Index of articles and links

Conventional wisdom says grazing damages land -- yet the same land a few cattle or sheep damage today often supported thousands or millions of wild grazers less than 200 years ago.

Kachana Pastoral Co.

Index of articles and links

Grasslands and grazers evolved together in the world's seasonally dry and arid (brittle) environments. Healing this land usually involves managing livestock to perform the ecosystem functions once performed by wild animals. This works even on severely damaged and eroded land, and in places where no topsoil remains.

Index of articles and links

Even land that has lost all its soil -- or where no soil ever existed -- can be revegetated. Using the method shown, up to a foot of soil can be created in three years, even in arid areas.

Thomas J. Elpel

by Allan Savory

NOTE: At the Yakima meeting of the WSU/Kellogg project in January 1997, Allan Savory gave the keynote speech from which the following is excerpted.

I see you--holistic management practitioners--as the leaders in the last battle mankind will ever face. I think the greatest battle is this battle to live within the means of our environment and live in harmony with our environment.

Our human way of making decisions, I am afraid, has not left a good track record. We're all in this together, and we've got to find out.

by Allan Savory

The following keynote speech was presented at The Agriculture Vision 2000 Conference--Sustaining the Agricultural Community in the New Millennium on January 11, 2000 in Great Bend, Kansas. Allan Savory is the founder of the Center for Holistic Management in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA.

Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you this evening about a matter of profound importance for the survival of humanity.

Grasslands and dryland ecosystems are adapted to, and dependent upon, disturbances such as grazing and trampling.

by Wilma Keppel

by Sam Bingham

by Peter Donovan

This article first appeared in the Puget Consumer's Coop Sound Consumer.

In a designated wilderness, I met a hiker on the trail. Horseback, I was the natural target of his wrath at seeing a couple of cowpies back down the trail. The sight had ruined his experience of the landscape. From what he had read, and from camping once on an overgrazed streambank, he knew that cows were bad.

The grandfather of the man who owned the cattle had killed the last wolf in the county. He knew that wolves were bad.

by Doug Warnock

Changing the calving season to better match the availability of pasture with the nutritional needs of the herd has resulted in cutting winter feed costs by half and being able to sell 14,000 more pounds of calves last year at the Broughton Land Company's ranch near Dayton, Washington.

by Peter Donovan

JOSEPH, OREGON--For Bob Jackson, the most important factor in forest management is the direction, not the speed or efficiency. Results are created one day at a time.