"There was only one option left to climatologists and scientists, and that is to do the unthinkable: Use livestock bunched and moving as a proxy for former moving herds and predators."
Image: TED/Allan Savory
Zimbabwe's foremost land degradation expert has come up with a readily available solution for reversing the spread of deserts around the planet and slowing climate change in the process: He wants to let cows and sheep eat their way through the problem.
In a provocative appearance on the video blog Ted Talks, biologist Allan Savory said desertification of the world's grasslands may be releasing more carbon into the atmosphere than burning fossil fuels. Savory should know: He has been studying the spread of deserts for more than 50 years.
But the former revolutionary turned scientist recently came to a surprising conclusion about how best to bring back grasslands and in the process help address poverty and social breakdown in some of the poorest corners of the planet. He turned to holistic management of livestock like cattle and sheep, overriding his own belief that grazing animals had been part of the problem when it came to green, fertile lands widely becoming barren and dry.
That notion, Savory said, was dead wrong. He cited an experiment he conducted in the 1950s in the country then known as Rhodesia, when he helped exterminate more than 40,000 grazing elephants to protect land thought to be stressed and dying from their annual trampling rituals.
He called that project "the saddest and greatest blunder" of his life.
"We were once just as certain that the world was flat," Savory said on the Ted Talks appearance. "We were wrong then, and we're wrong again."
Savory said the annual rite of movement through a region by large herds actually protects the environment. A wildebeest migration in central Africa, for instance, eats up grasses as it moves along and leaves behind a protective layer of trampled dung, dust and soil.
Trying to mimic the roles of wild herds
That protective layer, it turns out, is vital for healthy soils that trap carbon, break down methane and produce more grasses every year to feed returning grazers. In turn, those herds feed predators like lions, cheetahs and, yes, human beings.
So Savory decided to mimic the great herds of old, which have died out in many regions or persist in far reduced numbers, with managed "strategic" herds of grazing vegetarians. The sheep and cattle picked for the project, if managed properly, would theoretically bring nature back to its normal cycle in semiarid regions where rains for part of the year are followed by long dry spells.
Savory said his experiments have worked, and he showed a number of before-and-after pictures as evidence during his talk. He thinks the same approach can be taken in the two-thirds of the planet that is rapidly desertifying, including parts of the American Southwest.
Fire has long been used as a means to kill woody vegetation in semiarid regions and restore soils, but Savory said that solution has never quite panned out because fire can strip land of its base layers, not to mention release carbon. So he turned to cattle and sheep.
"There was only one option left to climatologists and scientists, and that is to do the unthinkable: Use livestock bunched and moving as a proxy for former moving herds and predators," he said.
Savory's experiments with livestock have reversed degraded dry lands in Zimbabwe, Mexico, the Horn of Africa and Argentina, he said. He added that putting the same idea into motion in just half the world's troubled grasslands would result in bringing the planet back to preindustrial levels of greenhouse gas emissions.
"I can think of nothing that offers more hope for your planet," he said.
Click here to view the video.
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9 Comments
Add CommentUsing the processes of nature and evolution is a very good idea. I use the same concepts on my lawn. I know this is trivial compared to global livestock management but it does illustrate the same change in assumptions. First I try to xeriscape as much as possible and keep the grass cut high. Cutting the grass at a higher level actually makes it grow slower since it does not go into an emergency growth mode. Longer grass also helps hold in moister and protects the roots. Second I water the grass way less frequently but longer for deeper root growth. Third I do not get freaked out by insects and spiders living in my yard; so minimal to zero pesticides and no artificial fertilizers (if you have to use fertilizer you not managing the yard correctly). Finally I create earthworm and toad habitats. The extra birds and toads that are in my yard help fertilize and keep the insect populations in check. My experiment has worked: my yard is the best in the neighborhood. I mow less, water less, and do less maintenance. This saves my time and money. In this case eco-friendly also means economically friendly. The grass is greener on my side and in my bank account!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI manage my lawn in pretty much the same way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlthough I need to spot weed every few years as well as cut the grub population. My dogs take care of the fertilization nicely.
This is intriguingly counter-intuitive, but fascinating. I know he's advocating rotating livestock through to prevent overgrazing. And I think he's saying that somehow the methane is broken down by the fertilized soil. But isn't there a danger of the increased livestock producing increased methane and making the greenhouse problem worse? He claims the opposite at the end of the TED talk, but doesn't explain the basis of the calculation. Plus, on the TED talk, at the end, the reasonable question of how livestock can graze on already desertified lands wasn't answered. Anyone have any insight?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'd like to know more about this in order to understand it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as I can make it, the crucial part is that the livestock MOVE. They don't stay in one place and overgraze it.
But how can most people living in such dry places make use of this technique? Traditional nomads moved their livestock around, but most societies now have taken against travelling people and many of them have had to settle down. Then their livstock cause huge trouble because they are stuck in one place.
So I'd like to know about the social side of this proposal. Has it been tried by the local people who actually live there?
I'd also like to know about some alternatives:
conservation work which would allow the wild animals to thrive again, which would include removing whatever blocks them, so that they can move again;
local people reducing their dependence on livestock, and increasing the food they get from trees, shrubs and other perennial plants, which is what Tree Aid helps people to do in some dry parts.
http://www.treeaid.org.uk/
Yes the question wasn't answered sufficiently. My thoughts are that if there is NO feed, you can not graze any animals there ie you can't use this method to restore completely desertified land, however if you send a herd into land with some grass, quickly, and remove them, you may get a slight improvement from seed in manure, allow LONG recovery time and do it again you could eventually restore back to good grazing land.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree that wild places need to be promoted aswell, and also that perennial tree crops are a part of the solution. Protein is a big factor though and ruminants are just so amazingly good at converting protein we can't eat, into protein we can, especially in dry areas. A big constraint is moving herds around and providing adequate water in each cell. In Australia GIS technology and ear tagging can be used to create virtual fences that contain stock to a small area through noise emission when they get close to the virtual fence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisArticle is kinda a rehash of the TED video, unfortunately. If you dig a little, there's a lot more information available on their website. Start at http://www.savoryinstitute.com/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd I suggest leafing through this:
http://www.savoryinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Savory_Inst_HM_Research_Portfolio_March2013.pdf
If you dig through the studies cited you might notice that the approach taken is fairly thorough and they're trying to make a scientific ecological study out of it. Very interesting.
(err.... 'trying to' is probably the wrong descriptor; let me just posit they're obviously interested in being thorough and solving a problem they see)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi everybody,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thistake a look at our exclusive interview to Allan Savory, published on our italian journal of environmental communication:
http://www.greeno.it/home/2013/04/exclusive-allan-savory-we-can-afford-no-further-fence-sitting/