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Imagine, shooting 40,000 elephants to prevent the land in Africa from going to desert because scientists thought the land couldn’t sustain them, only to find the effort was for naught and the idea as to why was totally wrong. That alone was a real eye opener.
Every once in awhile, an idea comes along that makes you ask, “gee why hasn’t anybody seen this before?”. This one of those times. This video below is something I almost didn’t watch, because my concerns were triggered by a few key words in the beginning. But, recommended by a Facebook friend, I stuck with it, and I’m glad I did, because I want every one of you, no matter what side of the climate debate you live in, to watch this and experience that light bulb moment as I did. The key here is to understand that desertification is one of the real climate changes we are witnessing as opposed to some the predicted ones we often fight over.
It is one of those seminal moments where I think a bridge has been created in the climate debate, and I hope you’ll seize the moment and embrace it. This video comes with my strongest possible recommendation, because it speaks to a real problem, with real solutions in plain language, while at the same time offering true hope.
This is a TED talk by Dr. Allan Savory in Los Angeles this past week, attended by our friend Dr. Matt Ridley, whose presentation we’ll look at another time. Sometimes, TED talks are little more that pie in the sky; this one is not. And, it not only offers a solution, it shows the solution in action and presents proof that it works. It makes more sense than anything I’ve seen in a long, long, time. Our friend Dr. Roger Pielke Sr., champion of studying land use change as it affects local and regional climate will understand this, so will our cowboy poet Willis Eschenbach, who grew up on a cattle ranch. I daresay some of our staunchest critics will get it too.
To encapsulate the idea presented, I’ll borrow from a widely used TV commercial and say:
Beef, it’s what’s for climate
You can call me crazy for saying that after you watch this presentation. A BIG hattip to Mark Steward Young for bringing this to my attention.
“Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert,” begins Allan Savory in this quietly powerful talk. And terrifyingly, it’s happening to about two-thirds of the world’s grasslands, accelerating climate change and causing traditional grazing societies to descend into social chaos. Savory has devoted his life to stopping it. He now believes — and his work so far shows — that a surprising factor can protect grasslands and even reclaim degraded land that was once desert.
Published on Mar 4, 2013
There’s a longer version with more detail below, about an hour long. Also worth watching if you want to understand the process in more detail:
Feasta Lecture 2009
Extracts available at vimeo.com/8291896
Allan Savory argued that while livestock may be part of the problem, they can also be an important part of the solution. He has demonstrated time and again in Africa, Australia and North and South America that, properly managed, they are essential to land restoration. With the right techniques, plant growth is lusher, the water table is higher, wildlife thrives, soil carbon increases and, surprisingly, perhaps four times as many cattle can be kept.
feasta.org/events/general/2009_lecture.htm
Recorded 7 November 2009, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
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Here’s another video of a lecture given by a farmer in Missouri who is using Savory’s method. Very informative and detailed:
Considering the open thread aspect.
Vote, it’s easy and only a few days left~~~
Here!
http://2013.bloggi.es/#science
Well that’s true. He didn’t personally shoot all 40,000 elephants.
So yes, he owned up to what he did, which was advise that it take place.
Bottom Line:
Mother Nature is signaling –
The World Needs More Cowbell…
farmerbraun says:
March 9, 2013 at 6:25 pm
Thanks for the quote, Farmer, and sorry for the confusion. What I was referring to as “that system” was the system I’d just described that was employed on the Polyface farm.
Also, please don’t think I’m opposed to your ideas, or that I’m dissing your extensive experience.
I’m just saying that I’m unwilling to do the work to find the resources that you think are important. That’s your job if you want to get your ideas out there.
w.
Christoff Dollis;
So yes, he owned up to what he did, which was advise that it take place.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Oh bull.
What took place is that he did the research, he presented it to the committees, he persuaded them that he was right, and that the only choice, ONLY CHOICE, was to kill 40,000 elephants. That’s hardly “advising” that it happened. The problem is that history is repeating itself. He’s making unsubstantiated claims again (like the 6,000 cars per hectare bullsht) to a gullible audience with no expertise in the matter who laps it up. If it goes awry this time, he’ll use the same excuse, lots of other people looked at his work and agreed with it…whine….not really his fault….don’t look behind the curtain….
None of which changes the fact that he took what he saw elsewhere, called it his own, and is now trading off that to standing ovations where he repeats that his new work, stolen from others, stolen from history in fact, is the only choice. The ONLY CHOICE! AGAIN!
In fact much of what he advocates will in fact work in many situations. But it is clear that he is selling and the audience is buying without doing any due diligence regarding the actual efficacy or the intellectual property.
With regard to calls for us to be sceptical – I think it is safe to say we all are. That goes without saying on this board.
This is still a rather interesting idea and certainly worth consideration. Whether it can be implemented in a scientific way is another matter. Once aid agencies get hold of something it rarely succeeds as planned and from my experience the continent would have been a lot better off without foreign ‘aid’ and meddling. There have been many countries which have recovered from wars but I can hardly think of any, and none in Africa, which have recovered from Foreign Aid.
In response to my commenting on his “impressive resume”, farmerbraun says:
March 9, 2013 at 6:38 pm
Actually, I was quite serious. In a discussion of rotational versus continuous grazing, that is an impressive resume. Certainly equals a PhD in plant science in my book, not better, but assuredly no worse …
And in my world, farming or ranching is always an impressive resume. You can’t do that for 35 years without learning some very real lessons about nature and humans and a host of other things.
Well, I suppose you can farm or ranch and not learn anything … but most men or women that stick it out for 35 years do so because of that odd unquantifiable and certainly unteachable mix of stubbornness and curiosity and observation and insight and craft and hard work and willingness to learn that makes for a good farmer or rancher … and that counts for me, it counts a lot. People like that may still be wrong, but generally not from naiveté …
My best to you,
w.
Matthew L Marler;
That depends on the grass. Some varieties continue to build up the “carbon” in the soil year after year, eventually producing much thicker and richer soil than was there at the start.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
1. A maximum is still arrived at at some point.
2. Prairie fires regularly set the grassland back
3. The notion that a single hectare of land could sequester the output of 6,000 cars on an on going basis is ludicrous.
How is this a bridge?
They’re wrong, they have always been wrong….where’s the bridge in that?
Geoff , re my comment March 9 2013 at 7:02 pm –
to save you time and ammunition with a scatter-gun approach , here is a definition of sustainable agriculture as proposed several decades ago. What is the problem that you see with this?
‘To work as much as possible within a closed system, and draw upon local resources.
To maintain the long-term fertility of soils.
To avoid all forms of pollution that may result from agricultural techniques.
To produce foodstuffs of high nutritional quality and sufficient quantity.
To reduce the use of fossil energy in agricultural practice to a minimum.
To give livestock conditions of life that conform to their physiological needs and to humanitarian
principles.
To make it possible for agricultural producers to earn a living through their work and develop
their potentialities as human beings.
Christoph Dollis says:
March 9, 2013 at 6:16
(…..)
There’s more to it than just any personal appeal he might have. And no, his killing 40,000 elephants, in error, doesn’t impress me. His owning up to it does.
——–
Sadly, there is nothing a false messiah can do to alienate his followers….
Read all the comments here, notice some hostility to the presentation and the presenter.
Yes he dresses his presentation in, woo woo, sole authority and bows to CAGW.
But what is the down side?
He is not advocating compulsory donations to his cause, nor calling for sweeping lifestyle changes, or invoking the need for yet another UN/Eco-loony intervention.
If the recreation of migratory herds,done by locals, revives the subsaharan grasslands, great.
If it does not we will soon see.
What has been happening in these areas , at least for my lifetime, is hardly considered a success.
I get the light bulb moment, I never gave any thought to the migratory effect of the herds, leaving evolutionary consequences for the plants.
I grew up on a farm and rotational grazing was weeks or months, depending on livestock and range size&condition, on grasses we have bred for the their traits.
For all the presentation critiques, we can, are and will be testing these ideas, if Savoury is right, then meat eaters can laugh at vegans, co2 can be sequestered as steak and a good chunk of UN chuckleheads will be out of work soon.
If he is wrong, another fine concept tested.
So Willis, what do you really think of Allan Savory’s ideas and work/solutions? Is he right or is he wrong? Just asking…
davidmhoffer says: re Soil Carbon levels
1. A maximum is still arrived at at some point.
2. Prairie fires regularly set the grassland back
FB observes; 1. it is correct that a maximum will be reached. Measurements in Godzone indicate that most sheep and beef farms on non-cultivable land reached that maximum some time ago as a result of the pastoral grazing, over a century or so, since the forest was cleared and phosphorus was applied to encourage legume growth, which in turn raised the nitrogen status of the soil. Those maximum levels appear to be being maintained.
On the dairy farms the levels , once at a maximum, have fallen, possibly as a result of soil damage from overstocking in winter, and possibly from the use of nitrogenous fertilisers. Research into the causes is continuing. These losses are not found on farms practising some forms of sustainable agriculture (lower stocking rates and no nitrogen fertiliser introduced).
2. Not just prairie fires can cause carbon losses; prolonged droughts are also very effective at oxidising carbon.
J. Philip Peterson says:
March 9, 2013 at 7:49 pm
No clue. Too long, didn’t listen. I can’t stand presentations made for the average listener, I’m bored to tears three minutes in. I can read wicked fast, I skip the filler, and I can’t be bothered with watching some guy slowly belaboring some point. So I gave up even starting such videos, unless a whole bunch of people say wow, you’ve got to see this, I just give it a miss.
I also often end up with my intravenous pressure climbing while I’m shouting at the screen, things like “How about a citation for that outrageous claim!” and the like … not good, angrifies my blood.
So instead I read the comments. And in this case, there was no groundswell saying that this was something I should waste 22 minutes on. Instead, there was a lot of folks saying a) sounds workable, and b) sounds oversimplified, and c) where’s the citations?
So I gave it a pass.
I was only commenting on the question of how to get the most production out of the land, regarding rotational or continuous grazing. For me, the way to get the most is a careful and clever combination of plants and animals and insects, a la Polyface or something like that.
I also gave my own recommendations for reversing desertification above.
Other than that, though, I’m sorry but I know nothing about Savory.
All the best,
w.
Show me some data, otherwise he is just talking anecdotes. And my skeptic alarm always goes off when someone says how “we” used to believe in the flat earth. We didn’t. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth
Jens Raunsø Jensen says: March 9, 2013 at 10:57 am
It is my experience from meeting such guys that somebody claiming to have a unique solution to the “worlds problems” is a demagog and that’s exactly how I evaluate Mr Savory. Greening the deserts of the world – my ***.
I am quite astonished by people such as Jens above who dismiss this immediately because they don’t like the certainty of the man’s beliefs. Failing to recognize that information such as this helps to counter the certain beliefs of others (ie, Mann, Hansen … “its all fossil fuels”…)
All of this information points to a far more complex system, and a far greater variety of solutions, than some would currently realize or accept.
I’m pretty sure Savory’s ideas are not going to work in every ecosystem, but I also believe he has made and is promoting a very sensible observation that high intensity rotational grazing may have a profoundly different and favorable end result to constant low pressure year round grazing, or indeed no grazing. This is important because at least in some environments, there have been failed misguided efforts to save the environment by locking it up and leaving it alone.
There is much in Jen’s statement which indicates he too is a man locked in his beliefs of how these things should be done, and does not like to see a contradiction.
Matthew R Marler says: March 9, 2013 at 7:04 pm
“….. As someone else wrote, you do have to be careful not to have animals eating the roots.
In this video, Savory seems to have changed from one devotional discipline to another, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he is wrong.
Roughly speaking, the cattle are the method of irrigation, carrying fluid from the rivers and ponds to the countryside. The fertilizing effect of the manure merely recycles the nitrogenous compounds synthesized by the grasses and legumes….”
Agree on all points, Matthew – required management input and infrastructure is obliviously mcuh greater.
I liked too the concept that the ruminants are the source of water and bacteria on the plains in the dry times –
This is a very compelling point – grasses that dry up, oxidize and blow away as dust help no-one, and certainly not the soil. But, organic matter trampled into the soil (grasses and manure) does more than just provide nutrients, it also hugely increases water holding capacity of the soil, traps minerals which would otherwise be leached away, and this combination of nutrients and water sustains an active bacterial population in the upper soil layer.
Does he remind anyone else of an ageing Einstein searching for his holistic field theory ?
markx says:-
“the concept that the ruminants are the source of water and bacteria on the plains in the dry times”
I doubt that very much; even in temperate climates in summer , the water from animals evaporates almost immediately, the bacteria die and the carbon in the dung is oxidised. Perhaps the mineral content is deposited , depending on the volatility of the compounds containing the same. Life is not possible without water.
The same deposits , during wetter times , undoubtedly can be sequestered.
One thing I am sure of, and as both Savory and Willis have pointed out, the greenie demonization of meat eating is ludicrous. There are environments and seasons in which nothing but herbivores, and particularly ruminants can survive, and there are many foodstuffs in the world that we cannot eat.
james griffin says:
It is the soot and things such as sulphur dioxide that we need to address….
———————————————
I was on vacation last week and met a farm supply and produce trucker from Minnesota. He says the farmers there are complaining about the cost of low sulphur diesel fuel. They then have to buy sulphur to spread on their fields.
Talk about law of unintended consequences. Pay to remove sulpher then buy it back.
Some people appear to have missed that he explicitly said – controlled animal management.
A farmer in Australia cell grazes his sheep and in the paddock following the cattle he has converted two caravans (Trailers) into layer boxes and he runs chickens in the paddocks that the cattle were previously in. The chickens scratch and distribute the manure and he sells the eggs as true free range.
Here’s a video of the NSW Farmer of the Year 2008 who uses cell grazing for sheep.
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2008/s2413406.htm –
andy says:
March 9, 2013 at 8:20 pm
Does he remind anyone else of an ageing Einstein searching for his holistic field theory ?
Yes , a little.
FB , reading Savory’s book “Holistic Resource Management” about 25 years ago , found it useful only for its information theory in regard to seeing the farm as a discrete organism, and the need for a total immersion in the farm processes in order to achieve understanding of the internal workings; an understanding that was not achievable by a team of specialists each in their own disciple, nor by a team of multi-disciplinary specialists. That’s why we have “farmers” of course; grizzled old bastards who have lived and breathed inside their farms over a lifetime, and are virtually an inseparable part of the farm. They “know” it like the back of their hand.
farmerbraun says: March 9, 2013 at 7:02 pm “Organic” because it arose from a concern for conservation of soil carbon , or organic matter.
If you don’t mind me asking Geoff, what exactly is the problem that you have with that?
……………………………
I do mind you asking because the movement has gone from one stupid concept to another. It has been hijacked by chemophobes. As a chemist, I’m ashamed to read of the denigration of the work of many thoughtful and talented chemical forebears. If you have been sucked in by the mistruth of some of the basic assertions, than nothing I say will change your mind unless you are prepared to state that you understand and practise the scientific method in its broad sense,