Now Do You See Why I’m Losing My Mind?
The efficacy of Holistic Planned Grazing is obvious and has been for decades. Continued denial of this fact by environmental NGOs is creating unnecessary delays in land restoration and climate change mitigation.
These pictures were taken by me in Zimbabwe just a few miles apart and on exactly the same day (April 19, 2019). One set is from the Victoria Falls National Park, where the best internationally recognized practices for land management are enforced — no livestock and no hunting. The other set, literally just down the road, are from the Africa Centre For Holistic Management, where Allan Savory and his team manage the property with livestock and with hunting. Which property do you think is the desertified and eroding one, and which is the healthy and verdant one? Obviously, you know the answer, I don’t even have to bother saying it. Since taking over the property in Zimbabwe, Allan has increased the livestock number by 5 fold, and he says they probably need to double that, repeat, double. His stocking rate would then be 10 times what is typical for the area. As he says, “We can’t keep up with production,” by which he means the grass. And, when grass isn’t eaten, it becomes a fire hazard, and, eventually, of course, just dies turning the land to desert. This is precisely what’s happening in the national park which is being “protected” from livestock and what humans have been doing to grasslands and savannas of the world for tens of thousands of years, literally, since we started hunting big game, about 40 thousand years ago. Most of the dry parts of the world are starving for animals. Thus, the frustration I have when the enviro elite say we need “less meat.” Good heavens. Who wrote this script? How is any of this confusing or controversial? Nothing in my life has been so obvious and urgent. Please. Wherever you are and whoever you know, pass on this message. The world needs many more animals, and it needs them managed holistically to restore soils and save our climate and our prospects for survival on this planet. Thank you. — s
(This was originally posted in the Soil4Climate FB group, January 31, 2020.)