printed with permission of Wilderness Magazine(Winter 1994) and David E.Brown
The man has something for everyone. The rancher quickly succumbs to the prospect of doubling his stocking rate; the wildlife biologist is intrigued by the concept of deer and elk improving the range; the land manager is titillated by a model that leads toward landscape health; environmentalists applaud the debunking of predator control as a necessary tool for livestock profits. Range-management academicians are properly skewered for past failures.
What Savory says is intriguing. "Western rangelands are under stocked and overgrazed," he states at the outset. His statistics correlating past range-management prescriptions with ecological and economic disaster redden the faces of range-management professors and extension agents. His theory that the hoof action of excited animals is necessary to reseed new grasses by breaking up crusted soil surfaces makes everyone think. His contention that the answer to brush-invaded grasslands lies not in mechanical eradication but in better land husbandry is both ecologically and economically appealing. That the absence of grazing can be as detrimental to rangelands as overgrazing is harder to swallow but relieves us of our guilt. Heady stuff this. No wonder Savory's teachings are finding so many disciples and are being tried by every range management agency in the West.
No one questions the fact that Western rangelands are in trouble. According to the Bureau of Land Management's own data, almost three-quarters of the public lands are overgrazed and in need of improvement. Many of our Forest Service lands, while generally located at higher elevations and receiving more rainfall than their BLM counterparts, have not appreciably improved despite a century of effort and public cost. State lands are almost universally degraded, despite desperate attempts at improvement by extension services and land-grant colleges. Riparian habitats and wildlife have suffered accordingly. The livestock industry itself is on the ropes.
So, who is Allan Savory and what it his message? Might he have discovered somehow the key to rehabilitating lost grasslands and reviving a dying frontier way of life? Will his methods restore vanished grasses and benefit livestock operators in need of salvation? Is it possible that grass follows the hoof as prairie farmers once thought that rain followed the plow? Or is his theory just another half-baked panacea for all that ails our Western rangelands?
Born in Rhodesia in 1935, Savory acquired the British colonial's fascination for natural history. Upon graduating from Natal University in South Africa with a degree in botany, he became a wildlife biologist, an occupation that held his interest until 1964. He then decided to acquire his own farm, as ranches are called in southern Africa, and try his hand at game ranching. Besides providing numerous opportunities to observe the interactions between game and livestock, his farming experience led to an increasing fascination with the science of range management.
When John Acocks, South Africa's premier botanist and range-restoration advocate, and Len Howell, an Orange Free State farmer, published the results of their studies on range improvements brought about by replacing continual sheep gazing with intensive grazing over short periods of time, Savory showed an intense interest. After visiting Howell's farm, Savory decided that short-duration grazing was the answer to South Africa's range ills. He and a partner, Stan Parsons, adopted Acock's and Howell's methods and began a counseling service to teach other farmers about short duration grazing. An attempt to implement a similar grazing program on their own farm in Rhodesia ended in failure after a protracted drought, however.
Savory's ability at tracking and commando tactics made him a valuable ally and an intimidating foe during the insurrection in Rhodesia that finally led to an independent Zimbabwe. He had served in Rhodesia's Parliament, but got crosswise with Ian Smith, and, after the civil war, he came to the United States, where he gave his first lecture on range management in 1978. His promise of increased stock numbers and better rangelands through "rest and rotation" proved a popular alternative to stock-reduction prescriptions being recommended by most American range managers, particularly those in public land agencies. Demand for Savory's services increased, particularly in the American West, and he became known as the "Guru of Grazing." In 1984, he gave up his private consulting practice to take a salaried position as Executive Director of the Center for Holistic Resource Management (HRM) in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The Center offers schools and workshops, each lasting from three to six and a half days, and costing from $250 to $1,500 to attend. Graduates are invited to become members of the Center (membership categories range from $20 to $10,000) and are offered special courses in advanced range management, computers, and economics. For $35 a year, members receive a monthly newsletter, The Savory Letter. For a fee, the Center also supplies technical assistance to members and governments. Several thousand people, including ranchers, farmers, biologists, and bureaucrats, have attended the schools, and the Center now claims nearly 1,500 members.
What Savory teaches is really an "approach" to rural land management. The mechanics are based importantly on the non-selective" and "short duration" grazing systems developed by Acocks and Howell. Succinctly put, the methodology is to intensely graze small pastures for a few days or weeks and then give them months of res -- hence the term, "short duration" grazing. Large numbers of animals insure that all the available forage is consumed, the less palatable species as well as the preferred ones -- hence the term "nonselective" grazing. Frequent and lengthy rest periods ensure that all the plants have an opportunity to mature and reproduce. One drawback to such an approach is the capital investment required to construct the numerous fences and water sources necessary to divide the range into the twelve to sixteen paddocks needed for adequate movement and rest. Still, as long as rain comes and there is plant regeneration, such a system should work -- at least in theory.
Undaunted by his Rhodesian experience, Savory reasoned that the failure of his farm in Africa was because he operated with a rotation schedule that was too rigid. The answer, he decided, was a "thought model" that, when coupled with a flexible "management plan," would accommodate changing situations while still proceeding toward a predetermined landscape goal. Such vision, of course, is not possessed by everyone; consultation and interpretation are therefore necessary. These services, too, are provided for a fee by the Holistic Resource Center. To keep the subscriber on the scheduled plan, the Center supplies the client with Aide Memoires reminiscent of those from a British military planner.
Savory maintains that he has found the "four missing keys" to range management:
When confronted with a lack of success on the ground, Savory had, no pun intended, stock answers: not enough time had elapsed to see the desired response; the prescriptions of the management plan were not properly followed; unexpected climatic or economic events made replanting necessary. Savory himself had once admitted "that at best, only one percent" of those who follow his advice fully succeed.
"Where then," I asked him,. "can one go and see some positive results of Savory-type management? Is there a farm in Africa where SAM has brought about a demonstrable improvement, an improvement that can be compared to neighboring systems?"
"No," was Savory's response. "They have all collapsed through lack of planning and failure to follow the model." Still, short-duration grazing has long been practiced in southern Africa, and so, even though there were then some political difficulties, in August l986 I determined to go to the Republic of South Africa to take a look for myself.
Through the friendship of two former South Africans, I inquired as to where I might see some farms using the techniques that Savory was espousing in the United States. The lists provided by P. d'Homan, Production Executive of The Cattle Producers' Association, and J. W. Thomson, Director of Veterinary Services for Zimbabwe, were short. Moreover, the message was decidedly negative and in the past tense: "There are many farmers who have tried the Savory System over the years, some supporting it and others condemning it .... The following ranchers have practiced the Short Duration Grazing System ... a number of other ranchers have tried the system but have since moved off it." Savory was right. Zimbabwe was a poor place for a test.
Sally Antrobus, editor of South Africa's national parks zoo magazine, Custos, was more encouraging. She set up a week-long tour that would take me to three farms in the Orange Free State and the interior of the Cape Province. Here was where short-duration grazing originated and where Savory got his range-management ideas in the 1960s. All three farms were still using short-duration grazing systems, and one, in the semiarid Karoo region, was owned by Derek Hobson, a former classmate of Savory's. If Allan Savory's teachings couldn't get a fair shake here, he couldn't get one anywhere.
The shrub-invaded grasslands of the Karoo are an ideal analog to the American Southwest. Located between parallels 31 and 34 degrees south, the Karoo is about the same distance south of the equator as southern Arizona and New Mexico are north of the equator. The climate of the two areas is also comparable. The highly variable annual rainfall averages between 7 and 17 inches, and most of it falls during the summer growing season. Winter rainfall, while less predictable, is also of some importance, and freezing temperatures can be expected during most winters. The ground cover consists of warm-season grasses, spring-flowering shrubs, and bare soil punctuated by thorny, short-statured acacia trees closely resembling mesquites. Even the 3,500- to 7,000 foot elevations are reminiscent of our border rangelands, and the landscapes of the two regions are remarkably similar.
Range rehabilitation has long been a concern in South Africa and much can be learned there. The Hillside farm of Len and Denise Howell near the town of Springfontein is an excellent example. Returning home from World War 11 after an absence of five years and 1 00 days, Len was amazed at how much his veldt-the South African term for rangeland deteriorated during the heavily stocked war years. Soil Conservation Districts, modeled after those in the United States, were formed in 1945, and the Howells' started one. Stocking rates were reduced and a system of three restoration pastures was instituted in which one pasture was grazed for four months while the other two were rested. After two years of improvement, however, the condition of both the veldt and the stock declined. Many of the district's farms abandoned the rest-rotation concept and went back to continuous grazing. Bare ground continued to increase, along with such unpalatable Karoo shrubs as bitterbrush. The Howells initiated instead a series of range experiments in conjunction with John Acocks, who was deeply concerned over the deteriorating condition of South Africa's veldts. Acocks reasoned that the reduced stocking rates were not working because the animals always selected the most nutritious plants first, leaving the less desirable ones to reproduce and multiply. The condition of the stock was declining because selective grazing had removed the best food plants. Dividing Hillside into a dozen fenced pastures or paddocks allowed Howell to intensively graze all of his veldt equally, while giving each plant an extensive rest. The result was a decided improvement. Further experiments followed, and Acocks and Howell published articles on their successes. Savory, on reading the results in Farmer's Weekly, and visiting Hillside in 1966, announced that "this was the answer." Today, Hillside is clothed in Themeda triandra, South Africa's desired "rooigras."
Erosion and other indicators of range deterioration are on the wane and Hillside provides two families with a comfortable living. But summer rainfall averages more than 16 inches here, and is even more generous in good years. Moreover, Hillside is only lightly stocked with sheep, and supports merely 100 head or so of cattle and a few horses. It is also apparent that a lifetime has been spent in restoring the veldt and that much love and care and intensive labor has gone into its care.
Compassberg, the second farm I looked at, is a high elevation (to 8,000 ft.) tussock grassland farm owned by Louis and Phyllis Trollip. Burning, a practice scorned by Savory, is used in a seven-year rotation to maintain a grass veldt free of scrub. As at Hillside, pastures are numerous, the stock is frequently moved, and rest periods are long. Stocking rates are light by American standards and more than 30 years have been invested in recovering what is said to have been a severely depleted range.
And it has recovered. As at Hillside, a fenceline contrast is immediately noticeable. The dried yellow grass of Compassberg's pastures stands in marked contrast to the gray scrub of the neighboring veldt, and, even more impressive, a cursory inspection reveals several additional inches of topsoil on the Compassberg side of the fence. Cocks' influences are much in evidence, both in Louis Trollip's conversation and on his veldt.
A bronze plaque set in stone commemorates the professor's contributions to the recovery of Compassberg. Like Hillside, Compassberg receives an average rainfall in excess of 16 inches a year. The veldt on Derek Hobson's farm is more arid. Karoo bushes often exceed the grasses and the more palatable of them are heavily nipped. The family's sheep and goats have to be constantly herded to sustain the veldt in even its present shape. Worry is an integral part of the management plan. Yet short duration and non-selective grazing has provided two generations with a comfortable living here. If summer droughts are not too severe, and do not come too often, the veldt will continue to yield a profit. The farm is conservatively and ingeniously managed, and a large labor pool is available for fencing, herding, and maintaining water.
In Africa, I concluded, at least some of Savory's range management practices could be made to work-but only where summer rainfall is adequate and the principle goal is to produce grass. It also helps to have a steady supply of cheap labor. Contrary to Savory's contention that what was good for sheep and cows was good for wildlife, none of the farms I visited in Africa was particularly rich in non-domestic animals. A few small antelope such as springbok were present on Hobson's farm and at Hillside; the tracks of Reebok were seen at Compassberg. The big herds, so essential for the "excited hoof action" touted by Savory, were absent, as were the large predators. When South Africans go to game farming, as many do, they take the livestock off.
Closer to home, ranches touted for their Savory Grazing Management practices have not been persuasive monuments to Savory's promises. When I saw it in 1988, a fenced enclosure on the Date Creek Ranch in Yavapai County, Arizona, showed a dramatic difference from the surrounding country after 50 years of protection from grazing: The protected area was tobosa grassland, while the adjacent Savory system pastures were now a desert scrub of snakeweed and creosote, with no signs of improvement after five years of Savory Grazing Management. Even more disappointing is the Red Hill allotment on the Bar-T-Bar Ranch on the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest in northern Arizona, which I took a look at in 1989. After four years of SGM the range had deteriorated to the point that all of the cattle had to be removed to an adjacent allotment that was supposed to be reserved as winter pasture for elk. "There was not enough grass left to carry the cows through the winter, or any reserve left for wildlife or plant vigor," explained Forest Supervisor Nick McDonough, who declared a moratorium on any new Savory cells until further evaluation. The evaluation continues.
Rukin Jelk's 8,000-acre Diamond C Ranch near Elgin, Arizona, on the other hand, has been much touted as an HRM success story -- so much so that range conditions on Jelk's property are frequently described as superior to those on the adjacent Research Ranch managed by the National Audubon Society. This is remarkable in that the Research Ranch hasn't been grazed since 1968. Both ranches are about the same size, are situated in Plains Grassland among evergreen oaks, and have a mean annual summer rainfall exceeding six inches. Curious to see a good face to face comparison between HRM and a "decadent" preserve at last, in September of 1994 I went down to Elgin.
Jelks' range is certainly well managed, and Savory's HRM workshops have obviously worked for him. Cattle numbers have' increased from 220 to 650 with no apparent damage to the range. Nonetheless, claims that the Diamond C possesses greater land health than the Research Ranch are misleading. It is a matter of perspective. True, more nutritious green grass can be seen on the Diamond C than on the Research Ranch, but the tall stands of residual grass that Savory and other stockmen like to call " decadent growth" are the major objective of the Research Ranch's manager, Bill Branan.
The Audubon property not only has taller and browner grass, it appears to have more forbs. Pronghorn antelope require both, and studies show that ground-nesting birds and riparian plants have benefited from Audubon's "no-use" management program. Jelk's ranch is, after all, managed for cattle; the Audubon Ranch's goal is not grass -- it is biodiversity.
So what is the bottom line? Can Savory's Holistic Resource Management approach reclothe the West in its long-vanished endemic grasses? I think not. And in the arid Mojave Sonoran, and Chihauhuan deserts of the Southwest, dominated by winter rainfall, I am sure that HRM will fail just as all previous attempts at grazing have. The widely fluctuating and increasing incidences of drought that are part of these regions' evolutionary history are against him. No model can produce grass in those years when the rains fail.
Nor is the Southwest any longer the proper home for great herds of grazing animals, as Savory would have us believe. Unlike Africa, much of the American West has been without large herbivores for nearly 10,000 years. The relatively few large mammals that survived the Pleistocene were, of necessity, browsers and forb eaters like the deer and pronghorn. Only the elk and the bison depend largely on grasses for sustenance. Elk are mostly montane animals and bison were confined to the less arid and more stable-Savory would say non-brittle-grasslands east of the Rio Grande.
American deserts have no native animals such as the gemsbok and eland that can roam freely, subsist without open water, and keep from concentrating in favorite habitats. Co-evolutionary relationships that allow the kudu and other animals to subsist on the sugary exudings of mopane tree leaves, without damaging the plants, are almost unknown in the Southwest. Removal of old grass cover by introduced livestock may stimulate new growth, but it also increases evapotranspiration rates and accelerates an irreversible conversion of what little natural grassland there is to shrubland and desert. If, as Savory postulates, thrifty, growing of ass was the normal ground cover of the Southwest, pronghorn antelope would have green colored pelage rather than butterscotch and white.
Even in other, more compatible regions of the country, Savory's methods need further testing before being adopted. Carefully controlled experiments in several areas using paired test areas for comparison are essential before his methodology should even be considered. Even then, it must be remembered that to be successful, the result must be range rehabilitation-not just increased stock numbers or weight gains.
None of this should be interpreted to mean that Savory's teachings are without merit. Much of what he advocates-careful land husbandry, the abandonment of yearlong grazing, and less reliance on mechanical solutions to vegetative problems-are highly commendable. Every effort should be made to support his positions against spraying grasshoppers with pesticides, reseeding rangelands with exotic grasses, and poisoning predators and prairie dogs. Attempts by ranchers to implement his teachings on private lands having an annual rainfall of 1 5 inches or more might even be encouraged. Additional HRM programs on federal and state lands, especially those in arid and semiarid regions, should be strongly resisted, however. A patchwork quilt of fenced pastures and artificial waters has no place on public land where objectives other than livestock production must be considered. Our public rangelands have been the recipients of too many failed remedies already. Exotic grasses, uprooted mesquites, pushed over junipers and pinon and a plethora of fences are our legacy of earlier attempts at range restoration. It is time we forsook such costly and desperate measures just to keep cattle on the public dole.