Earth Medicine: Operation Hope

7/13/11 update:  Operation Hope is based on the important realization that livestock and grasslands form an integrated ecosystem.  Putting cattle on desert and managing them as if they were wild game animals does help restore the desert to grassland.  Now that we know that, why not go a step further.  The best approach might be to return the wild game to their native lands and forget about managing the cattle as if they were something they are not.  Also allow the natural predators to return (wild cats, wolves).  Then leave those wild animals alone.  DM


 In 2006 the FAO published Livestock's Long Shadow in which they claimed, essentially, that herds of livestock degrade land, destroy ecosystems, pollute water, release greenhouse gases, and reduce biodiversity.   Livestock are essential to the health of the grasslands that overgrazing has gradually converted into deserts.

But this fact remains hidden from 'experts' who make their living by crunching numbers and creating theories in U.N. cubicles without ever having actually thought about how nature works.  Fortunately we have people who learn by studying nature, not just numbers, like Allan Savory.

Allan Savory

Savory won the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge Prize of $100,000 for the Africa Center for Holistic Management (ACHM) in Zimbabwe by demonstrating that by INCREASING the number of livestock on barren land by 400% we can convert it from desert back to productive grassland:

"Desertification is occurring on 25% of the land area of Earth, degrading 73% of the world's rangelands and causing widespread poverty. By reversing desertification, we could create innumerable positive consequences: mitigating climate change, droughts and floods, and reducing poverty, social breakdown, violence and genocide. Yet most attempts to date have not only been ineffective, but have been band-aid solutions that do not address its real "root" causes. Enter Semi-Finalist Allan Savory and his surprising trimtab approach to reversing desertification that he calls "holistic rangeland management." Nearly the exact opposite of prevailing theories that blame desertification on overgrazing, Savory's solution centers on dramatically increased livestock numbers to reverse desertification. The tremendous success of Savory's counter-intuitive solution is evidenced through his work with Operation Hope at the Africa Center for Holistic Management (ACHM) in Zimbabwe. For hundreds of years the 6,500 acres of the ACHM were barren, dry fields until 1992 when Savory increased the livestock by 400% and managed them through holistic, planned grazing. Over time, the barren fields were transformed into green grass and open water, full of water lilies and fish.

Did you get that?  By increasing livestock by 400% and managing their grazing to mimic patterns of wild grazing animals this project turned deserts into grasslands and wetlands.  Look at this transformation; on the left, before the grazing, on the right, after the grazing:

Source: Inhabitat.com

This was accomplished by skillfully using lots of cattle, the very same species that the FAO claims is destroying the planet.

I don't know if Savory has ever read the Tao Te Ching, but his whole project is based on a Taoist sensibility:

In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.

Less and less is done
Until non-action is achieved.
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

The world is ruled by letting things take their course.
It cannot be ruled by interfering.

Tao Te Ching Chapter 48

Do you think you can take over the universe and improve it?
I do not believe it can be done.

The universe is sacred.
You cannot improve it.
If you try to change it, you will ruin it.
If you try to hold it, you will lose it.

Tao Te Ching, Chapter 29

Instead of doing something based on conventional 'wisdom' that putting animals on a desert will make it worse, Savory just noticed that grasslands need livestock as much as livestock need grasslands and rather than trying to change or interfere with nature, he decided to emulate it:

Operation Hope has successfully reversed desertification on their learning site called the Dimbangombe Ranch in Zimbabwe. The concept is formed around the idea that large herds of animals — which have reduced in numbers over the years — were an essential part of the grasslands ecosystems. The herds have diminished in size and thus ecosystems are faltering. Savory has developed an approach that uses livestock to replace the once ubiquitous herds of grazing animals in order to reboot the ecosystem. Farmers create a plan for livestock grazing in order to make the most of their presence. The livestock’s hooves break up the ground so water can seep through and plants have room in the soil to grow. Their manure fertilizes the ground and increases vegetation. The livestock then graze on the vegetation and keep the grasses at a healthy length and density.

Imagine that.  Nature didn't make a mistake in pairing graziers with grass; the graziers actually help the grass, and the grass holds water in the soil.  So, Savory took a look at land like this:

And realized that to make it more productive he had to put animals on it, not take animals off of it.  He taught a team of people to put animals back on the land, move them around the way native species would migrate, and let nature take its course.

The herds of cattle did what cattle do--express their "boviness," as Joel Salatin would say--and all the people had to do is help the cattle do it while moving about in a pattern like wild graziers.  Pretty soon the land and cattle both started looking pretty lush:

The return of cattle, water, and grass made the people pretty happy:

All of this gives farmers more productive land, allowing a better harvest of crops. Previously, as desertification took hold, communities were moved off their land and violence broke out because of displacement. Savory’s approach to range land management keeps people on their land, sustains communities, improves livelihoods, creates food security and returns ecosystems to their natural state.

I find it so perfect that this project got the Buckminster Fuller prize because Bucky himself ate an animal-based diet.  Ray Audette tells the story in Neanderthin:

"R. Buckminster Fuller is famous for inventing the geodesic dome, but most who know of his work are unaware that he advocated a diet of meat, vegetables, and fruit.  In the 1960's, Bucky found himself very overweight-- at five feet, five inches he weighed 200 pounds.  Concerned about his increasing size he applied his scientific and philosophic genius to the problem.  His solution was, and remains, unique among low-carbohydrate advocates.  

One of the basic tenets of Bucky Fuller's philosophy is that nature is always most efficient in using energy.  The sun is the Earth's main source of energy, and solar energy is directly concentrated in the form of plants throught the process of photosynthesis.  Theorizing that humans should seek the most energy-concentrated (i.e. the most natural) source of protein and calories Bucky concluded that he should eat that meat of animals that eat plants..

By applying the unique idea of "energy accounting" to his weight problem, Bucky lost sixty pounds and greatly increased his energy.  He continued to eat a low-carbohydrate diet for the rest of his life (he died at age 88). "

So, don't believe those ivory tower eggheads who tell you that "livestock's long shadow" is destroying the Earth.  Practice always trumps theory, and practice shows that meat is medicine even for the environment.  It looks like livestock provide the best way to turn deserts back into grasslands.  Let's have a steak to celebrate!

Watch Alan Savory talk about his holistic approach in my post Keeping Cattle: Cause or Cure for Climate Change?

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