According to an expert and former board member, the main benefit of HRM is that it gets the rancher out of his truck. HRM practitioners are more likely to assess the range on their hands and knees in the dirt than through the windshield of a truck at 80 miles per hour. Even opponents of Savory's theories acknowledge the advantage of group problem solving and the attention given to soil and range management.
The problem is that, as pointed out in the article by Dave Brown, Savory himself went bankrupt and he has admitted that less than 1% of HRM's practitioners have seen positive results. Since the scientific evidence in the form of field research indicates that the theories do not work, any successes must be attributed to the other factors. (See the list of claims at the end of the HRM bibliography.)
For those of us with no previous knowledge of range management practices, the article by David E. Brown , "Out of Africa" from Wilderness Magazine (Winter 1994) and the bibliography contributed by Joy Belsky Ph.D. are a good introduction (see below).
Since there is no scientific or economic basis for HRM, it does not meet the standards for environmental education outlined by Rusty Bowers and the Environmental Education Curriculum Review Committee and implemented in the revised license plate funding bill HB2274.
Read "Out of Africa" an article by David E. Brown from Wilderness Magazine on HRM.
HB2211 Title: Natural Resources; Holistic Management Education
HCM2001 Title: Holistic Natural Resource Management