Holistic Management® in the News:
Moving the World Towards Sustainability
- an article by Allan Savory and Christopher Peck
from GreenMoney's special 15th Anniversary
expanded online edition www.greenmoney.com
As we here at the Green Money Journal celebrate our 15 year anniversary, we look forward to the next 15 years. We’ve asked experts to contemplate and make suggestions on what needs attention in the years ahead. In this article, Allan Savory and Christopher Peck highlight critical and overlooked challenges and propose a “unified theory” for moving our world towards sustainability. Allan is the founder of Holistic Management International (www.holisticmanagement.org) and a long-time advocate for a holistic approach to land, livestock, people and profitability. Christopher is a principal with Natural Investment Services, LLC (www.naturalinvesting.com), a Certified Educator in Holistic Management and a board member of HMI.
There’s no denying it, the global environment is in crisis. Some folks have been aware of it for years, some are just realizing it, but awareness of global environmental challenges is finally going mainstream, and responsible people everywhere are struggling for solutions. The magnitude of the problems is overwhelming, and political institutions are doing little. This won’t work, nor will relying on expensive technological quick-fixes applied piecemeal without consideration of broader ramifications. A healthy, profitable and sustainable world is possible, but requires immediate attention; we have all the money in the world to address this problem, we do not have unlimited time. We propose that the further, extensive adoption of Holistic Management in the years ahead can address critical parts of the problem not easily solved by technology to build a sustainable world profitably and quickly.
Global warming is getting all the press these days, but there are other equally pressing global environmental problems that if not simultaneously addressed will make it impossible to deal with global warming. We’ll discuss the problem areas and then demonstrate how Holistic Management can address these problems.
The Challenge of Legacy Carbon
There is considerable focus on how improved technology can solve those aspects of global warming associated with carbon emissions from fossil fuel sources. Technology can generate energy from wind generators, photovoltaic panels, ethanol and biofuels as well as save energy while lighting, warming and cooling our homes and workplaces. Mitigating the ongoing emissions of carbon from fossil fuels necessitates technological solutions as well as behavioral changes (turn off the lights!).
While technology can solve the problem of ending carbon emissions from fossil fuels, relying on technology to save us is an expensive and insecure solution for the many decades of carbon that have built up in the atmosphere. This “legacy carbon” is where our biggest challenge lies. The atmosphere today contains approximately 750 gigatons of carbon (GtC). In pre-industrial times it contained only about 570 GtC, representing an excess of 180 GtC. That’s what we need to work on; no small feat!
The currently proposed high-tech solutions are astronomical in cost, and appear doomed to failure. One such proposal, injecting CO 2 into saline aquifers deep underground, is estimated to cost many billions of dollars and is certain to experience catastrophic failure in the event of an earthquake or simply from leakage at various old well points. Other proposals include planting trees or genetically modifying various organisms to improve their ability to sequester carbon. That won’t be cheap, risks a host of unintended consequences and would not sequester the carbon for centuries as is required.
Even among the technologically inclined, terrestrial sequestration is widely viewed as one of the most cost effective means of pulling carbon from the atmosphere. And storing it safely in the soil is exactly where it should be. But is it possible to do this on the scale necessary, and at what cost?
Biomass Gets Burned
Another area that requires attention in the coming years, immediately really, is the burning of biomass, the burning off of grasslands and savannas in Africa and America, the clearing of agricultural wastes in crop lands and the slash-and-burn clearing of tropical forests. Burning creates a huge release of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, nitric oxide and other global warming gases into the atmosphere, and also releases other gases such as methyl chlorine and methyl bromine, which pose a serious threat to the ozone layer. It is true that some of the carbon emitted from annual burning of grasslands is taken up in the following season as the plants re-grow; however the total amount of carbon stored is less over time as the mass of vegetation and diversity of species decreases each year. Research has also shown that the release of excess nitric oxide and nitrous oxide, both potent greenhouse gases, continues to be emitted even months after the fire, at levels greater than during the burning.
The amount of carbon associated with biomass burning is staggering. Based on research by Andreae (1991 & 1995) the amount of carbon released just by burning savanna grasslands is estimated at 1.6 Giga tons of carbon per year (GtC/yr). If we include the amount from burning agricultural residues the total rises to 2.5 GtC/yr. Compare this with the 5.5 GtC/yr from fossil fuel burning, and you can see the enormity of the impact of burning vegetation.
Organic Agriculture is Not Enough
“Organic agriculture is not enough” is a provocative statement. Many people pin their hopes on the continued growth of organic agriculture here and abroad. The stunning 20% annual growth rate over the last ten years is encouraging, and the reduction in toxic material use and the increase in organic matter retention in cropland soils is impressive, but much more is needed. The book Collapse by Jared Diamond clearly makes the case that many previous civilizations have overextended their reach, degraded their ecosystem and died out, and each one of them had what we would consider organic agriculture (no pesticides, no artificial fertilizers, etc). We need to go beyond organic, and we need to think beyond the borders of the farm. If a disaster destroyed significant watersheds, and insufficient fresh water was available for human use in drinking, irrigation, and industry, we would be clamoring for a solution. But even with organic agriculture, which was all that existed prior to our discovery and exploitation of fossil fuels, we are losing watersheds, and the loss of the watershed has been convincingly related to the demise of several human civilizations over the past 5,000 years (Ponting, 1991).
It is estimated today that our crop and range lands lose 4 tons of soil every year for every person alive! That’s 21 gigatons of soil lost to the sea, lost to productive use on land and releasing vast amounts of carbon (New Scientist, December 2006). If global society is going to meet the needs of an estimated 9 billion people, most living in cities, by 2050, an agriculture that stores carbon, eliminates soil losses, and is close to the people is urgently needed.
Single Problem Decision Making
As global warming garners the majority of the world’s attention at the moment, well-meaning people propose solutions, touting the possible savings in carbon emissions. Nuclear power is often cited as an example of an energy source that does not emit carbon. While this is true, we must look at the whole picture. It takes an enormous amount of energy to construct and maintain a safe nuclear reactor, and that energy currently comes from fossil fuel, emitting huge amounts of carbon. There is also a 250,000-year babysitting period for the radioactive wastes and the insurance and financing problems related to disaster liability. Only after full consideration of many facets can we determine the soundness of any suggested quick fix.
If we look at one isolated factor, and try to solve for that isolated factor, the usefulness of our decisions is questionable. The quality of the solution will be limited, and, once in the complex real world, will bear the weight of catastrophic unintended consequences that all too often lead to fixes of the fixes. A similar critique can be made about current proposals for the conversion of corn to biofuels. If they are to actually contribute to a reduction in carbon emissions, then all phases of their production will need to be included in the calculations. Additionally, as mentioned in the previous section, an industrial agriculture approach to biofuel production will need to be similarly “beyond organic.”
Holism to the Rescue
Holistic Management uses a decision making framework and set of tools that presents a “unified theory” for solving these problems. Developed over the last 30 years in response to real world demands, by farmers, ranchers, businesspeople and directors of non-profits, Holistic Management has proven its applicability and strength. The Holistic Management framework has many layers and applications, for the sake of brevity in this conversation we will mention only two: one tool and one perspective.
Holistic grazing planning is a powerful tool of Holistic Management. Based on three key insights it is classic systems thinking: what you thought was the problem is actually your most powerful solution. Conventional range management (and environmental theory) teaches that too many animals is at the root of rangeland decline. If we look at historic natural systems like the savannas of Africa or the Great Plains in the US however, we see that massive numbers of animals co-evolved with highly productive rangelands. As it turns out large numbers of grazing animals are essential to the health of the grasslands, but they must be in large herds constantly moving as they once were when accompanied by pack-hunting predators. Holistic planned grazing mimics this natural dynamic with domesticated animals, bunching them into one herd, and timing their movements to eliminate overgrazing of plants, while providing the benefit of dung and urine to the soil. Ranchers using Holistic Management use high animal density applied in short pulses, and careful timing of grazing and recovery matched to the features of the vegetation. Practice and experience around the globe has demonstrated that mimicking nature in this way works: rangelands regenerate, the diversity of plant species and their numbers increase, and there is less soil erosion, fewer droughts. A highly beneficial consequence of managing animals in this way is the increase of soil micro-fauna, particularly dung beetles (see below). Imagine the benefits to global carbon storage with billions of dung beetles tunneling partially digested grass three feet down into the soil!
The use of this tool can dramatically impact the first three challenges we mentioned above, legacy carbon in the atmosphere, the burning of grasslands, and the need to go beyond organic agriculture. Taking a more comprehensive, holistic view we can apply holistic planned grazing to ever larger tracts of land, feed animals vegetation instead of burning it, restore watersheds to former states of water permeability, and store carbon in the soil.
The appropriate use of holistic planned grazing leads to increased organic matter in the soil. More plants remain healthy with the lack of overgrazing, but more importantly, more soil is covered and better aerated, and more new plants establish because of the brief but intense cultivation provided by livestock hooves. Gardeners have used the same technique for millennia – mulch the soil (with litter), add manure and you increase organic matter. We’re greatly simplifying for the sake of space, but increasing organic matter on rangeland soils by 1% is doable, and accomplished on a modest ranch of 5,000 hectares, can capture 440,000 tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere. (Jones, 2006) With 2000 of these ranches or 10 million hectares managed you could remove 880 million tons of carbon. With total legacy carbon at 180 gigatons, that 10 million hectares and its stored carbon would represent about .5% of the legacy load. Luckily there are 4.5 billion hectares of rangeland, and if we confine ourselves to the 75% or so that is considered degraded, a modest .5% increase in soil carbon would store approximately 150 GtC. That’s pretty close to our target number, and the time frame to complete this modest increase in soil organic matter is certainly within 15 years. The amazing thing is this would be done by increasing the number of grazing animals, dramatically decreasing the amount of grassland burning, and would increase the profitability of ranchers and pastoralists around the world.
The Holistic Management perspective is simultaneously the easiest and the most difficult change. Seeing the world whole is an insight that could happen in an afternoon, though usually it takes years or a lifetime to operate and make decisions from this perspective. The Holistic Management decision making process doesn’t make you wait for enlightenment, it’s a sturdy framework that ensures that all decisions you make are comprehensive, big picture, and inclusive. Using our example, making the decision about the viability of nuclear power depends on many factors, being able to include the impact on human health, the complete carbon budget, property values (to name a few), is a useful perspective.
As a species we face many challenges. Our ability to meet and overcome these challenges is strengthened by the use of Holistic Management. Please join us in our work to create a healthier and more prosperous world. We look forward to hearing from you.
A bit more…Dung Beetles to the Rescue
Dung beetles were worshipped by ancient Egyptians. When you learn of their power to sequester carbon and reduce flooding and drought, you’ll see why! Dung beetles use the manure of large animals to create underground nests for laying eggs into. They can bury a manure patty in less than 24 hours, dramatically improving soil fertility, water infiltration and range health. Modern research on dung beetles and their preference for holistic planned grazing shows holism in action. For example, to summarize research done on a ranch in Oklahoma that uses holistic planned grazing, the dung beetles buried approximately 1 ton of wet manure per acre per day. This increased water infiltration an average of 129% on studied plots. Each extra inch of water that is absorbed into the soil adds almost 30,000 gallons of water per acre to the soil, reducing both flooding and drought. (Richardson 2000).
Article originally published by GreenMoney.com as part of the special 15th Anniversary expanded online edition (Summer 2007).
For more information go to www.greenmoney.com