Allan Savory introduces a new and unheard of idea to the
environmental ecologist, instead of removing cattle from a desertification area
he wants to bring cattle and other livestock back to these areas to
re-cultivate the land. Most of the rain that falls in these locations is
evaporated back into the atmosphere once the rain stops, this leads to the
release of carbon because the soil is damaged. The total area that is being
affected by desertification is between 6 to 12 million square kilometers. Over 2/3 of the grasslands around the world
are going through desertification this is causing large climate changes and
affecting the lives of many native cultures who traditionally use cattle and
livestock to support there families.
Through Savory’s research,
locations that cattle were removed from to prove that in fact it is livestock
that is the cause behind desertification have shown the opposite. These places
show a higher amount of damaged soil with little plant growth. Plants need to
decay biologically before the end of the growing season to continue
replenishing the soil, if they do not the plants and soil die and go through
oxidation. Oxidation slowly turns grassy planes into woody, bear lands and in
return releases more carbon into the atmosphere. Curios about this Savory
looked at United States national parks where mass desertification is happening
and realized that no livestock had ever been to this land, meaning that the
desertification could not be caused by livestock alone.
Many people have tried burning and
removing cattle to stop desertification. In Africa they are burning close to
one billion hectares of grassland every year, which is releasing more carbon
into the air and then also leaving the soil with little nutrients. These
actions have not changed the rapid loss of grasslands but may have even caused
it to become worse.
Before heavy human interaction large
herds of animals would move through grazing the grass but then would have to
move off due to large predators that would fallow them. Large herds dung and
urinate all over their food, this provides nutrients for the soil to absorb and
then give to the plants. These grazing animals would then have to moved on due
to predators causing them to not over graze.
This is essentially what Savory’s Holistic management is. Savory wants
to recreate the events that occurred long ago before these herds where moved
off. This is called Holistic Management. By moving cattle and other livestock
like a predator pray would move one then the plants with not be over grazed but
also get the same amount of nutrients form feces and urine. By increasing
several herds some by 400%, Savory was able to bring back full growth in areas
where desertification had taken place. Savory believes that we can get back to
pre-industrial carbon levels if we continue his process. While cattle produce
methane Savory says that the amount of grassland that will be brought back will
compensate for the extra methane released.
One criticism given by James
McWilliams in response to Savory’s findings is that what was left out was that
most cattle had to be placed in a supplement diet due to lack of food. This
caused some of the cattle to lose a significant amount of weight that they
could not be sold. Having a large number
of cattle was suppose to be a benefit to the farmers to help them sell more
meat but if the cows are not large enough and will not give any meat it defeats
the purpose.
Savory’s methods do have errors and
there is much criticism but the idea Photos:
http://www.earthtimes.org/newsimage/african-farmers-benefit-genes-resistant-cattle-sleeping-sickness_165.jpg
http://www.greengardensgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/map_fao_soildegrade.jpg
http://asiadhrra.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/before-after.jpg
No comments:
Post a Comment