By Brian Skeele, on March 23rd, 2011
The Professor is in the House…
Cattle + Predators= Soil Carbon Sequestration. How’s that for a Math equation??!!
You have sharp hooves (no sneakers allowed), You poop, you roam…You restore the planet’s balance. Duh!!
Any questions?? Yes, you with the red blouse. More Specifics?? OK, here’s how the Savory Theorem works…
In a natural context, constantly moving, healthy herds of large herbivores, interacting with their associated predators, create the disturbance (grazing and animal impact) necessary to maintain healthy ecosystem processes. Their presence ensures the continuation of the carbon cycle (with the all-important step of “decay” accelerated by the microbes in their digestive tracts), high levels of plant diversity, and a covered soil surface. Because the animals are constantly moving to new grazing, plants (between episodes of heavy grazing) have the chance to fully recover their above-ground leaf area and restore carbohydrate reserves in their crowns, roots, and stem bases. Holistic Management’s expertise is in re-creating/imitating these natural grazing patterns with domestic livestock, and regenerating the land in the process.
Any more questions? Yeah, you in the back. Yes, that’s right, if you eat Predator Managed Open Range Certified burgers you will be sequestering carbon back into the earth, and helping reverse Global Warming.
Yes, of course. The distance from the ranch to the slaughter house to your plate adds to the carbon footprint. That’s why ranchers and meat packing plants are switching to algae biodiesel…
Are there any more questions? The founder of the Savory Theorem? Allan Savory and he has been working out his Holistic Management over the last 40 years… I’ve written the link on the board. I suggest you study up on it, as there will be several questions on tomorrow’s test on how burgers can save us from the ravages of global warming.
One more thing…anyone that brings me a burger from the student union gets extra credit. Serious brownie points for their Predator Burgers!! extra green chile! See you tomorrow!
Holistic Management is the paradigm shift that will address this need. First conceived and developed by Rhodesian biologist, game ranger, politician, farmer, and rancher, Allan Savory, over 40 years ago, Holistic Management is driven by a decision making framework which ensures economic, ecological, and social soundness, simultaneously, both short and long term. Savory articulated four key insights which are pivotal to our understanding of the natural world —insights which underpin the Holistic Management decision making framework. Land, grazing, and financial planning procedures complement the framework, enabling on-the-ground managers to effectively handle the inherent complexity of stewarding natural “wholes”.
Our core competency in Holistic Management is the ecologically regenerative, economically viable, and socially sound management of the world’s grasslands, rangelands, and savannas. These environments comprise two thirds of the planet’s surface area. Their degradation has been ongoing since the first hominids discovered the tool of fire, and has accelerated in concert with the expansion of the human population (with its associated eradication of most of the world’s grazing and browsing megafauna, the subsequent replacement with fewer numbers of more sedentary, domesticated livestock, and soil degrading cropping practices). This degradation is characterized by a loss of soil cover (comprised of both living plants and decaying plant litter), which leads to less effective water and mineral/nutrient cycling, poorer solar energy flow, and reduced biodiversity. This all leads to the loss of previously sequestered soil carbon (a major source of our existing atmospheric CO2 load), severely degraded land or deserts, and the loss of food production capacity.
After nearly fifty years of practice, we now have successful Holistic Management practitioners spread across the globe, from Canada to the tip of Patagonia, and from Zimbabwe to Australia to Montana.