A contentious debate

I received an interesting comment on one of my previous post regarding the debate on desertification and how the desertification process could actually be reversed by re-introducing livestock on deserted land. In response to the comment, I decided to extend on the debate and re-evaluate my thoughts on whether Allan Savory should receive any merit at all for his theory. In other words, is Savory’s argument entirely wrong and absurd to be considering as a potential method for reversing desertification?

As mentioned in my previous post, Savory believes in holistic management, which is, in brief, a way for farmers to manage resources through a holistic planned grazing approach that effectively reverse desertification. Many have critiqued his theory by scientifically proving that this would not work whatsoever (see blog). The lack of scientific information and relevant data were also underlined as one of the major talk’s (TedTalk) critique, making his theory and some of his arguments all the more incoherent.

However, after thoroughly researching on the topic, I did find an article (Itskan et al, 2013) that was written in response to the Briske et al(2013) report, previously discussed in my blogpost. The latter report simply proved Savory’s argument wrong, where it was argued that holistic management (and more precisely, intensive rotational grazing, see blog) did not increase vegetation production neither ameliorate soil hydrology. In opposition Itskan et al 2013 paper acted as a rebuttal to re-evaluate Briske et al (2013)‘s argument and noted that their report was in fact not an analysis Savory’s theory but rather of an unrelated method of grazing and thus was “not reflective of its efficacy”. Furthermore, the study showed how ten farmers from around the world had seen their land become increasingly healthier with greater biodiversity when using flexible grazing methods such as adaptive management.

Teague et al 2011, in a peer-reviewed article, evaluate the impact of adaptive management with multi-paddock grazing (a ‘high animal density, short periods of grazing and long term recovery of the land’ method, Savory et al 1980) and the restoration of natural resources and conservation. The findings suggest that ranchers who use the method of adaptive management on their land, experience positive results regarding the long term maintenance of natural resources whilst sustaining economic growth. 

In all, both articles agree that some planned methods of grazing do cause resource degradation that accelerate desertification processes, but insist that it is the chosen method that is most important in determining the environmental condition of the land. They argue in favor of adaptive management grazing (a.k.a holistic management) as the solution for a desirable environment, which supports Savory’s theory on planned grazing and desertification.

What I think of this debate:

The dearth of literature on this topic questions the theory’s efficacy. It is yet to be developed and implementing some of the theory’s suggested methods would be risky. Although holistic management could potentially stop desertification in the world (and at this stage, it consists of a very small chance of doing so) I believe livestock still have a significant impact on our environment, for instance, as an important source methane, deforestation etc… Therefore, scholars would need to consider the full effects of re-introducing livestock and ensure that it would not have any wider consequences and undesirable environmental impacts on our planet

After all, why increase livestock in the world when the rational should be to decrease its already exceeding numbers?