Allan Savory
Allan Savory
Allan Redin Savoryis a Zimbabwean ecologist, farmer, soldier, exile, environmentalist, international consultant, and president and co-founder of The Savory Institute. He originated holistic management, a systems thinking approach to managing resources. Once a staunch opponent of livestock, Savory would come to favor using properly managed livestock, bunched and moving to mimic nature, as a means to heal the environment, stating "only livestock can reverse desertification. There is no other known tool available to humans with which to address desertification that...
NationalityZimbabwean
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth15 September 1935
CountryZimbabwe
Almost all the knowledge required to produce more food than eroding soil is available today - we just need to use that knowledge within a holistic paradigm - managing agriculture holistically, forming the policies that undergird it holistically.
I've often been asked what drives me, particularly through the last 50 years of abuse, and ridicule. What has kept me going is one word - care. I care enough about the land, the wildlife, people, the future of humanity. If you care enough, you will do whatever you have to do, no matter what the opposition.
If you dig deep and keep peeling the onion, artists and freelance writers are the leaders in society - the people who start to get new ideas out.
Ultimately, the only wealth that can sustain any community, economy or nation is derived from the photosynthetic process - green plants growing on regenerating soil.
People and land need healing which is all inclusive - holistic.
Agriculture is the most destructive industry that we have. More than coal mining and other extractive industries.
We simulated the predator with livestock and the perennial grassland returned. Just put the whole back, and there it was. You'll find the scientific method never discovers anything. Observant, creative people make discoveries. But the scientific method protects us from cranks like me.
It helps to think of soil as a living organism covered with skin like a human. We can live with a certain percentage of our skin damaged, but if too high a percentage is damaged, we die. So, too, does soil and thus most life
Agriculture is not crop production as popular belief holds - it's the production of food and fiber from the world's land and waters. Without agriculture it is not possible to have a city, stock market, banks, university, church or army. Agriculture is the foundation of civilization and any stable economy.
Burning one hectare of grassland gives off more, and more damaging, pollutants than 6,000 cars. And we are burning in Africa, every single year, more than one billion hectares.
I was so fanatical about trying to save wildlife... I was unable to accept that we couldn't solve this problem of thousands of years, of wherever humans operated, the environment deteriorated.
A good tracker is interpreting all the time, from every little sign, you know? Not just interpreting the age of the tracks but also: Is it wounded? Is it hungry? A good tracker is interpreting a lot.
The problem of a rising population destroying more than four tons of soil for every human already alive needs to find its way into corporate board rooms if we are to enjoy future financial, economic and political stability.
Hard systems are everything we're using right now - computers, phones, planes, the clothes you're wearing, the room you're in. Everything there involves 100% use of technology and expertise to make it, and nothing we make - including space exploration vehicles and so on - is complex. Everything we make is complicated. Nothing is self-renewing.