Allan Savory (1935) is ecoloog, boer, soldaat, banneling, milieuactivist, internationaal consultant en oprichter van The Savoury Institute. Hij heeft het begrip holistic management ontwikkeld, een op systeemdenken gebaseerde benadering voor het beheer van hulpbronnen. Aanvankelijk was hij een verklaard tegenstander van veeteelt, later kwam hij tot het inzicht dat vee onmisbaar is voor het beheer en behoud van gezonde natuur.
In 1961 werkte hij in Rhodesië als onderzoeker op het gebied van wildbeheer. Mede op zijn advies werden 40.000 olifanten door de overheid afgemaakt in een poging de erosie in het gebied te stoppen. Later noemde hij dit advies the saddest and greatest blunder of my life.
Hij is ervan overtuigd dat het met het juiste beheer (holistic management ) van graslanden mogelijk is om zoveel CO2 uit te atmosfeer op natuurlijke wijze vast te leggen in de bodem dat dit een positieve invloed op de klimaatverandering kan hebben. Only livestock can reverse desertification, only livestock can save us.
Zijn radicale ideeën hebben veel weerstand opgeroepen maar winnen terrein. Inmiddels wordt wereldwijd al meer dan 16 miljoen hectaren grasland onder holistic management beheerd. In 2003 ontving hij de Banksia International Award en in 2010 won hij de Buckminster Fuller Challenge.
Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert,” begins Allan Savory in this quietly powerful talk. And terrifyingly, it’s happening to about two-thirds of the world’s grasslands, accelerating climate change and causing traditional grazing societies to descend into social chaos. Savory has devoted his life to stopping it. He now believes — and his work so far shows — that a surprising factor can protect grasslands and even reclaim degraded land that was once desert.
Holistic Management
Holistic Resource Management offers land stewards a way to make
grazing, land management and financial decisions that positively
impact land health and productivity. At present, agriculture and many
other businesses are struggling to maintain viabilty. Decreased income
often leads to a focus on increased production and harder work.
Presently, many people involved in agriculture do not realize they are
working against “nature’s rules” and that their efforts are likely to
be unsuccessful until they learn to work with this process. In the
end, nature always wins and our production systems must change to be
sustainable. Too often, conventional agriculture focuses almost solely
on achieving production goals and solving specific problems, which can
create unforseen and unintended consequences that eventually detract
from land health, personal and family time and, ultimately,
profitability.
Holistic Resource Management brings the abundance and diversity of
natural systems to large-scale permaculture systems. Managing land
holistically integrates land planning, financial planning, grazing
planning and biological monitoring to find ways of being efficient and
creative with your resources to achieve the environmental and
financial results that make for a sustainable, long-term business.
Holistic management is effective because the resouce base ultimately
supports the financial goals and those of the people involved who
depend on the business for their livlihood. It teaches land stewards
to define their unique whole, to define their unique holistic goal,
and to make decisions that are economically, environmentally and
socially sound towards that goal.