto CJ to visit Zimbabwe where I had donatedmy last ranch for the benefit of the peopleand the nation and on which we woulddemonstrate Holistic Management and itsholistic planned grazing in action. To mydelight, CJ actually came, despite the cost andclose to two days en route, because of herdeep concern for the western culture she isstriving so hard to preserve.

On Dimbangombe—meaning the placewhere the people hid their cattle in the longgrass (in this case, hiding them from raidingMatabele warriors in earlier centuries)—wehave taken a seriously deteriorating ranchand simply turned it around by using Holis-

The Power of New ThinkingReversing desertification while benefiting yourself, your community,and the planet. By Allan Savory

One of the clearest indicators of theinevitable cancer of desertification is thedying of the rich, heartwarming westernranching and cowboy culture so much a

part of the nation’s psyche.

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Allan Savory near the edge of the Dimbangombe River. Perennial grass has replaced less dependable annual grassesand covered most of the bare ground with the help of theherd. The cattle will come through this spot in the dryseason to make sure these plants are grazed and trampleddown before the rains start.

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tic Management and its holistic plannedgrazing at almost no expense and to the ben-efit of people, the economy, the environmentand wildlife. Holistic Management means managing

the complexity involved in environmental,economic and social situations (such as aranch), using a new framework for all signifi-cant actions and decisions made. If you thinkabout it, everything we make is an amazingsuccess—computers, television, planes,bombs, artificial organs, homes, bridges, etcetera—but everything we manage is provingincreasingly difficult and now globally threat-ening—economies, agriculture, rangelands,

oceans, human relations, organizations, gov-ernments, et cetera. The holistic framework, on which Holis-

tic Management is based, ensures that social,economic and environmental aspects on anyranch are accorded equal consideration.Everything done is in line with that family’sdeepest cultural and spiritual values. Everystep taken increases profitability—if prosper-ity is important to the family. And every stepleads toward a more healthy and increasinglyproductive landscape with more forms of lifethat are more resilient to weather variations.If livestock is involved, either because essen-tial to people’s livelihoods and culture, or if

the holistic deci-sion making deter-mines they are theonly thing that canreverse desertifica-tion (as was ourcase at Dimban-gombe), then weuse a well-provenplanning processcalled holisticplanned grazing todeal with that day-to-day complexity. As an ecologist

50 years ago, I rec-ognized that thereplacement offormer, natural,complex wildlife

communities including large herds of herbi-vores and their pack-hunting predators withlivestock, was somehow leading to accelerat-ed desertification. Investigating livestock, Icame to realize that all the countless wayspeople had run livestock over thousands ofyears had contributed to desertification—herding in many ways and increasingly aplethora of rotational and other grazing sys-tems of which the mob grazing fad is the lat-est—because none had ever dealt with thedaily complexity that in practice cannot beavoided. No matter how knowledgeable ancient

pastoral cultures were or modern range sci-entists are, none had ever recognized thedaily complexity of weather, soils and soilslopes, plant communities, poisonous plants,wildlife breeding, cover and feed require-ments, livestock differing needs and thenecessity of planning continually fordroughts in time, not area of land. And nonehad simultaneously dealt with the social andeconomic complexity. Accordingly, I developed the holistic

planned grazing process by simply adapting aBritish army plan applied by the Rhodesianarmy to this biological situation. If the Britisharmy had spent 300 years perfecting simpleplanning to deal with very complicated situa-tions, in great stress and likely to change hourto hour, why reinvent the wheel? Not surpris-ingly, because of its origin, holistic plannedgrazing always results in the best possibleplan at that time on any ranch and does this

Dimbangombe herders move the land management herd along the river to create the desired riparian habitat for wildlife. This treatment is repeated whennecessary, usually after months of recovery for grazed plants. Small stock like goats generally graze to one side of the main herd of cattle.

Savory Institute founders, staff and friends. From left: Zachary Jones(Grasslands Northern Plains manager), Jim Howell (Grasslands CEO), DanielaHowell (chief operating officer), Allan Savory (president), Jody Butterfield(Southern Africa Programs manager), Tony Malmburg (co-founder), SueProbart and Shannon Horst (Consulting & Training director).

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entirely from the heads of the people whoknow the ranch and animals best—theranchers—supplemented by continuallyongoing wildlife and other basic research.What sounds formidable is, once learned,routinely done in under two hours spenttwice a year on an average ranch.Just as riding a bicycle is a little clumsy for

the first few days, so too is Holistic Manage-ment and its planned grazing. Once masteredhowever, all decisions and particularly thoseextremely difficult ones to make in our livesbecome so much easier and faster to makeand ranchers find it relaxing to enjoy the con-fidence that simple planning produces. I havehad an uneducated African learn and practiceholistic planned grazing extremely well in lessthan two hours. Years of helping people havetaught me that ignorance does not blocklearning, but egos and knowledge do.The American West and its cattlemen

with their rich culture as well as government

frankly came to a fork in the road in the early1980s when Holistic Management began tobe practiced in the United States. Some10,000 ranchers attended training. Ranchersbegan practicing and the USDA formed aninteragency committee to work with me pro-viding training in Holistic Management andparticularly the use of the holistic frameworkin policy analysis. The aim was to form a fed-eral government training centre once enoughofficials understood the process. The Interagency Committee put 2,000

government officials (from the Forest Serv -ice, Soil Conservation Service, Bureau ofLand Management and Bureau of IndianAffairs) through this training. Groupsbrought countless policies to the sessions andnone were ever found to have any chance ofsuccess when analyzed holistically by thoseofficials. As one group of government profes-sional land managers concluded: “We couldnow recognize that unsound resource man-agement was universal in the United States.”

Demand for training increased and all wasset to form a government training centre forthe continued expansion of Holistic Manage-ment into U.S. life. We were in serious discus-sion about training 17,000 Forest Servicepersonnel. Throughout this training, resis-tance mounted from major environmentalorganizations and academics, most of whomwere not going through the training. Thenthe administration changed. Through the political power of major

universities, far greater than a few far-sightedUSDA officials who believed Holistic Man-agement vital to the future of the UnitedStates, all USDA personnel were bannedfrom receiving training—whichwas effectively stopped. It is never too late. That alter-

native road so nearly taken in theearly ’80s is still there unusedexcept for some leading rancherspracticing Holistic Managementon millions of acres in Canada,Mexico, the United States, Chile,Australia, New Zealand and Africa.And Africa’s pastoralists, alreadyherding cattlewith AK riflesamidst violenceover diminishingwater and grass,are seeing HolisticManagement asthe first thing tooffer hope of sav-ing their ancient cultures and land. Tragically,because rangeland myths dominate over sci-ence and thus policies of all governments,most ancient pastoral cultures, from Israel’sNegev to China and Africa in particular, are

being subjected to culturally genocidal devel-opment policies reducing animals, feedingremnant animals in pens and settling thepastoralists in slums. I mention others whoseculture is livestock dependent so that Ameri-cans can understand that the myths so deeplyheld are not only destroying the westernranching culture but all livestock cultures inthe seasonal rainfall environments of theworld.We are at a crossroad. We can carry on

business as usual in an increasingly down-ward spiral, or begin rebuilding westernrangelands, wildlife, communities andeconomies steadily, with little cost except

education and training. Which road willAmerican mainstream ranching and govern-ment take from this point on? Unfortunately,the road chosen will depend on many fac-tors—leadership or lack of leadership in the

Permanent water where not known in livingmemory at end of long dry season is entirely due toincreased cattle and goats properly managed.

Allan Savory, right, discusses grazing points with Australian ranchers visiting Dimbangombe.

ABOVE: The cattle kraal fence line is obviouson this field, showing (on the right) the muchgreater production possible after cattle. Theunimpacted portion of the field on the leftproduced only average yields. LEFT: The largecorn cobs on the left were from impactedfield and those on the right were harvestedoutside the impacted area.

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Livestock cultures everywhere are underthreat, not just here in the American West.

In the Middle East—Asia and Africa especial-ly—pastoral, livestock-dependent people arebeing encouraged (or forced) to give up theirway of life due to the belief that cattle, sheepand goats are destroying the environment. Inmany places, standard developmental policyis to reduce livestock numbers, and move theremaining animals off the range and intopens next to settlements that soon have theappearance of slums. In Kenya, where Masaipastoralists have been subjected to such poli-cies, the suicide rate has skyrocketed.

That’s not to say that cattle, sheep andgoats haven’t caused damage. They have, butdue to the way they are managed, not merelyfrom their presence. In the Horn of Africa(Ethiopia, Somalia and northern Kenya)where water and grass are rapidly diminish-ing and competition for the resources thatremain is fierce and often violent, pastoralistsare herding cattle with AK rifles. Elsewhere,including Asia and the Middle East, the storyis similar. Imagine, then, how pastoralists inthese regions prick up their ears when theyhear that the deterioration can be reversed—

with the help of livestock, and while increas-ing, rather than decreasing, their numbers.

Nowhere is this more hopeful than inZimbabwe where the Africa Centre for Holis-tic Management, founded by myself and myhusband, Allan Savory, has been working totranslate the experience of U.S. and SouthernAfrican ranchers into lessons that apply tocommunal agro-pastoralists who are livingon the edge of starvation. The Africa Centre’sDimbangombe Ranch serves as a learningsite where ideas are tested before introducingthem to communities, and where communi-ty trainers receive education in Holistic Man-agement and planned grazing and practicalskills they then take back to their communi-ties to implement.

A key skill that people come to Dimban-gombe to master is herding, which even inAfrica is becoming a lost art. We broughtAmericans over to teach Africa Centreherders low-stress herding and handlingtechniques and the Dimbangombe herdersnow help train others. Some come from asfar away as Kenya and Namibia to relearnwhat they once knew and to benefit from theknowledge of animal-handling innovators

Saving the Culture While solving humanity’s most pressing problems. By Jody Butterfield

ranching community, academic egos, gov-ernment policies that only change when pub-lic opinion changes, increasing pressures aspeople and environmental organizationsbegin to comprehend that what we are doingis not working, and increasing scientific andlay voices calling for a more holisticapproach.

After years of observing costly failures todeal with desertification and its associatedsocial breakdown, poverty and violence, theUSAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assis-tance has (as noted in next story) granted theAfrica Centre for Holistic Management andits Dimbangombe Ranch $4.8 million toscale up and spread the knowledge in South-ern Africa. Much as I appreciate this as aZimbabwean, I see the far greater need forsimilar investment in the United States itself.Only pro-science public opinion demandingand supporting visionary leadership bypoliticians can do what is required. We haveall the money in the world but do not enjoythe luxury of time.

Many years ago on a large Texas ranch, Imet a highly respected American wildliferwho had worked in Africa. He made astrange statement that stuck in my mind:“Either you are wrong, Allan, and they willnot be able to dig a hole deep enough to buryyou in, or you are right and they will not beable to build a monument high enough.” Iresponded that I would be happy with a shal-low grave and asked what he thought. Hereplied that he was sitting on the fence.

Over 30 years have passed with not onescientist pointing out any scientific flaw inthe Holistic Management or holisticplanned grazing process, while a dwindlingnumber of academics have stated that it isall smoke and mirrors, snake oil, more reli-gion than science, and damaging to wildlife.Not much in the way humans respond tonew knowledge has changed in the 500years since Copernicus and Galileo pointedout that the world was not the centre of theuniverse. It is time for all who love the landand wildlife and value western culture to getoff the fence before it is only preserved inold copies of RANGE, faded pictures andcowboy poetry. ■

Allan Savory is president of the Savory Insti-tute, which he co-founded with his wife, JodyButterfield, and others in Albuquerque, N.M.,and chairman of the Africa Centre for HolisticManagement in Zimbabwe. He can bereached at asavory@savoryinstitute.com.

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such as Bud Williams and Temple Grandin. In January 2010, the Africa Centre

received a three-year grant of $4.8 millionfrom the U.S. Agency for InternationalDevelopment (USAID) Office of ForeignDisaster Assistance to scale up the wholetraining effort. This included training staffsof other nongovernment organizations inSouthern Africa so they could implementtheir own land restoration through livestockprograms. The awarding of the grant was anenormous accomplishment for the AfricaCentre, which had struggled for some yearsto convince weary donors that Holistic Man-agement could achieve results that manywere beginning to think were impossible toreach by any means. The results on theAfrica Centre’s Dimbangombe Ranch (seeAllan’s story, page 44) provided proof ofconcept: it really is possible to restore landand water resources with livestock. The chal-lenge now is to translate this success to entirecommunities—and the early results arepromising.

In June 2010, Allan Savory and the AfricaCentre won the Buckminster Fuller Chal-lenge Award. Up against 350 projects world-wide, their win came with a prize of$100,000. It was not only a tribute to theAfrica Centre’s efforts, but, of course, toAllan Savory and his work of more than fourdecades, which I have been honored to sharefor 30 years. The Buckminster Fuller Insti-tute awards this prize each year “to supportthe development and implementation of astrategy that has significant potential to solvehumanity’s most pressing problems.”

Although I’m obviously and deeplybiased, it is an award richly deserved by ateam and a leader that has succeeded againstincredible odds. It is also a much-longed-forrecognition of the fact that the deteriorationof our land and water resources is one ofhumanity’s most pressing problems, andthat it can be overcome while preserving therich and vital heritage of pastoral peopleseverywhere. ■

Jody Butterfield is program director for theAfrica Centre’s Land, Water & LivelihoodsRestoration Project (funded by USAID) anddirector of the Savory Institute’s SouthernAfrica Programs. A former journalist special-izing in agricultural and environmentalissues, she has worked with husband AllanSavory since 1980 to advance the worldwidedevelopment of Holistic Management. Shecan be reached at jbutterfield@savoryinsti-tute.com.

ABOVE: The Buckminster Fuller Challenge Award was presented in June 2010 at the National Press Clubin Washington, D.C. The Centre took first place amongst 350 projects considered worldwide. The money,according to Allan Savory, is going to be spent “from the bottom up.” Pictured from left to right andrepresenting the Savory Institute (SI) and/or the Africa Centre (ACHM): Jim Howell (SI), DanielaHowell (SI), Jody Butterfield SI/ACHM, Allan Savory (SI/ACHM), Laurie Benson (SI), Zakhe Mpofu(ACHM), Shannon Horst (SI) and Precious Phiri (ACHM). OPPOSITE: Jody Butterfield with trainers forthe Africa Centre. Front row, from left: Jody, Sibo Ncube, Mupenyu Mberi, Sunny Moyo and JohnNyilika. Back row, from left: Precious Phiri, Tawana Ngwenya, Oscar Nwenye, Forget Mavenge, NicholasNcube and Elias Mcube.

The Dimbangombe herd shortly after animals have been let out of the lion-proof night enclosure. Herdersare in front to keep animals from moving out too quickly, and keep the herd bunched due to the presenceof predators (lion, cheetah, leopard and hyena).

The Brown RevolutionOver the past year, the Savory Institute (SI), along with John Fullerton and Larry Lunt—EastCoast financiers steeped in the world of triple bottom line, or impact investing—have beennurturing the formation of an exciting new SI/Fullerton/Lunt partnership. SI brings nearlyfive decades of Holistic Management practice and expertise, and Fullerton/Lunt bring theirexperience, contacts and unique perspective in the world of finance and the raising of capital.The result is a newly formed entity—Grasslands LLC.

“Our Grasslands effort,” Savory says, “is rooted in SI’s quest to engender a Brown Revolu-tion—a refocusing of land management on the regeneration of the world’s topsoil.” Fuller-ton and Lunt had been hunting for a project with meaning, scope, and game-changingpotential. They have found that in their partnership with the Savory Institute, and the resultis Grasslands. For more information, check out www.savoryinstitute.com.

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