It has been with some trepidation that I

approached this issue on influencing policy

through Holistic Management. My anxiety

stemmed I think largely from the difficulties

of getting stories about people actually

implementing holistically designed policies.

While we have lots of success with people

using Holistic Management® Policy Analysis

and Design to analyze and create holistically-

sound policy, actual implementation is hard to

find. When we look at the reason why people

have not been able to implement such policy,

the logjam is almost always the bureaucracies

in charge of those policies and how people can

or cannot engage them effectively to

implement holistically sound policy.

Another challenge of getting holistically

designed policy implemented is that it requires

us to go outside, or at least stretch, our circle

of influence. You can have a great idea, but if

people don’t understand it, you won’t be able

to sell it to anyone. For that reason, it’s critical

to find people who can help you demonstrate

to policy makers and stakeholders how this

policy benefits them in the short- and long-

term. It’s hard to do that effectively if you

believe that the average bureaucrat has the

IQ and creativity of a snail. That’s why it

is essential to remember that while

bureaucracies may be a logjam for innovation,

bureaucrats may not be. In fact, your

creativity in approaching bureaucrats may

be the real logjam.

Focusing on bureaucracy as the problem

seems very similar to focusing on weeds as

the problem when they are invading your

land, rather than getting clear about what it

is you want to create and spending your

creativity on achieving it. In the weed case,

I determine that I want covered soil with lots

of biodiversity, etc., create a plan to achieve

it (through the use of selected tools), and

then monitor that plan. The weeds become

a non-issue.

A Powerful Process

I’m not saying it’s easy to focus on what you

want and not be distracted and discouraged by

frustrating regulations. I constantly have to

struggle with my negative feelings about

bureaucracy. It’s hard not to focus on them as

the problem because I have had many

experiences with bureaucracies that have left

me feeling disempowered. In fact, sometimes,

I get the feeling that the people within those

bureaucracies feel pretty disempowered as well.

But with Holistic Management® Policy

Analysis, I can use the model to understand

what will work and what won’t work and why,

and that leaves me feeling more empowered in

the process. Likewise, in the policy design I will

know who needs to be included and when.

That knowledge can infuse a great deal of hope

and encourage persistence (powerful tools in

even the poorest of hands).

Given the magnitude of many bureaucracies,

I think it is absolutely essential to view any

influence as a success. To assume that one will

immediately and completely cover ground that

has been 50 percent bare for years is to set

oneself up for failure. To expect a bureaucracy

to completely accept one’s ideas at the first

presentation can be equally self-sabotaging.

Public & Priva t e

Just as one’s knowledge of, and experience

with, the ecosystem processes will help

someone trying to cover bare ground, one’s

interpersonal skills such as listening,

communicating, and relating to others will

profoundly affect one’s ability to get a

holistically sound policy implemented. It will

also affect one’s ability to be empowered in

that experience of engaging with the

bureaucracy, in educating others about that

experience, and in actually changing policy

as opposed to getting one’s agenda met.

in t h is I s su e

The Endangered Species Act—Lessons

from the Field

Allan Savory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

The Importance of Livestock in Natural

Resource Policies

Allan Savory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Awareness Isn’t Change

Allan Savory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

The Savory Center’s Northeast Efforts—

Building a Regional Presence

Mary Child . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Healing the Land—Changing

Colorado Bureaucracy

Cindy Dvergsten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

LAND & LIVESTOCK—A specialsection of IN PRACTICECreative Solutions—Living with Predators

Jim Howell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

Cows Have Culture Too—Understanding

Livestock/Landscape Interactions

Jim Howell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

Savory Center Bulletin Board . . . . . . .17

Marketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

It can be a challenging task to

influence policy in a way that

empowers everyone. But with the

Holistic Management ® model, we

have a tool that keeps us on track

when the waters become muddy.

Allan Savory has spent much of his

life helping others design and

implement holistically-sound policies.

Read about his experiences and

learning in a series of articles

beginning on page 3.

E m p owering Policyby Ann Adams

MARCH / APRIL 2002 NUMBER 82

HOLISTICMANAGEMENT IN PRACTIC EP r oviding the link between a healthy environment and a sound economy

continued on page 2

2 HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE #82

The Allan Savory

Center for Holistic Management

The ALLAN SAVORY CENTER FOR HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT is a 501(c) (3)non-profit organization. The centerworks to restore the vitality ofcommunities and the natural resourceson which they depend by advancing thepractice of Holistic Management andcoordinating its development worldwide.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Rio de la Vista, Chair

Ann Adams, Secretary

Manuel Casas, Treasurer

Gary Rodgers

Allan Savory

ADVISORY BOARD

Robert Anderson, Chair, Corrales, NM

Ron Brandes, New York, NY

Sam Brown, Austin, TX

Leslie Christian, Portland, OR

Gretel Ehrlich, Gaviota, CA

Clint Josey, Dallas, TX

Christine Jurzykowski, Glen Rose, TX

Doug McDaniel, Lostine, OR

Guillermo Osuna, Coahuila, Mexico

Bunker Sands, Dallas, TX

York Schueller, Santa Barbara, CA

Jim Shelton, Vinita, OK

Richard Smith, Houston, TX

STAFF

Shannon Horst, Executive Director; Kate Bradshaw, Associate Director; Allan Savory, Founding Director; Jody Butterfield, Co-Founder andResearch and Educational MaterialsCoordinator ; Kelly Pasztor, Director of Educational Services; Andy Braman,

Development Director; Ann Adams,

Managing Editor, IN PRACTICE andMembership Support Coordinator , Craig

Leggett, Special Projects Manager; Mary

Child, Regional Program DevelopmentCoordinator.

Africa Centre for Holistic Management

Private Bag 5950, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

tel: (263) (11) 213529; email:

rogpachm@africaonline.co.zw

Huggins Matanga, Director; Roger

Parry, Manager, Regional Training Centre;Elias Ncube, Hwange ProjectManager/Training Coordinator

HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT INPRACTICE (ISSN: 1098-8157) is publishedsix times a year by The Allan SavoryCenter for Holistic Management, 1010Tijeras NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102,505/842-5252, fax: 505/843-7900; email:savorycenter@holisticmanagement.org.;website: www.holisticmanagement.org Copyright © 2002.

Ad definitumfinem

The irony of bureaucracy is that we must

consider things outside of our own whole,

which can be particularly annoying for those

of us in individualistic cultures who grew up

thinking that private property meant we could

do what we wanted on it. Seeing a bureaucracy

as a customer and neighbor makes us more

responsible in learning about the needs of that

institution and relinquishing the myth that we

have the privilege of forging ahead with our

plans without considering others. It makes us

consider issues of timing, relationships, interests,

needs, and consequences.

Symbolic Ac t s

When I was in graduate school, students

concerned about violence against women,

including me, wanted to establish what became

known as a Rape Crisis Center. Women who

had been attacked could go there for

counseling, but the center would also attempt

to educate the students and staff on campus

about issues related to violence against women.

We tried the typical approach of going up

the chain of command and logically arguing for

this center. People met with us and said they

would think about it, but nothing happened. We

contacted newspapers and tried to educate the

public about the need for such a center. As the

end of the school year approached, we realized

we had a golden opportunity with parents

coming for graduation. We realized that as

students we weren’t really considered all that

important by much of the administration. But

parents were important because they paid the

bills in many cases, and they were the ones with

connections to the Alumni Associations and to

others who donated large sums to the university.

So we decided to use a small piece of land,

set aside by the university to allow freedom of

speech, as a means of drawing attention to our

cause. In the early hours of the morning, we

erected a “Rape Crisis Shanty” (it was really just

four posts with some old aluminum skirting

for a mobile home on which we spraypainted

some of the statistics about rape on campus).

As parents toured campus with their children,

they were confronted with some of the

realities that the university didn’t really want

them to know.

We maintained this symbolic act through

an eventful summer in which the Shanty

remained prominent in local, and even national,

news. As fall approached, we made an

additional effort to educate the people on

campus. We decided to stand outside

dormitories during new student orientation

and hand out “fact sheets” about the campus

and violence against women.

At that point the university decided that

perhaps an office/center addressing these

concerns was in order. Whether or not that

was the best solution to address that concern is

irrelevant to me. What is relevant to me is we

were involved in both a symbolic act (erecting

a Rape Crisis Shanty that made visible the

poverty of spirit that the university had for

this issue) and proactive education of our

community about the need for action.

Through creativity and perseverance we

created change in the university bureaucracy.

Looking back, I suppose our ongoing efforts

were fueled by our belief that we were

entitled to such services because the university

had provided so many other services while

not addressing that particular need. I suspect

I would have approached some things

differently if I had known what I know now.

I would have at least been more likely to

understand why people were behaving the

way they were and been better able to

maximize our efforts by finding ways to help

the university see how it might benefit from

such a service. I might have been able to better

articulate the big picture for others. I like to

think we might have come less from a place of

“We will be taken seriously” and more from

“This new action we are suggesting will create

a campus where we all feel safe so that more

parents will feel good about sending their

children here.” In other words, had I better

understood why and how policies are formed

and how to influence policy makers, I could

have influenced our actions. All the university

community (not just our group) could have

been empowered by this policy change rather

than feeling they were reacting to our

symbolic attack on the university’s status quo.

Holistically-sound policy empowers. It is

policy that moves people toward creating an

environment (physical or social) that increases

their quality of life. Policies can be

empowering or disempowering depending

on who is included (physically or in spirit) in

the making of that policy, how we go about

affecting those policies or working with

bureaucracies, and what the intent is. If our

intent is empowerment, then our motivation

will fuel our perseverance, integrity, learning,

and compassion.

E m p owering Policy continued from page one

HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE • MARCH / APRIL 2002 3

Editor’s Note: This and the following two

articles by Allan Savory are excerpted

from the Savory Center’s policy course

curriculum. Our hope in sharing them with

you is that you gain some insight into ho w

Holistic Management ® Policy Analysis can

help people see the forest even in the midst

of the trees. Using the Holistic Management®

model when working with any organization

or bureaucracy is the first step in

influencing policy on all dif ferent levels.

We hope that people take this new form of

civic duty to heart and determine where

they can most effectively influence policy

to bring about a better world.

Saving the Spotted Owl

Early in the 1980s, I was running a

course on policy formation for the Bureau

of Indian Affairs (BIA) in Arizona. Some

BIA officials and I were working with a

group of San Carlos Apaches during a week

of Holistic Management training. We had

reached the point where the officials and

the Apaches had a basic understanding of

the Holistic Management® model and its use

in settings from household management to

government policy formation. Given the

opportunity to then work on a topical

policy, the people chose to work on the

endangered owl policy that had recently

been introduced. In this policy, strict

measures were being imposed to preserve

old growth and healthy forest on their

reservation as habitat for the diminishing

population of owls.

preserve Apaches was one and the same

with that which would preserve owls!

All that was needed to preserve owls,

trout, and other wildlife, while reducing

floods, droughts and poverty, was Holistic

Management education and training for the

BIA, with that education and training to be

increasingly carried over to the Apaches. If

any policies were needed it was ones that

created incentives for people to manage

holistically (promotions, tax incentives,

grant money, etc).

The Case of the Desert To r t o i s e

In the early 1990s I ran a policy course

for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)

and other agencies in the western Arizona

desert where tortoises and many other

species were dying out. Major environmental

organizations and concerned government

agencies were devising policies to save the

tortoises from extinction.

Observation and research indicated that

tortoises were being killed in high numbers

by ravens and coyotes, as well as being run

over by vehicles. There was also a problem

with a respiratory disease that was affecting

some tortoises.

The policies then ran along the usual

lines, and the objective was to save the

tortoises from extinction. The suggested

manner to achieve this objective was to

poison the ravens and coyotes to reduce

predation, to remove cattle, and to prohibit

recreational vehicles from driving off-road.

If the tortoises suffered less predation and

less accidental death by being trodden on

or driven over, reasoned the policymakers,

they should recover.

Before we worked on this policy, I

introduced the course participants to the

new concepts that enabled us to develop

Holistic Management—nature functioning in

wholes, the environmental brittleness scale,

the role of animals, plants and soils in water,

and nutrient cycling, energy flow, and

community dynamics.

Next, we went out on the land inhabited

by the tortoises to see what that looked like.

In making our inspection we were fortunate

because we had the research data compiled

by the government for the area, which

included a research plot protected from

livestock for over 50 years.

No one could find any significant

difference between the condition of the land

First, the group analyzed this protective

policy from a social, environmental, and

economic point of view in relation to their

forests, culture, and economy. In working

through the model, it was evident that the

proposed policy would fail because it was

based on an objective (to stop spotted owl

decline) rather than a policy based on a

holistic goal (improved habitat, quality of

life for those living there, etc.).

They concluded that the likely outcome

of the policy was that people on the land

would begin to shoot the owls and that

the policy would do little to protect the

owls while alienating the people, whose

livelihoods would be damaged. No sooner

had the entire group come to this conclusion

than one of the Apaches put up his hand

and said the analysis was remarkably

accurate as they were already shooting

every owl they could!

A New Approach

I then asked the group to forget about

the owl, and I asked all the Anglo (non-

Indian) BIA officials to only observe without

participating. Next, I had the Apaches form

a generic holistic goal for the tribe that we

could use to devise a policy that would

protect the owl without the adverse effects

of the present policy.

A short while later the Apaches had the

nucleus of a tribal holistic goal, one that laid

out what they valued most deeply in their

lives and culture. It went on to describe the

things that would need to be produced from

their resource base (in this case the land and

its forests) to realize such lives. They then

described their land and forests as they

needed to be hundreds of years from now

if the tribe was to still be living such lives

and preserving such values.

A short discussion then took place about

the possible components of a policy that

would preserve the owls, and everyone

laughed. They laughed purely because it

was now so obvious to everyone that

there was no need for a policy, nor for any

measures to be taken to save the owls. The

forest condition and health essential to

The Endangered Species A c t —

Lessons from the Fieldby Allan Savory

continued on page 4

"There was no need for a

policy. . . The forest condition

and health essential to

preserve Apaches was one

and the same with that which

would preserve owls!"

4 HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE #82

inside the fenced-off plot and outside it. This

was not surprising since the main tool used

inside the fence was rest in the form of

“total rest,” and the main tool used outside it

was rest in the form of “partial rest” (large

herbivores present on the land in low

numbers and without herding behaviors),

and both consistently exhibit essentially the

same effect across the brittleness scale.

Management outside the research plot

had relied on the tool of grazing, but applied

as overgrazing and rest, in the form of

partial rest. Fire had not been used

deliberately and had been rare. Next, we

looked at how these tools had acted upon

the basic life cycle in the biological

community. We found oxidation had

largely replaced biological decay with the

consequent loss of all animal-dependent

perennial grasses and vast exposure of bare

soil (over 95 percent between plants). The

land was dominated by three species of grass

that could withstand high levels of non-use

by herbivores and are, thus, not easily killed

by accumulating oxidizing material.

When looked at from the point of view

of a young tortoise, it was a grim picture

indeed. There was no cover under which

tortoises could hide from predators—the

main defense used by tortoises. In addition,

there were no young forbs or other quality

feed within reach of any but the largest of

tortoises (so very few young would

survive). There was no moisture available

to any tortoise due to the high soil surface

evaporation. And because there were so

few other animals including large stock,

combine that knowledge with observation

of the tortoise range, it is easy to see that the

present policy, even without having to think

holistically, should not have passed the test

for common sense. All the suggested actions

in that policy were aimed at addressing the

symptoms of predation and accident without

looking at the lack of food, cover, or

moisture and their effects on accidents,

predation, and disease.

In forming a policy that could work,

we first looked at what tools could actually

reverse the overall biodiversity loss and

consequent desertification that really were

the issue that a policy needed to address.

Inspection of that land indicated there

were only two tools that could reverse the

situation—grazing (without overgrazing)

and animal impact with some large

herbivore that could be economically

obtainable and controllable.

As the biodiversity lost included most of

the antelope and other wildlife that could

provide high animal impact, it was clear that

only livestock in some form were available.

From this analysis, we then went on to

form a generic holistic goal for any people

living in the area, as well as environmental

organizations and government agencies

deeply concerned, involved, or having veto

power over management decisions. And

again, much as in the case of the owls, once

this holistic goal was formed along with a

future landscape description that would

sustain human communities and their love

for nature and wildlife, there was no need

for any measures to save tortoises. Instead

the BLM policy needed to focus on

regenerating the land with livestock so

that the ecosystem processes functioned

effectively, thus increasing the health of the

welfare factors upon which we and the

tortoises depend.

In both these cases—the owls and the

tortoises—the government policy was

based purely on the objective “to save”

these animals. In both of these instances,

policy makers were able to use the

Holistic Management® model to diagnose

the root cause and develop a generic holistic

goal to test new policy objectives toward.

In doing so they were able to create a

new policy that not only effectively

addressed the “problem” the original

policy was attempting to address, but that

also responded to the economic and

social concerns the original policy had

only exacerbated.

no dung either from which to obtain

moisture. In fact, as we all could see, it

would have been a mystery if tortoises had

been thriving.

Finally, we analyzed the

policy to preserve the

tortoises, and it clearly failed

all testing toward any sort

of holistic goal involving an

environment that would

sustain tortoises. In fact, it

became clear the policy

would needlessly destroy

ravens and coyotes as well

as cause economic loss

and social problems

for people. Further, the

policy would lead to

increased biodiversity loss, and an increased

incidence of flooding, droughts, and

poverty. Clearly this is not what either the

government agencies or environmental

organizations intended.

We l fare Factors

Next we looked at what sort of policy

would save the tortoises. As Aldo Leopold

so ably laid out in his principles of game

management so long ago, creatures seldom

die of starvation. When weakened, they

are generally killed by disease, accident,

or predation before they actually starve.

Leopold talked of what he called the

decimating factors (i.e., predation, accident,

and disease) that actually kill animals, and

the welfare factors (i.e., cover, feed, and

water) that if deficient result in the

decimating factors that reduce

the population.

If such factors as cover, feed and water

are abundant and well positioned, a large

population can commonly sustain itself

despite disease, predation, hunting, or other

things that kill creatures. However, if food,

cover, or water is missing, or poorly

distributed, then things can go radically

wrong. As the creatures lack cover, they

fall prey to predators. If weakened by

lack of food or water (moisture in the

tortoise case), they fall to disease,

predation, and accidents.

If we understand these principles, and

The Endangered Species Act—Lessons from the Field

continued from page 3

HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE • MARCH / APRIL 2002 5

The Importance of Livestock in

Natural Resource Policiesby Allan Savory

Once when providing policy training for

a group of World Bank staff, I decided

to address a common complaint. People

learning how to analyze and form natural

resource management policies keep coming up

against the need to think about livestock as a

tool to address the challenges inherent in these

policies. “Everything keeps coming down to

using livestock,” they say, forgetting that at

present everything comes down to using

technology. There is such resistance to using

livestock as a constructive tool that I had to do

something other than explain how essential the

role of large herbivores was to the health of

brittle environments, which constitute so much

of the world’s landmass.

For this World Bank group I set a scenario

that deliberately excluded land and livestock.

The picture I painted was of a small city in

North Yemen that was dying, and all the social

problems associated with that.

In this exercise, I said we were to concern

ourselves only with the city and not go outside

its boundaries other than for trade purposes. The

teams were to come up with all the possible

things that could be done to revitalize the city

and its many businesses that we as World Bank

staff could recommend to the Bank. There was

no constraint on their thoughts and ideas, as we

wanted to bring to bear all the knowledge we

could and be as creative as we could. Our sole

task was to come up with a Bank policy that

would sustain this city.

After a considerable time, the teams

reported back with what measures they

believed the Bank should fund that could

sustain the city’s businesses, and thus the city.

Most by this stage were reporting back “tongue

in cheek,” and with some humor, as they

realized they had been set up. In other words,

just their commonsense had made them aware

of the fact that a city cannot be sustained

without reference to the environmental health

of its surroundings.

Cities need water, food, and the ability to

trade. Trade requires trading partners who are

not so impoverished that they cannot pay.

The water and food can only come from

their surroundings.

Given that, we next described the sort of

landscape that would sustain this city of ours.

We described this not in pretty-picture terms,

but rather as how the water and mineral cycles

should be functioning, how dynamic we

wanted the biological community to become

(fewer boom and bust episodes within

populations), and how solar energy flow would

have to increase to sustain the city. With this

description in front of us, we reexamined all

the suggestions. We had only to do this briefly

because it was so clear none of the suggestions

would in any way lead to or assist in producing

the landscape that could sustain that city. The

only tool available to reverse the desertification

threatening that city was livestock. (Even

watersheds in less brittle environments need

livestock to improve land health where land

has been cleared for agricultural purposes).

What policy makers who resist livestock as

a tool do not understand is that they are

continually only using one “tool” in natural

resource management policies—technology.

In conventional decision-making and policy

formation there are only limited tools with

which to manipulate our environment—

technology, resting land or waterways, and fire—

with some people recognizing the tool of small

living organisms. The tools of animal impact

and grazing are still relatively new to many

people, particularly as tools for environmental

reclamation. While many environmental groups

have called for resting the land, we know that

in brittle areas this solution is not sustainable or

healthy and, in the case of forests choked with

excessive growth, is even dangerous. That’s why

people need not be apologetic when educating

others about the importance of livestock in

natural resource policy.

Conventional Policy Design

Deals with the problem or the prevention of

that problem directly as the objective of the

policy. Will sometimes look at a secondary cause

of the problem but never the primary cause.

Never works with the concept of a holistic goal.

Will at times work toward a mission or vision.

Policies are formed to achieve a goal or objective.

All policy actions based upon one or more of

the following: past experience, expert opinion,

research results, compromise, expediency, fear,

peer pressure, cash flow, cost effectiveness,

intuition, etc.

Policies are often based on public input that is

window dressing to make the public feel

involved in what bureaucrats have already

decided..

Divisive and conflict inducing.

Assume policies are correct so no monitoring is

put in place (such policies can remain in effect

for centuries).

Other than in instances involving water (seas,

lakes, wetlands) and non-brittle environments,

policies are unlikely to succeed.

Conventional vs Holistic Management® Policy Design

Note: Most policies are formed by governments at various levels to either deal with a problem

or prevent a problem.

Holistic Management® Policy Design

Recognizes problems of humanity are generally

symptoms of conventional decision-making and

that this primary cause has to be addressed for

any chance of success.

Always works with a holistic goal linking

human values to the environment that sustains

all human endeavor.

Policies are formed to achieve a state, or future

resource base, beyond the problem—as reflected

in the holistic goal.

All policy actions based on the list to the left,

plus a testing of the actions to ensure they will

not only achieve the objective but will do so in

a manner that has dealt with the root cause of

the problem and will take the people toward,

and not away from, the holistic goal.

Policies are formed either by bureaucrats

toward a generic holistic goal or by the public

genuinely forming the holistic goal/goals.

Uniting and conflict resolving (most conflicts

are symptoms of conventional decision-making)

Assume policies could be wrong and determine

at outset how the policies should be monitored

to ensure they are leading to the desired result.

Policies have the potential to succeed in all

environments.

6 HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE #82

Saving India’s Forests

Some years ago while working with

Swedforest, a Swedish consulting firm, I was

asked to run a workshop for Indian Forest

Service personnel in Bhubaneswa, in India’s

province of Orissa. After one week of training,

including field trips, the group of about 20 men

had a good grasp of Holistic Management, and

I decided to finish the workshop by using the

model to assess policies. I asked them to draw

up a list of policies they were either already

implementing or planning to implement and

they produced a list of 12 they believed to be

the best to save India’s dwindling and

threatened forests.

During the week we had formed a holistic

goal for the Indian Forest Service that we had

used to test various actions. We now used this

same holistic goal to assess the policies. To show

them how rapidly one could analyze such

policies, I did the first policy thinking aloud,

with them following along. This method took

perhaps five minutes and all could see that the

policy was damaging and would further

endanger the forests.

With the second policy, I led them through it

raising each question and helping them respond

if they weren’t sure. Again the policy proved

damaging. With the third policy I barely led

them—just reminding them of a test question if

they had forgotten one. I did not participate in

any response. Once more the policy failed the

testing, as it would further endanger the forests.

At that point we all agreed that we didn’t need

to go further; it was clear to them that all

12 policies would be undesirable in that they

would damage India’s forests.

Forestry and Soil Conservation

in Lesotho

The other experience I recall was in a similar

workshop I led for the Ministry of Agriculture in

Lesotho. Lesotho is a small, landlocked country

within the boundaries of South Africa. It is high

and mountainous and contains the headwaters

of the Orange River, which serves agriculture

in a large area of South Africa. Environmental

damage throughout the catchment of the upper

Orange is some of the worst I have experienced

anywhere, and the consequent silting of the river

is alarming to South Africa. Along the course of

not changed their policies despite the eye

opening experiences their members have had

in the Savory Center’s Policy Workshops. When

my only focus was for people to implement

holistically-sound policies within their agencies,

I saw nothing but failure. I saw institutions

filled with highly competent and intelligent

trained professionals and experts who openly

acknowledged the need for change yet who

chose not to act on this awareness and new

knowledge. Such an outcome defied

commonsense and that’s when I began to

study the research of others.

Of particular interest to me was Lord Ashby’s

conclusion that new knowledge took anywhere

up to 200 years to gain acceptance. It could not

be brought in, he said, by democratically-elected

leaders, but only by gradual grassroots

acceptance until there was a critical mass. Only

then would institutional acceptance follow. For

example, most Catholics have long ago accepted

that the world is not the center of our universe

and allowed their children to be schooled in that

knowledge, yet the church officially conceded

this point only a few years ago.

Where does this leave you who are

interested in forming policies holistically?

Learning to do so is relatively easy, as is

evidenced in my stories about the policy

workshops. The hard part is actually applying

that knowledge to the organizations and policies

that you can influence. What is needed is the

passion to learn new skills so you can be

more effective in your interactions with those

bureaucratic organizations that hold sway

over so many policies.

While some bureaucrats have lost their jobs

or been reprimanded for their support of Holistic

Management in their agencies, there are many

who have chosen an “infiltration” approach and

changed key decisions in their organizations

just by asking “new” questions about proposed

policies. If you are managing holistically in your

organization (testing your decisions toward a

generic holistic goal you developed for your

agency), then people will begin to notice what

you are accomplishing.

Such influence may be incremental rather

than transformational, but it is a catalyst for

change nonetheless. Holistic Management

practitioners from around the world have made

great strides in proving how this process can

help improve land health, quality of life, and

economics. As we grow more skilled at our

practice we must all take the next step of

working with all the organizations that influence

policy, particularly environmental policy, to

begin creating policies that move us toward

a future that holds hope.

the Orange are dams and irrigation fields very

dependent on a stable and healthy river.

We had reached the end of our week of

training, and I had the group work on two of

their own current policies—the forestry policy

and the soil conservation policy for the nation.

This group of about 20 men and women

worked in teams on both policies, testing them

toward a national holistic goal involving

prosperous communities living on healthy

and productive lands.

On completing their task and reporting back,

each team concluded the forestry policy would

be damaging to Lesotho’s remaining forests

and that their soil conservation policy would

increase soil erosion, silting, and flooding of the

rivers. What ingrained this workshop in my

memory was that it raised my hopes for change

because they all got into an unplanned and

heated debate.

This argument began by the participants

blaming and looking for scapegoats. Most blamed

the politicians for such unsound policies and felt

better. However, a woman then spoke up saying;

“Don’t be silly; look around the room. We are the

government! We all know the politicians come

and go, but we remain as their technical and

professional advisers and produce these policies.”

There was an awkward silence followed by

grudging acknowledgement that they did

produce the policies for their political “bosses.”

My hopes ran high that change would follow

from this moment of truth when a light bulb

came on in so many heads, but nothing changed.

Hope for the Future

During such training sessions, we often found

that existing government policies were unsound

with no hope of success, and that the officials

concerned were able to determine the basis of

policies that could succeed if applied.

Unfortunately, nothing changed in those agencies.

While this surprised me at the time, it does

not today as I have since studied the research

of others including: Everett Rogers in The

Diffusion of Inno vations , John Ralston Saul in

Voltaire’s Bastards , and Lord Eric Ashby in

Reconciling Man and the Environment . From

these authors I learned that introducing new

knowledge to bureaucracies does not lead to

change in under 100 to 200 years.

This knowledge has helped me be more

patient and understand why bureaucracies have

Awareness Isn’t Changeby Allan Savory

HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE • MARCH / APRIL 2002 7

Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)

throughout the Northeast, to become certified to

facilitate Holistic Management. Other desired

outcomes were to strengthen the working

relationships between these individuals and

through their practice and facilitation of Holistic

Management to influence policies that impact

their lives and communities.

Support for Outcomes

The next question I asked was “What do we

have in place and what can

we put in place to support

the outcomes we want?” At

that time the Savory

Center’s U.S.-based CETP

offered training for

individuals from a wide

geographical range with

diverse backgrounds and

expertise, and the content

training sessions were held

primarily in New Mexico.

We needed to consider

making changes to that

structure for a regionally

focused training program.

While this may not seem

like a huge leap for an

organization to make, we

had to look at issues of

capacity and how such a shift might cause

financial repercussions or affect the quality of

the program.

We knew there was a great deal of interest

and support in the Northeast for Holistic

Management because numerous organizations

had sponsored workshops over the years. In

particular, the Central New York RC & D

(Resource Conservation and Development) had

sponsored and subsidized an all-day workshop

with Allan Savory, and he was the keynote at

their Annual Farm Diversity Conference in 2000.

Likewise, the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture

Research and Education (NE SARE) Program, a

possible funder, shared common ground with

the Savory Center with their interest in a

holistic approach to sustainability.

As I researched the possibility further, it

The Savory Center’s Northeast Effo r t s —

Building a Regional Presenceby Mary Child

Editor’s Note: Mary’s article focuses on the

Savory Center’s efforts to develop our regional

presence in the Northeast region of the U.S

where this year’s Certified Educator Training

Program is based. Ho wever, the Savory Center

is working at a policy level in other projects

and programs. In particular, the National

Learning Site in Idaho is a community-based

public lands management model for the U.S.

Forest Service and other rural communities to

use throughout the U.S. We are also providing

training for students

and alumni of the

California Agricultural

Leadership Program so

they can, in turn,

influence agricultural

policy in their state.

And in Africa, the

Africa Centre for

Holistic Management is

working to influence

the Matetsi area

surrounding

Dibangombe in

management policy .

During my first

year with the

Savory Center,

I was asked to write an

article on the key issues for Holistic

Management practitioners in the Northeast (IN

PRACTICE #71). Through research for this

article, I became aware of the great level of

interest in Holistic Management in the

Northeastern U.S. I also learned that many

individuals who farmed and worked with

organizations and government agencies had

some type of exposure to Holistic Management,

and that the training they received and how

they had made use of it varied greatly.

As I listened to people share their

experiences and views, it became apparent they

were working on similar issues and their

effectiveness was greatly impacted by

organizational and institutional policies at many

levels. I began to think that if people living in

the same bioregion were learning Holistic

Management together, they would then have an

overriding framework with which they could

make decisions and influence policies that

would support a truly sustainable culture. That’s

when the idea of a regional training program

was born.

Moving from the concept to the reality of a

regional training program meant we would

need to build support among individuals

working with issues of sustainability throughout

the Northeast. I hope that my story of how we

built support, participation, and commitment for

our regional Certified Educator Training

Program (CETP) will help others in their

communities with projects designed to influence

policies.

Desired Outcomes

The first question I asked myself is what

outcomes do we want? The Savory Center’s

mission is to restore vitality to communities and

the natural resources on which they depend by

advancing the practice of Holistic Management

and coordinating its development worldwide. To

increase the influence of our CETP to help us

realize our mission, we needed more people

taking the training, particularly those that serve

as a resource to their communities.

Our desired outcome was to have full

participation and funding for 15 individuals,

who represented community resource

organizations, sustainable enterprises,

Cooperative Extension Service (CES) and

Participants in the Northeast CETP include individuals from: Cooperative Extension at

Cornell and the universities of Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,

Pennsylvania, and Io wa State; NRCS of New York and West Virginia; Consortium for

Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (CSARE); West Virginia State Conservation

Agency; New York City Watershed Agriculture Council; Institute for Social Ecology in

Vermont; and the New England Small Farm Institute of Massachusetts.

continued on page 8

8 HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE #82

became evident that the CETP was highly

regarded by individuals in the Northeast

sustainable agriculture community and there

was great interest for having a regionally

focused CETP there. Part of the reason for this

interest was because there had been variation

in the training different individuals had

received. I often heard questions similar to

those asked by one individual, “Is this the real

Holistic Management? Is it the people from

New Mexico?” While there was much interest

in participating in the program, we still needed

to gain committed support from people and

organizations for both funding and participating

in the training so we could take the next steps

towards realizing our desired outcomes.

Timing and Relationships

Timing is critical in just about any venture.

If you don’t have the right timing (for project

interest and support, when you talk with key

individuals, etc.), it can become very difficult to

move forward. Luckily for us, the timing

seemed right, and we saw that more and more

as we developed relationships and built support

for the program.

The significant role that relationships play

cannot be overstated. We committed early on to

participate in the training, but that’s what

happened with the SARE grant. The

participation of individuals who represent CES

and NRCS and community resource agencies

and farms throughout the Northeast, coupled

with SARE’s support for our training program,

has increased interest throughout the United

States for training programs in other regions.

This is one indicator of success.

Likewise, by including a regional focus in

our Certified Educator Training Program we feel

we are accomplishing our mission of “advancing

the practice of Holistic Management.” However,

we will also be monitoring other short- and

long-term effects of the regional focus of the

CETP on our mission. In the Northeast we will

be monitoring increased quality of life, increased

financial profitability, improvement in social and

community resources, and improvement in

landscapes through case studies generated by

participants in the CETP. We will also monitor

shifts in policy in the Northeast. If the

enthusiasm and work of the participants in the

Northeast CETP is any indication of this training

program’s potential to influence a biogregion,

we’re on the right track.

Mary Child is the Savory Center’s

Regional Training Program Coordinator

and lives in Mo yers,West Virginia. She

can be reached at 304/249-5999 or

maryc@holisticmanagement.org.

working with the Central New York RC & D to

find the resources for holding the CETP in the

Northeast. Part of our discussions with our

project collaborators were focused on how their

support for and participation in the CETP

would work best for them and their

organization or agency. Taking the time and

persevering to build understanding, trust, and

strength in relationships with individual people

is, I believe, one of the most important aspects

of working effectively with communities,

organizations, and agencies.

We know how controversial Holistic

Management can be in many circles. We also

know how quickly things can change.

Remembering to check in with agencies and

organizations that seemed uninterested in

Holistic Management in the past to determine

where their current thinking was and to discuss

where we could find common ground was

critical.

Monitoring Progress

Once you have gained the support of one

organization, there can be a ripple effect to

other organizations associated with them, thus

increasing the collaborative network. Although

I have worked with individuals in NRCS and

CES before, I still didn’t quite foresee how the

training being funded through a USDA program

would give the participants even more support

at an agency and organizational level to

Building a Regional Presence

continued from page 7

hat kind of framework or process

would be powerful enough to bring

a diverse group of government

conservationists, ranchers, environmentalists, and

recreation advocates together on the same page,

talking the same language and looking at the

“big picture”? Holistic Management, of course.

While acceptance of this process isn’t

happening all at once, a story of success is

being woven, one strand at a time, across the

mountains and ranges of Colorado for those

who use holistic decision-making in the

management of public and private lands.

Coupled with enthusiasm, a sense of leadership,

and a willingness to take responsibility,

landowners and government conservationists in

One such example is when the State Land

Board accepted a management plan based on

the holistic management of the 87,000-acre

Chico Basin state land trust. Duke Philips put

many of the ideas he gathered through years of

active participation in the Colorado Branch to

develop this plan, which secured his partnership

a 25-year lease on the ranch. He was better able

to address the bureaucratic needs of such a

lease because of his Holistic Management

knowledge. In turn, he was able to make use of

this opportunity that others might have decided

was too complex.

Other Colorado Holistic Management

practitioners often find, as they test actions

towards a holistic goal, that they achieve a

higher marginal reaction in working with

bureaucracy rather than fighting it or trying

to change it head on. When asked about his

experience in working with Federal land

management agencies, John Ott, a family

member of the James Ranch of Durango, replied

“When they (government employees) know you

Colorado who use the Holistic Management®

model have broken through seemingly

impossible bureaucratic barriers toward effective

land management.

Building a Strong Foundation

For the past 16 years the Colorado Branch for

Holistic Management has provided a sense of

belonging, mutual support, and an opportunity

for continued learning. Through summer tours,

annual meetings, and a quarterly newsletter, the

Branch has provided a safe harbor for those who

have had the courage to make a bet on Holistic

Management. In turn, individual practitioners

have used what they’ve learned to influence

land management and policy within the state.

Healing the Land—

Changing Colorado Bureaucracyby Cindy Dvergsten

W

HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE • MARCH / APRIL 2002 9

are serious about doing something more than

just dumping your cattle on public lands and

walking away, they will be more flexible in

working with you. If you go in there with a

good plan and a willingness to monitor your

allotment, they will be more willing to put time

and resources into your permit because they

know they will be getting something in return.”

This is exactly what Richard Parry, a long

time Holistic Management practitioner and

owner of Foxfire Farm in Ignacio, did

when he took on a lease in the newly

formed Canyons of the Ancients

National Monument. The Bureau of

Land Management (BLM) lacked

funds for monitoring, so he did his

own planning and hired a private

firm to conduct base line monitoring

on his new lease. This speeded up

approval of his permit. Unlike many

in the community, Richard sees the

National Monument designation as

an opportunity to create a model for

multiple use management that will

include grazing.

Needed Skills

Most newcomers to Holistic Management

start by trying out one or two concepts of the

Holistic Management® model. After they

experience a bit of success, their enthusiasm

for deeper understanding and practice grows.

Diane Weaver, Range Specialist with the U.S.

Forest Service in Grand Junction and Vice

President of the Colorado Branch, notes that

people often begin their practice of Holistic

Management because of their interest in the

biological concepts of brittleness, timing of

grazing in relation to overgrazing and overrest,

and the use of cattle as a tool to create desired

effects in the ecosystem.

The part that takes a little longer to sink in

and put effort into Diane says, “is the setting of

a holistic goal, running decisions through all the

testing guidelines, and specific on-the-ground

monitoring. Likewise, addressing the realities of

land, livestock and wildlife needs is difficult for

many. But they need to learn these things if they

are going to work with bureaucracies effectively.

“However, if these folks have tried some of the

concepts, then they are open to other new ideas

and more than willing to listen, learn, and work

at it. They do not just shut down when discussing

changes. They have also bought into the fact that

they are not the only ones concerned with the

livestock, and that communication with other

users of ‘their areas’ is critical and integral to

their continued operations.”

their cattle are having on the ground and

especially their desire and willingness to

change or adapt a plan each year to fix

something that did not work as expected.

Taking responsibility for their actions includes

staying with their cattle most of the summer to

monitor daily activity, something others do not

usually do. “This is not to say that we still don’t

have issues with livestock management,” Diane

stated, “but it is greatly improved with these

permittees. The mistakes can be big

ones—even if only on a short-term

basis. Each year is different and

requires a lot of monitoring. The

permittees are always coming up

with new ideas to try, and some take

a little work on my part to figure out

if and how the ideas can fit into the

sideboards I have as a federal land

manager. The energy they have can

be overwhelming, but it’s a positive

kind of overwhelming.”

These positive efforts have

not gone unnoticed. After seven

years of Holistic Management,

the allotments Paul Dillon and

neighbors managed were ranked

as the healthiest of all on the Uncomphagre

Plateau in a Forest Service environmental

assessment. Because of this kind of success,

Holistic Management practitioners are winning

awards each year such as the Conservation

Farmer of the Year Award by the Colorado

Association of Soil Conservation Districts,

Wildlife Land Owner of the Year from the

Division of Wildlife, and Rancher of the Year by

the Society for Range Management.

Our Colorado story demonstrates that small

positive strides forward set the stage for change

in bureaucracy. In the long term, Diane Weaver

believes that “once we get better at working

with the Holistic Management® model and

working with the rest of the public that has

an interest in management of the national

forests, I’m confident the physical/biological

resources will benefit. The livestock owner

will be able to continue grazing public lands

and make a living at it, and the public will

understand and support the continuation

of grazing public lands when it is done

responsibly.”

Cindy Dvergsten is President of the Colorado

Branch for Holistic Management and is a

Holistic Management ® Certified Educator.

She has been practicing Holistic Management

for over 10 years. She can be reached at

970/882-4222 or cindydv@reanet.net.

The Real Experts

When learning to manage whole situations,

Holistic Management practitioners soon realize

that they are the “real experts” as decision

makers who depend on the resources being

managed. In a complex bureaucratic arena

such as public land management, this concept

serves to level the playing field and empowers

the players.

Colorado Branch Vice President, Diane Weaver (left)

and President, Cindy Dvergsten.

During a summer tour several years ago,

Jim Dollerschell, Range Conservationist with

the BLM in Grand Junction, said, “You never

used to hear federal land managers talk about

things like quality of life. We used to just focus

on the land beause that’s the only thing we

were taught to do.” Likewise, Paul Dillon, one

of Jim’s permittees learned that a little

compassion goes a long way. He figured that

hikers are twice as afraid of cows on the trail

as he is mad that they left a gate open. He

keeps that in mind in his interactions with

recreationists.

Ranchers like Paul Dillon, John Ott, Richard

Parry, and Duke Phillips have learned the

value of inviting all affected agencies and

public interest groups to their annual planning

meetings to hear and discuss everyone’s

opinions and desires. Some use consensus

building techniques and Holistic Management®

Certified Educators to facilitate this process.

When everyone has a voice and feels listened

to, common ground and trusting relationships

are established. The need then for rigid “one

size fits all” rules fades as people begin to search

for the best answers instead of the “right”

answers. Players on all sides begin to look for

places to be flexible and sometimes stretch

the rules to try on new ideas.

Diane Weaver appreciates the way Holistic

Management practitioners look at the effect

10 LAND & LIVESTOCK IN PRACTICE #82

LAND L I V E S TO C K& A Special Section ofIN PRACTICE

MARCH / APRIL 2002 #82

t’s easy to understand why ranchers and farmers persecute

predators.

Losing just one calf or lamb is a blow—not just financially,

but emotionally as well. Lots of sweat, muscle, planning, and hoping

go into each new birth. When all that energy is suddenly negated

by the fangs of a predator, a fatal bullet through the heart of the

culprit (and all of the culprit’s family) is a satisfying solution, at

least initially.

When the jackrabbit population explodes or the elk refuse to

leave your hay meadows, having a few coyotes or a local wolf pack

might not be such a bad thing. Predators can be good, too, especially

if we can figure out how to live with them. There’s also the fact that

lots of politically powerful urban environmentalists love the idea of

wolves, lions, and bears roaming the back country, so there’s a good

chance ranchers and farmers won’t have a choice but to live with

predators. But how do you live with something that wants to eat

your livelihood? We’ll get into that below, but first a little history.

Humans and large predators have been adversaries for a long

time. Up until the point in history that humans figured out how

to talk to each other and cooperatively hunt with weapons

(archeologists pin that date at about 50,000 years ago), the

human/predator rivalry was probably balanced in favor of

the predators.

We must have been an awfully vulnerable prey species. Imagine

the first upright walking hominids on the open savanna of East

Africa—no weapons, no speed, and no big herd to hide in—with

lions, hyenas, leopards, cheetahs, and wild dogs running around all

over the place. It’s amazing our species ever survived. But the

predators weren’t all bad. Before we had the ability to kill things

that were bigger, stronger, and faster than ourselves, we were

omnivorous scavengers, dependent on the big cats and dogs to do

the killing for us. If we wanted venison, we had to wait for a

Jim Howell and his wife, Daniela, with Maasai herders in Tanzania.

The Maasai still tend their livestock with nothing more than spears,

even where lions abound.

C r e a t i v e Solutions—

Living with Predators

by Jim Howell

predator to do its thing, then hope for some leftover scraps. Once

complex symbolic language and cooperative hunting with weapons

became part of our culture, we were probably a little less

vulnerable. The Maasai herders in Kenya and Tanzania still tend

their livestock with nothing more than spears, even where lions

abound, so evidently a little technology and collaboration help a lot

during a predator attack. When the first humans migrated into North

America, they met a menagerie of beasts difficult to imagine today.

Sabertooth cats, scimitar cats, dire wolves, American lions and

cheetahs, and the giant short-faced bear, in addition to the wolves

and grizzly bears that still survive today, no doubt presented

formidable obstacles to a peaceful quality of life. But with our

technology and abilities to communicate, adapt, and cooperate, we

held our own, not just here in North America, but everywhere.

Actually, we more than held our own. We directly and indirectly

wiped out a majority of the large mammals on every island and

continent but Africa, and as those resources became ever more

scarce, we elevated our harassment of our predatory competitors.

The balance had shifted in favor of humans.

An Ancient Policy

I recently met with a paleontologist, Dr. Elin Whitney-Smith

from George Washington University, who thinks that humans of the

Pleistocene (the epoch that ended 10,000 years ago) were actually

extremely hard on the predators. Since we were presumably hunting

the same herbivores as all the big cats and dogs, and since those

herbivores were becoming scarcer as human populations expanded,

she believes humans deliberately began to eliminate predators to

reduce competition. Elin reasons this probably was done by raiding

dens and killing young rather than killing healthy adults. The

I

elimination of so many predators precipitated a series of booms

(as prey populations expanded) and busts (due to the vegetation

resource then being depleted) in the herbivore community. Those

that survived the busts are the ones still living today. Those that

didn’t became the extinct megafauna (mammoths, camels, horses,

etc.). Her computer model says it could have happened, but we’ll

probably never know for sure.

What’s pertinent to this story is this idea of ancient humans

devising a predator-killing policy. It sounds amazingly like human

behavior in the modern day. The more I read about history, the

more I become convinced that humans have always pretty much

behaved the same. If we do it today, it stands to reason that we’ve

probably done it before, at least since we became culturally modern

about 50,000 years ago. Predator

persecution may therefore be a

very old component of human

culture. It’s just one more exploit

on a long list of nature-tweaking

practices that have led us to

where we are today. Now, as our

awareness of the need to build

rather than degrade our natural

capital grows, we’re taking a

new look at predators. For

40 years, Allan Savory has been

emphasizing the crucial role

predators play in maintaining

the natural balance of

things, especially in brittle

environments. Now we’re reintroducing wolves into

places like Yellowstone to keep the elk and bison moving. Many

urban-based nature lovers want to see wolves, mountain lions, and

grizzlies lurking in lots more places than just big national parks.

That’s probably not too practical, especially where population

densities are high enough that we ourselves, and not just our

livestock, have a chance of getting picked off. But where human

densities are thin, such as most of the western United States with

large tracts of public land, we’ll probably continue to see efforts

to reintroduce predators.

A New Predator Paradigm

That’s proving to be a hard pill to swallow for most folks trying

to eke out a living raising livestock. With their lack of political clout

(at least relative to the masses living in places like Phoenix and Las

Vegas), though, eventually they’ll probably have to swallow it. That

might not be all bad. Assuming the proposed area for reintroduction

supports healthy populations of wild herbivores, and many areas

of the West do, it should help lead to far more natural behavior

among these natural grazers than currently exists. Perhaps more

importantly, however, it will lead to shifts in the way we manage

our livestock. We’ll have to develop management practices and

strategies that enable us to minimize losses and still get along with

bears, lions, and wolves. I recently picked up on an email exchange

between three people who are directly concerned with this issue:

Ruben Cantu, a regional director with Texas Parks and Wildlife,

Guillermo Osuna, a rancher in Coahuila, Mexico, and Allan Savory.

Mr. Cantu made an inquiry to Allan and Guillermo requesting

practical solutions to dealing with predators in a ranch setting.

M exican Black Bears

Guillermo, a longtime Holistic Management practitioner, ranches in

a remote and rugged region of Coahuila, and might just have

the healthiest population of black bears of any rancher in the

southwestern U.S./northern Mexico region. In other words, he’s had

abundant experience figuring out how to live with bears. On the

other hand, Allan has been living with predators all his life in

southern Africa, and has developed a list of key strategies designed to

minimize predation loss.

In describing his current bear population, Guillermo says “we have

more than ever,” yet his staff were able to reduce calf losses during

last year’s calving season. He explains his latest strategy this way: “We

put all the cows in one herd before the calving season begins. Using

polyrope and a portable energizer, we confine them late in the

afternoon to a section of the paddock away from heavy brush, which

the bears use for cover. In the evening we drive the pick-up out to

check on the herd. If we see a bear we chase him away and will

sometimes stay with the cattle all night.

“The biggest danger, as you know, is when the calves are first

born. Our calving season ended fifteen days ago and so far this year

we have lost about 14 calves versus more than 60 last year. We had to

hire some extra cowboys for three months, but I think it was worth it.

We only had to sacrifice one bad problem bear. I have always been

against killing bears. I am more in favor of culling the cows that lose

their calves to a predator. I have seen how cows can ‘mob’ a bear or

mountain lion and chase him away. That is one of the reasons we try

to keep the herd in a tight group in the evening. A cow out by herself

will have a hard time defending her calf.”

continued on page 12

“I have always been against killing bears,” says Guillermo Osuna,

whose staff rescued this orphan cub and raised it. “I am more in

favor of culling the cows that lose their calves to a predator.”

Now, as our

awareness of the

need to build rather

than degrade our

natural capital

grows, we’re taking

a new look

at predators.

IN PRACTICE • MARCH / APRIL 2002 LAND & LIVESTOCK 11

Adapting Holistically

Allan has some further suggestions to offer, explaining

that “in Holistic Management we routinely teach how to

deal with predators—the usual things are to calve over a

very short period, to run as large a herd as you can, to

plan the grazing so that herds are as far as you can get

them from main predation areas during the critical stage

of calving/lambing, and to use imprinted dogs to run with

the herd.” In Guillermo’s case, most of these principles are

being practiced.

While managing the High Lonesome Ranch in

southwestern New Mexico, I had some first hand

experience implementing the second and third strategies.

We had to manage around a healthy mountain lion

population. The lions were mainly a potential problem in

our mountain pastures, so we planned our grazing to be

out of the mountains during calving, as Allan suggests.

We never lost a calf to lions. When they were calving on

the flat country, coyotes were a consideration, but because our

400–500 cows were always in one herd in pastures usually under

600 acres in size, coyote predation on newborn calves was nearly

nonexistent. I remember losing

only one.

The cattle were always in big

enough bunches that coyotes were

a minimal threat. I often observed

coyotes jogging along the edges of

those bunches, ignoring the cows

and calves. The cows were ignoring

the coyotes too, seeming to

understand that as long as they

were in a big enough group, the

coyotes didn’t stand a chance. The

coyotes evidently didn’t think they

did either.

Allan cites another example. “In

one bad hyena predation situation in

Zimbabwe, we had a fellow cut losses

to zero by doing all the above

(except the dogs) and then also training the cows to graze without

their calves. The cows would come in to the cell center by the water

at night on their own. The calves and cows would lie up there. In

the morning the herders would blow on homemade whistles and

the cows would get up, leave their calves and go to graze. By late

morning the cows would come back and feed their calves, then go

out to graze again in the afternoon without their calves. At night

they would return and spend the night with their calves. Each

herd, of about 500 cows, and its herders were trained to do this in

about a week.

“With sheep and goats there are other things we routinely did to

reduce predation apart from the above. One was using ‘lambing

boards’ at the cell center/central watering point—boards over which

an adult or half grown lamb or kid could jump but very young kids

and lambs could not as the sheep/goats left the center. This allowed

the ewes or nannies to go out and graze without very young kids or

lambs. We also used to flood-light the cell center.”

I have seen Allan’s last suggestion (flood-lighting the center)

work inadvertently well at several national parks around eastern

and southern Africa. Many safari lodges have nearby water points

well-illuminated with flood lights so that visitors can view game

watering at night. Unfortunately, the prey species learn that they’re

safer by staying close to the floodlights, which leads to unnatural

lingering close to these water points, with the resulting degradation

of the surrounding landscape. In a ranching situation, you of course

would be controlling the timing of the grazing around the water

points, so this lingering problem becomes a non-issue. The point

is that it works to keep the predators away.

Our long association with predators has entered a new realm as

we begin this new century. For probably the first time in our history

as human beings, we actually are beginning to value predators for

their critical role in nature’s whole. Our policies are shifting from

mindless slaughter to active reintroduction—a redefining of our

culture as it relates to predators. For those of us who will come (or

are coming) face to face with the effects of this new culture (and

not just watching highlights on the Discovery Channel), our predator

paradigm will have to shift. Instead of seeing these animals as

competitors and rivals, as threats to our livelihood, we’ll have to see

them as cooperators on our path to reversing desertification. It won’t

be easy, but as the above testaments reveal, it’s possible. The sooner

we replace complaining and griping with proactive solutions and

can-do, creative attitudes, the easier this shift will be.

12 LAND & LIVESTOCK IN PRACTICE #82

Living With Predatorscontinued from page 11

On this ranch in southeastern Zimbabwe, where predation by hyenas was

serious, losses were cut to zero by training the cows to graze without their

calves. A herdsman has just blown a whistle signaling the mothers that it’s

time to go out and graze and they’ve left their calves behind. Note how

calm these calves are.

The lions were

mainly a

potential problem

in our mountain

pastures, so we

planned our

grazing to be out

of the mountains

during calving.

In Zimbabwe, one of the protein staples of the native human

population is mopane worms. They are big, fat, black, caterpillar-

looking critters. When my wife, Daniela, and I are there with our

tour groups, we always make sure our clients are presented with the

opportunity to munch on this local delicacy. After all, getting in touch

with native custom is one of our big draws. Amazingly, most of our

adventurous travelers decline the privilege, turning their noses up like

a five-year-old presented with a plate of broccoli. The local folks, on

the other hand, eat ‘em like potato chips.

Why is this? How can a food item so readily devoured by one

group of humans be so repulsive to another? What does this have

to do with managing livestock? Actually, the principle(s) involved

transcend the species gap. Food preference probably has just as

much to do with culture as it does with

nutrition, if you define culture as the

norms, traditions, and accepted code of

conduct between members of a

population, and assume that culture

contributes to a population’s success

at surviving within a given set of

environmental constraints.

In humans, culture is learned. We

learn to eat, or not eat, worms. Most of

us figure that groups of animals don’t

really have culture. We think they do

everything innately, by instinct—that

they don’t learn to eat things, they just

know what to eat.

Well, early last December, I attended

a one-day workshop by one of the

more grounded and practical academics

I’ve met—Dr. Fred Provenza from the

Department of Rangeland Resources at

Utah State University—which greatly

expanded my appreciation of what makes a cow a cow. Turns out that

cows (or sheep, goats, bison, reindeer, or whatever species you prefer)

have culture too, according to Provenza.

For those of us managing ranches holistically, this whole issue of

livestock culture has huge implications as we begin to plan our grazing

and develop our ranch infrastructure. In my opinion, it goes a long way

to explaining why so many of us have struggled as we transition to

planned grazing. If we can understand the components of culture and

more deeply appreciate the ways that animals interact with their

environments, I think we might be able to smooth out these

discouraging learning curves.

A Change of Scenery

Most of us who manage livestock realize that it’s hard to take a

bunch of critters from one environment to another and expect them

to keep on breeding back and weaning big calves without missing a

beat. There’s always the dreaded adjustment period. Depending on

how different the environments, the pain of this transition can be

highly variable, but it pretty well always happens, even when moving

from relatively tough country to what looks like easy street. This

adjustment period also happens when we decide to change our

management for the benefit of our land. When we start amalgamating

animals that don’t necessarily want to be with each other, and then

make them go into areas that they don’t particularly fancy being in, a

uniform chorus of bovine protestation can result. Well, what would

you do if you were unwillingly plucked off of your pretty farm in the

green hills of Missouri, transported to a new ranch in the badlands of

Wyoming, given a brand new set of friends, all new food, different

weather, a novel landscape, and salty

water? You most likely would protest

and perform below your potential, at

least initially. What if you had been on

that same Wyoming ranch your whole

life, and had been in charge of the

winter country down in the Red Desert

all that time. You know every square

foot of that place—where all the

winterfat and best grass patches are, the

good places to take shelter in blizzards,

how far you can ride out and still get

back before dark (or how to get home

in the dark), etc. You are intimate with

the land. Now your foreman has decided

to move you to the summer unit in the

Green Mountains. How long will it take

you to learn that place and become as

intimate with it as you are with the

winter country? Probably a long time,

but if you have to do it, you will. You

can adapt. You have the capacity to change your habits to enhance

your prospects for survival.

Such scenarios are equally as applicable to your animals, according

to Provenza, including this ability to learn and adapt to new

circumstances. That’s good news for those of us who realize we need

to change our management. Riparian zone blowouts, overrested mesas,

and sagebrush monocultures are not acceptable in the modern West.

To begin to rectify these problems, we need to change the behavior

of our animals, which means we must change their culture.

H ow Do Cows Get Cultured?

Now, to get to the point, what exactly constitutes bovine culture,

and how do we change it? Complexity is the rule, but here are some

Simmental cattle, native to the lush pastures of

temperate Europe, survive on pretty thin pickings in

Namibia at the tail end of an extended drought. Over

the past 100 years, the animals that have figured out

how to survive in this new environment have passed

that behavior on to their offspring. They have evolved

a new culture.

Cows Have Culture Too—

Understanding Livestock/Landscape Interactions by Jim Howell

IN PRACTICE • MARCH / APRIL 2002 LAND & LIVESTOCK 13

continued on page 14

14 LAND & LIVESTOCK IN PRACTICE #82

Satiation vs. Palatability

For many years now, Allan Savory has been saying that animals

don’t select their diet based on which species are palatable as opposed

to unpalatable. They simply select from all the plants on hand to meet

their energy, protein, mineral, and vitamin needs. Sometimes this

correlates to a particular species, but oftentimes it doesn’t. Things such

as growth form (young and tender vs. old and fibrous) and growing

site (highly mineralized vs. leached soil) often have just as much or

more to do with a plant’s attractiveness as the species itself. The

animals know how to select what they need. Many academics have

said that’s hogwash.

Dr. Provenza isn’t one of them. In fact, his trials indicate that

animals can figure out what they need. It’s not a conscious choice, but

the result of a complex web of interrelated physiological and cognitive

processes. In one trial, as lambs were given an energy infusion into

the rumen during the consumption of straw, daily intake of straw

increased steadily. The body sensed that its energy needs were being

met, the lambs associated this sensation of satiation with the flavor of

the straw they were eating, so they kept eating straw. In the control

group without the energy infusion, daily consumption of straw

steadily dropped. The straw was not satiating their energy needs, so

they quit eating it. These two groups were in pens

side by side, and Dr. Provenza had parts of the

trial on video. By the third day, when the straw

was placed in the pens, the energy infusion group

was diving into the feed rack with enthusiasm,

while the control group watched them through

the fence, with looks on their faces that seemed to

say, “What on earth do you guys see in that crap?”

And not only do they know what they do

need, they also know what they don’t need. The

emetic system is the body’s defense mechanism

against overconsumption. Animals can eat too

much of a good thing, like protein or energy, or

too much of a bad thing, like toxic compounds.

In either case, when too much goes down the

hatch, the emetic system kicks in, making the

animal feel sick to its stomach.

Humans can relate. Usually we can sense this

coming before we need to head for the bathroom,

and we naturally stop eating the thing that’s

making us full or starting to make us nauseous.

If we go too far, the unique sensation just prior to

losing one’s cookies tends to stick with us. Your

brain associates that sensation with the food you

just ate, and maybe even with the restaurant or

room you ate it in. Chances are that food or restaurant will be

unpopular for years to come. According to Provenza, the same goes for

animals. When an animal overeats on a particular plant, it remembers it

for a long time. A bad eating experience can last a lifetime.

D i versity—the Spice of Life

From a practical management point of view, this is both good and

bad. If the plant is indeed highly toxic, we want the animal to avoid

that plant for the rest of its life. More often than not, however, the

plant has the potential to play an important part in meeting the

Understanding Live s t o c k / L a n d s c a p e

I n t e r a c t i o n s

continued from page 13

basics. According to Dr. Provenza’s studies, young animals learn what to

eat and how to eat from their mothers. Sounds simple, but its impact

on how animals use the range is huge. If a calf or lamb doesn’t see its

mother grazing larkspur, it won’t eat it either. If it sees its mother

munching fallen mesquite beans, or sagebrush, or taking a bit of

snakeweed every now and then, by golly it will too. By following their

mothers, young animals learn which toxic plants to avoid, which toxic

plants they can eat some but not a lot of, which grasses, forbs, and

browse are most nutritious at certain times of the year, etc. It’s not

innate knowledge. It’s learned; it’s part of their culture. Dr. Provenza’s

trials also show that once mother becomes less of a focal point, peers

start to have an important impact on foraging behavior. For example,

if you buy a load of yearlings and stick them in with your weaned

heifers, the new kids on the block will watch what the experienced

locals are eating, and they’ll gradually take on those habits.

Very brittle savanna near the Botswana/South Africa border. Plants growing under brush

are often highly favored, regardless of species, due to superior nutrient content created b y

mineral deposition from the brush and nitrogen fixation when the brush is a legume.

All this begs another even more fundamental question: What

exactly tells the mother cow that it’s safe to eat this, a little bit of that,

and none of that? She probably learned from her mom, too, of course,

but this knowledge had to start somewhere. I often think of the poor

Fleckvieh Simmentals from the lush pastures of Germany that first

set foot in Namibia, in southwestern Africa. Those first bulls were

lowered into the icy Atlantic, swam ashore onto the Namibian coast,

and were then lined out in a forced march across the blazing Namib

Desert to the scrubby arid savanna of the country’s interior. Talk

about culture shock. How did those poor critters learn what to eat?

IN PRACTICE • MARCH / APRIL 2002 LAND & LIVESTOCK 15

animal’s needs as long as not too much of it gets consumed at any one

time. Dr. Provenza has demonstrated that when presented a variety of

different plants containing toxic compounds, livestock will consume

more total nutrients per day than with only one or two mildly toxic

plants available. This isn’t because the high variety diet contains more

nutrients per pound than the simpler diet; it’s because an animal will

only eat so much of one plant type before it becomes satiated on that

plant and wants to eat something else.

In this case, the satiation is caused by toxic compounds in the plant.

Essentially all plants contain these compounds and are potentially toxic

if overconsumed. The emetic system starts to tell the animal to slow

down on one plant and switch to another. It’s important to emphasize

that an animal initially begins to select a particular plant because of its

protein or energy content. If there were no toxic compounds in the

plant, it would continue eating that plant until its energy or protein

needs were satiated. But when a plant contains toxic compounds, the

animal may become satiated on that toxicity before it fills up on

protein or energy. To continue filling those nutrient needs, it must

switch to another plant type.

Most rangeland landscapes support a broad diversity of species,

especially those in which the ecosystem processes are functioning

effectively. Most of those species can be used by our domestic livestock

to one degree or another. We often assume that broad, uniform

utilization of our ranges can only be achieved by a mix of livestock

species. That, of course, is one way to do it. Some species have higher

tolerances for some toxic compounds than others. Goats, for instance,

will tend to browse sagebrush more readily than cattle. But oftentimes,

a particular species has the potential to feed over a much broader

range of plants than we give them credit for. The reason they don’t,

typically, is because they’ve never learned to. This learned behavior can

take years to evolve, but there are things we can do as managers to

help it develop faster—more on that in a minute.

Culture Shock

This brings us back

to culture. The Fleckvieh

Simmentals in Namibia

know how to make a

living in their very un-

German environment.

Over the past hundred

years, the animals that

have figured out which

combination of plants

they can best make a

living on have been the

ones to survive and pass

that behavior on to their

offspring. They have

evolved a new culture. A

population of animals that

is intimately familiar with

a ranch, and that has been

managed the same way

for years, decades, or even

centuries, will have

developed a very strong

culture—a culture of survival molded by history and dependent on a

diversity of plants. When we change that culture by mobbing them up

into bigger and bigger herds, for example, and into smaller and smaller

units of land, we have to expect a culture shock. Many of the little

bunches that formerly occupied their own smaller home ranges are

now being forced into areas of the ranch where they seldom venture,

and possibly exposed to plants they’ve never seen.

The foraging patterns or habits of each original little bunch will

change drastically, because the land they have access to on any given

day will be totally different to what they’re accustomed to, and it will

take time before the animals learn a new grazing pattern that meets

their nutritional needs. If the animals are moving through lots of

pastures, they’ll have to go through this learning curve in every

pasture. This is stressful, but the animals will figure it out. In my

experience, the more radical the change of environment, especially

if generally of lower nutritional quality, the higher the stress.

While managing a grass-based dairy in east Texas, I brought in

600 springing heifers over the course of a year. With the exception of

one truckload, all of those animals came from a confinement heifer-

growing operation in the upper Midwest, and they battled to adapt to

a grazing lifestyle for their entire first year. Only that one truckload of

40 heifers adapted with minimal trouble, and it came from a grazing

operation in eastern Oklahoma, with a climate and forage base very

similar to their new home in Texas. My experiences buying and

grazing cattle in arid New Mexico and high altitude cold Colorado

have been similar.

Smooth Tr a n s i t i o n s

Be prepared for trouble, but be patient, observant, and don’t give

up, because the good news is that the animals will learn. They will

change their culture, and there are some things we can do to help

them along. One of those is to take things slowly. Expecting to turn

a desert into the Garden of Eden in one season is wishful thinking.

Initial enthusiasm wanes

quickly when animals

aren’t happy.

As you start to

amalgamate herds, think

about the best way to do

that from the animals’

point of view. For example:

■ Scattered groups of

animals that are already

using one ecologically

distinct region of the ranch

(and therefore already

know each other and the

plants) can be combined

into one herd and

managed under that new

social and spatial context

before they’re taken into

completely new country

and combined with totally Babies learn what to eat, and therefore how to survive in their environment, from

mom. Lasater Ranch, eastern Colorado. continued on page 16

unfamiliar animals into even larger herds.

■ When planning the development of new pastures or grazing

units, try to make sure each area has as much plant diversity as

possible. Remember that the more plant types an animal has to select

from, the more able the animal will be to meet its protein, energy,

and mineral needs.

■ You may already have

animals that know how to

meet their needs from the

range of plants on your

ranch, but if you mob them

up into smaller pastures that

lack that diversity, expect

trouble. I’ve had personal

experience with this

challenge on the ranch in

New Mexico, which was

fairly degraded. If I had

understood the importance

of access to plant diversity,

I would have urged our

management group

to do our land planning and

subsequent infrastructure

development differently.

■ When bringing new

animals onto a property,

remember that younger

animals will more readily

adapt to the new

environment than older

individuals. The old adage

that “you can’t teach an old

dog new tricks” applies to our domestic herbivores as well. Also, those

new animals, regardless of age or history, should always be mixed with

animals that know what to eat and where to go, and an effort should

be made to keep them mixed. The new ones will tend to segregate

themselves, but the quicker they integrate, the faster the newcomers

will learn how to make a living in their novel surroundings.

Fine Tu n i n g

And finally, for those of you who have survived the inevitable

performance dip and now have culturally sophisticated livestock that

prefer to be bunched and constantly moving, here’s another tidbit

Dr. Provenza threw out. He is now experimenting with different

levels of protein and energy supplements designed to stimulate

animals to eat plants that they normally don’t select (or at least don’t

select aggressively), like sagebrush and other plants that dominate

vast tracts of land in the West. If we can get animals to go after these

plants, we’ll have a much better chance at healing many severely

degraded landscapes. Heavy browsing pressure on sagebrush, in

combination with hoof action, will help open up these sagebrush

monocultures and stimulate new forbs and grasses to start filling in

bare ground. If the animals refuse to eat sagebrush, there is little

chance of making this happen.

With two groups of lambs familiar with sagebrush (i.e., it wasn’t a

novel plant to them), he offered one group a restricted amount of an

energy supplement (200 grams per day) and a protein supplement

(also 200 grams/day), along with all the sagebrush they wanted.

Another group was offered both of these supplements ad lib—they

could eat all they wanted—in addition to the sagebrush. The restricted

group ate 1500 grams of sagebrush per day, while the ad lib group

only ate 800 grams per day

of sagebrush.

The ad lib group wasn’t

stupid. The alfalfa and barley

in the supplement met their

needs more readily than the

sagebrush, so without the

restriction, they ate more of

it and roughly half the

sagebrush as the restricted

group. The 200 grams each

of protein and energy was

enough of a complement

to the sagebrush that the

restricted group really put

away the sagebrush—lots

more than they would have

without the supplement.

Roughly 75 percent of their

daily dry matter intake was

composed of sagebrush. That’s

pretty good. This indicates

that restricted use of strategic

supplements, in combination

with sound grazing planning,

might just be the trick to the

utilization and healing of vast

tracts of otherwise worthless

rangeland, or to getting animals to eat any plant that is potentially

useful but greatly underutilized. Anyway, they’re currently trying it

out on the Deseret Ranch in northeastern Utah on a commercial

scale, so we’ll have a better idea of how this works in the real world

pretty soon.

One last thing. It’s awfully important to remember that most of us,

when starting to manage holistically, will not only be changing the

culture of our animals, but our own as well. Give yourself time, be

clear on what you’re doing and why you’re doing it (holistic goal),

and keep a positive attitude. If you think the transition to a healthier

ranch, a healthier lifestyle, and a healthier bank account is going to

create more pain than it’s worth, you’ll probably be right. If you

know you’re going to make it work and be successful no matter

what happens, you’ll also be right. It’s up to you.

Now go get cultured.

You can contact Fred Pro venza at Department of Rangeland

Resources, Utah State University, Logan, Utah 84322.

16 LAND & LIVESTOCK IN PRACTICE #82

If we stay out of nature's way (and don't wean calves, separate age classes

into distinct herds, etc), domestic animals form complex social, or family

groups, just as their wild relatives—a behavior that undoubtedly contributes

to the development and maintenance of a herd culture well-adapted to its

environment. This is a family group in South Africa—from right to left: old

matriarch co w, her yearling calf, current calf, a four-year-old daughter with

her yearling calf and current calf. The remainder of this 600-head herd is

standing behind the photographer.

Understanding Live s t o c k / L a n d s c a p e

I n t e r a c t i o n s

continued from page 15

HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE • MARCH / APRIL 2002 17

S a vory Center Bulletin Board

New Project Manager

The Savory Center is pleased to introduce our

new Project Manager, Craig Leggett. Craig is

responsible for the

day-to-day details of

the special projects

that the Center has

under contract.

Currently, these

projects include the

management and

planning of two

Bernalillo County

Open Space

properties in the

Albuquerque area,

a Holistic Management demonstration project

on the Navajo Reservation for the Rio Puerco

watershed restoration initiative in New Mexico,

and development of conservation plans for Rural

Legacy Foundation clients. He also assists with the

logistics of the Ranch and Rangeland Managers

Training Program and with fund raising events.

Craig also works part-time for Land

Renewal, Inc, the Savory Center’s for-profit

subsidiary, managing efforts such as our

phytoremediation project on the Yuma

Proving Grounds in Arizona.

Craig comes to us by way of Vermont. He

holds a Bachelor of Science in agriculture from

the University of Vermont. He first read about

Allan Savory and Holistic Management in 1990,

was inspired by its possibilities, and has been

trying to get to New Mexico ever since. He

succeeded in that ambition with his wife, Jessica,

and their three sons when they moved here last

year. Craig brings with him his experience in

managing fields, forests, gardens, and people.

Financial Planning Software Upgrade

The Savory Center’s Holistic Management®

Financial Planning Software is now available

for those running Office XP. Please note that it

doesn’t matter which version of Windows you

have because our software runs off of Excel, so

check the version of Office or Excel that you

have before ordering.

Holistic Managers in the News

Savory Center members Joe and Julie Morris

were featured in a publication by the California

Cattlemen’s Association, Grazing for Change:

Range and Watershed Management Success

Stories in California . You can view their story at

www.cattlemen.org/GrazingforChange/T.O. . htm.

Craig Leggett

There were also articles about Savory Center

members, Robert and Cheryl Cosner and Don

Nelson in the January 2002 issue of the Western

Beef Producer . We appreciate Doug Warnock’s

efforts in bringing this publication’s attention

to the Cosners’ efforts. We also appreciate how

these members took these opportunities to

educate others about Holistic Management and

how it has influenced their work.

Outreach Efforts

Under the direction of Certified Educator

Tina Pilione, the Savory Center’s outreach

efforts are going full-speed ahead. With the

winter months full of agricultural conferences,

we capitalized on this opportunity to get our

materials in front of conference attendees.

The cooperation of the organizations

sponsoring these conferences around the

country has been heartwarming. We’ve mailed

out information to over 20 conferences, with

more slated. We’ve also greatly appreciated the

response of our membership who have helped

us in getting materials to conferences, staffing

booths, answering questions, and providing us

with further contacts.

We would especially like to thank Savory

Center members and affiliates Karl North, Larry

Johnson, Jim Weaver, George Work, Tom Walther,

Ken Roberts, Jim Vanderpol, Steve Bonney, and

Joy Law and the following organizations: UVM

Center for Sustainable Agriculture (Vermont),

The LaCrosse Center (Wisconsin), NRCS (Dubois,

Pennsylvania), Pennsylvania Association for

Sustainable Agriculture, Future Harvest-CASA

(Maryland), Ecological Farming Conference

(California), SSAWG (Tennessee), River Country

RC&D (Wisconsin), Minnesota Grazing

Conference, Midwest Small Farm Conference &

Trade Show (Indiana), and North Central Ohio

Grazing Conference (Ohio), Northern Plains

Sustainable Agriculture Society (North Dakota),

NOFA (NY), The Sustainable Farming

Association of Minnesota, The Ohio Innovative

Farmers, The Nebraska Sustainable Agriculture

Society, and Virginia Biological Farming.

If you know of any conferences or

workshops coming up in your area, please

contact us with information about the

conference at 505/842-5252 or

anna@holisticmanagement.org.

New Study Group in Wisconsin

Under the leadership of Cooperative

Extension Agent, Andrew Hager, a new

Holistic Management study group has started

near Medford, Wisconsin. Study materials for

this group are the textbook, Holistic

Management , the video, “Creating a Sustainable

Civilization,” and bulk subscriptions to IN

PRACTICE. If other study groups are forming,

please let us know so we can post your contact

information to others. If you would like to

order bulk subscriptions of IN PRACTICE at a

discounted rate, please contact Ann Adams at

anna@holisticmanagement.org or 505/842-5252.

Fundraising Efforts

We’d like to extend a long overdue note of

public thanks to Dean Rudoy and Craig

and Laura Risk for hosting a Savory Center

friend and fundraising dinner last September.

Dean, Craig and Laura live in Sandia Park,

New Mexico and hosted a delightful evening

entitled “A Walkabout with Allan Savory.”

The hosts invited some of their neighbors

and friends to meet Allan, walk about with

him on the San Pedro Creek Preserve, and

learn about Holistic Management and the

work of the Savory Center. The evening was

accentuated with gourmet food prepared by

Chef Claude Gohard. Through this event, the

Savory Center engaged 27 new friends and

raised a little over $4,000 to support our mission

and programs. Again, thank you Dean, Craig,

and Laura for hosting this dinner and helping

spread the work of the Savory Center.

Annual Appeal

Thank you to everyone who sent in a

contribution in 2001 to help further the

work of the Savory Center and the Africa

Centre. As with any non-profit organization,

the Savory Center and our sister organization

in Africa count on the philanthropic support

of individuals, corporations, and foundations

to keep us stable, viable and moving forward.

Your support will help our efforts to

expand our membership and network, bring

Holistic Management to new territories, and

help us to continue to collaborate with other

organizations on crucial social, agriculture, and

environmental projects.

Correction

Please note that in the last issue

of IN PRACTICE we listed the wrong

website for the San Pedro Mesquite

Company. Their website is

www.spmesquite.com. We apologize

for any inconvenience.

18 HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE #82

IOWA

Bill Casey

1800 Grand Ave.

Keokuk, IA 52632-2944

319/524-5098

wpccasey@interl.net

Certified EducatorsLOUISIANA

Tina Pilione

P.O. 923, Eunice, LA 70535

phone/fax: 337/580-0068

tinap@bbs.whodat.net

MINNESOTA

Larry Johnson

RR 1, Box 93A

Winona, MN 55987-9738

507/457-9511; 507/523-2171 (w)

lpjohn@rconnect.com

MONTANA

Wayne Burleson

RT 1, Box 2780

Absarokee, MT 59001

406/328-6808;

rutbuster@montana.net

Roland Kroos

4926 Itana Circle

Bozeman, MT 59715

406/388-1003; KROOSING@aol.com

UNITED STATES

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

These Educators provide Holistic Management instruction on behalf of theinstitutions they represent.

ARKANSAS

Preston Sullivan

P.O. Box 4483, Fayetteville, AR 72702

501/443-0609; 501/442-9824 (w)

prestons@ncatark.uark.edu

CALIFORNIA

Eric Adler

924 Anacapa St., Ste B1-D

Santa Barbara, CA 93101

805/563-1944; 805/963-5800 (w)

eric@ericadler.com

Monte Bell

325 Meadowood Dr., Orland, CA 95963

530/865-3246; mbell@glenncounty.net

Bill Burrows

12250 Colyear Springs Rd.

Red Bluff, CA 96080

530/529-1535; burrows@cwnet.com

Richard King

1675 Adobe Rd., Petaluma, CA 94954

707/769-1490; 707/794-8692 (w)

rking@ca.nrcs.usda.gov

Christopher Peck

P.O. Box 2286, Sebastopol, CA 95472

800/736-7892

ctopherp@holistic-solutions.net

COLORADO

Cindy Dvergsten

17702 County Rd. 23

Dolores, CO 81323

970/882-4222; cindydv@reanet.net

Rio de la Vista

P.O. Box 1379

Pagosa Springs, CO 81147

970/731-9659; riovista@rmi.net

Daniela Howell

63066 Jordan Ct.

Montrose, CO 81401

970/249-0353; howelljd@montrose.net

Tim McGaffic

P.O. Box 476, Ignacio, CO 81137

970/883-2672; tim@dblt.com

Chadwick McKellar

16775 Southwood Dr.

Colorado Springs, CO 80908

719/495-4641; cmckellar@juno.com

Byron Shelton

33900 Surrey Lane, Buena Vista, CO 81211

719/395-8157; landmark@my.amigo.net

AUSTRALIA

Graeme Hand

162 Hand and AssociatesPort Fairy, VIC 328461-03-5568-2158; gshand@hotkey.net.au

Mark Gardner

P.O. Box 1395, Dubbo, NSW 283061-2-6882-0605gardnerm@ozemail.com.au

Brian Marshall

“Lucella”; Nundle, NSW 2340

61-2-6769 8226; fax: 61-2-6769 8223

bkmrshl@northnet.com.au

Bruce Ward

P.O. Box 984, Inverell, NSW 236061-2-6721 1105; fax: 61-2-6721 1094blward@northnet.com.au

CANADA

Don and Randee Halladay

Box 2, Site 2, RR 1, Rocky Mountain House, AB T0M 1T0; 403/729-2472donran@telusplanet.net

Noel McNaughton

3438 Point Grey RdVancouver, BC, V6R 1A5604/736-1552; noelm@telus.net

Len Pigott

#120 Stewart Crescent, Kindersley, SK S0L 1S1 306/463-6236, 306/463-2696JLPigott@sk.sympatico.ca

Kelly Sidoryk

Box 374, Lloydminster, AB, S9V 0Y4403/875-4418; higain@bordercity.com

CHINA/GERMANY

Dieter Albrecht

Melanchthonstr. 23D-10557 Berlin49-30-392 8315alialb@gmx.net (international)

China Agricultural UniversityCIAD Office, Beijing 10009486-10-6289 1061

SOUTH AFRICA

Johan Blom

P.O. Box 568, Graaf-Reinet 628027-49-891-0163; j&tblom@eastcape.net

Ian Mitchell-Innes

P.O. Box 52, Elandslaagte 290027-36-421-1747; blanerne@mweb.co.za

Norman Neave

Box 141, Mtubatuba 393527-35-5504150; norboom@saol.com

Dick Richardson

P.O. Box 1806, Vryburg 8600tel/fax: 27-53-927-4367 judyrich@cybertrade.co.za

UGANDA

Bob Buzzard

Department of State/USAID2190 Kampala Pl.Washington D.C. 20521-2190256-41-235897/342-896; fax: 256-41-258981buzzin@infocom.co.ug

ZIMBABWE

Mutizwa Mukute

PELUM Association Regional DeskP.O. Box MP 1059Mount Pleasant, Harare263-4-74470/744117; fax: 263-4-744470pelum@mail.pci.co.zw

Liberty Mabhena

Spring CabinetP.O. Box 853, Harare263-4-210021/2 263-4-210577/8; fax: 263-4-210273

Brian Wehlburg

78 Rhodesville Ave. Highlands, Harareijapo2000@yahoo.com

Sister Maria Chiedza Mutasa

Bandolfi ConventP.O. Box 900, Masvingo263-39-7699, 263-39-7530

Elias Ncube

P. Bag 5950, Victoria Falls263-3-454519; rogpachm@africaonline.co.zw

GHANA

Arne Vanderburg

U.S. Embassy, Accra, Dept. of StateWashington, D.C. 20521-2020233-21-772131; 233-21-773831 (w) asvanderb@hotmail.com

MEXICO

Ivan Aguirre

La InmaculadaApdo. Postal 304Hermosillo, Sonora 8300052-637-78929; fax: 52-637-10031

Elco Blanco-Madrid

Cristobal de Olid #307 Chihuahua Chih., 3103052-14-415-3497; fax: 52-14-415-3175elco-blanco@hotmail.com

Manuel Casas-Perez

Calle Amarguva No. 61,Lomas HerraduraHuixquilucan, Mexico City CP 5278552-5-291-3934; 52-5-992-0220 (w)

Manuel L. Molina

Rio Bravo #38Col. ISSSTESONCentario, Sonora CP 8326052-62-13-14-00

NAMIBIA

Gero Diekmann

P.O. Box 363, Okahandja 9000264-62-518091nam00132@mweb.com.na

Wiebke Volkmann

P.O. Box 182, Otavi067-23-44-48;keilberg@mweb.com.na

NEW ZEALAND

John King

P.O. Box 3440Richmond, Nelson64-3-543-3830Joking@clear.net.nz

Cliff Montagne

Montana State University

Department of Land Resources &

Environmental Science

Bozeman, MT 59717

406/994-5079

montagne@montana.edu

NEW MEXICO

Ann Adams

The Savory Center

1010 Tijeras NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102

505/842-5252

anna@holisticmanagement.org

Kate Brown

Box 581, Ramah, NM 87321

505/783-4711

kbrown@nedcomm.nm.org

Kirk Gadzia

P.O. Box 1100, Bernalillo, NM 87004505/867-4685; fax: 505/867-0262kgadzia@earthlink.net

To our knowledge, Certified Educators are the best qualified individuals to help

others learn to practice Holistic Management and to provide them with technical assis-

tance when necessary. On a yearly basis, Certified Educators renew their agreement to

be affiliated with the Center. This agreement requires their commitment to practice

Holistic Management in their own lives, to seek out opportunities for staying current

with the latest developments in Holistic Management and to maintain a high standard

of ethical conduct in their work.

For more information about or application forms for the U.S., Africa, or International

Certified Educator Training Programs, contact Kelly Pasztor at the Savory Center or visit

our website at www.holisticmanagement.org/wwo_certed.cfm?

HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE • MARCH / APRIL 2002 19

Sterling Grogan

Middle Rio Grande Conservancy DistrictP.O. Box 581, Albuquerque, NM 87103505/247-0235 ext. 337 (w) fax: 505/243-7308grogan@mrgcd.dst.nm.us

Ken Jacobson

12101 Menaul Blvd. NE, Ste AAlbuquerque, NM 87112505/293-7570;kbjacobson@orbusinternational.com

Kelly Pasztor

The Savory Center

1010 Tijeras NW,

Albuquerque, NM 87102

505/842-5252;

kellyp@holisticmanagement.org

David Trew

369 Montezuma Ave. #243

Santa Fe, NM 87501

505/751-0471

trewearth@aol.com

NORTH CAROLINA

Sam Bingham

394 Vanderbilt Rd.

A s h eville, NC 28803

828/274-1309; sbingham@igc.org

Guy Glosson

6717 Hwy 380, Snyder, TX 79549806/237-2554 cowdog@caprock-spur.com

R.H. (Dick) Richardson

University of Texas at AustinDepartment of Integrative BiologyAustin, TX 78712512/471-4128d.richardson@mail.utexas.edu

Peggy Sechrist

25 Thunderbird Rd.Fredericksburg, TX 78624830/990-2529; peggy@fgb.net

UTAHChandler McLay

P.O. Box 12Monticello, UT 84535303/888-8799; mcchan@msn.com

WASHINGTONCarl Jeffry Goebel

Goebel & AssociatesP.O. Box 413, Pullman, WA 99163-0413 509/334-4767; goebel@wsu.edu

Craig Madsen

P.O. Box 107, Edwall, WA 99008

5 0 9 / 2 3 6 - 2 4 5 1 ;

m a d s e n 2 f i r @ m i n d s p r i n g . c o m

NORTH DAKOTA

Wayne Berry

University of North Dakota—Williston,P.O. Box 1326, Williston, ND 58802 701/774-4269 or 701/774-4200wayne.berry@wsc.nodak.edu

OHIO

Deborah Stinner

Department of Entomology OARDC

1680 Madison Hill, Wooster, OH 44691

330/202-3534 (w); stinner.2@osu.edu

OKLAHOMA

Kim Barker

RT 2, Box 67, Waynoka, OK 73860580/824-9011; barker_k@hotmail.com

OREGON

Joel Benson

613 Fordyce St., Ashland, OR 97520541/488-9630; joels888@aol.com

Cindy Douglas

2795 McMillian St., Eugene, OR 97405541/465-4882; cdouglas@omri.org

TEXAS

Christina Allday-Bondy

2703 Grennock Dr.Austin, TX 78745512/441-2019; tododia@peoplepc.com

CALIFORNIA

Holistic Management of California

Tom Walther, newsletter editor

5550 Griffin St.

Oakland, CA 94605

510/530-6410

tagjag@ aol.com

COLORADO

Colorado Branch of the Center

For Holistic Management

Jim and Daniela Howell

newletter editors

1661 Sonoma Court, Montrose, CO 81401

970/249-0353

howelljd@montrose.net

GEORGIA

Constance Neely

SANREM CRSP

1422 Experiment Station Rd.

Watkinsville, GA 30677

706/769-3792; cneely@arches.uga.edu

IDAHO

National Learning Site

Linda Hestag

3743 King Mountain Rd.

Darlington, ID 83255

208/588-2693; mackay@atcnet.net

MONTANA

Beartooth Management Club

Wayne Burleson

RT 1, Box 2780, Absarokee, MT 59001

406/328-6808; rutbuster@montana.net

Local Netwo r k s There are several branch organizations or groups affiliated with the Center in the U.S. and abroad (somepublish their own newsletters.) We encourage you to contact the group closest to you:

OKLAHOMA

Oklahoma Land Stewardship AllianceCharles GriffithsRoute 5, Box E44, Ardmore, OK 73401580/223-7471; cagriffith@brightok.net

PENNSYLVANIA

Northern Penn Network

Jim Weaver, contact person

RD #6, Box 205, Wellsboro, PA 16901

717/724-7788

jaweaver@epix.net

TEXAS

HRM of Texas

Peggy Jones, newsletter editor

101 Hill View Trail

Dripping Springs, TX 78620

512/858-4251

delphic@earthlink.net

AUSTRALIA

Holistic Decision Making Association

(AUST+NZ)

Lennie Chaplain, Executive Officer

P.O. Box 1157

Moree NSW, 2400

tel: 61-2-6752-9065; fax: 61-2-6752-9064

cvchaplain@bigpond.com

CANADA

Canadian Holistic Management

Lee Pengilly

Box 216, Stirling, AB, T0K 2E0

403/327-9262

MEXICO

Fundación para Fomentar

el Manejo Holístico, A.C.

Jose Ramon Villar, President

Zeus 921, Contry La Escondida,

United States

International

MINNESOTA

Land Stewardship Project

Audrey Arner, Program Director

103 W. Nichols Ave.

Montevideo, MN 56265

320/269-2105

www.landstewardshipproject.org

NEBRASKA

Nebraska Branch of the

Center For Holistic Management

Brenda Younkin Kury

P.O. Box 3723, Alpine, WY 83128

307/654-3527; bkury@hotmail.com

www.users.uswest.net/~vkury

NEW YORK

Regional Farm & Food ProjectTracy Frisch, contact person148 Central Ave., 2nd floorAlbany, NY 12206518/427-6537

USDA/NRCS - Central NY RC&D

Phil Metzger, contact person

99 North Broad St.

Norwich, NY 13815

607/334-3231, ext. 4

phil.metzger@ny.usda.gov

NORTHWEST

Managing WholesPeter Donovan

501 South St.,

Enterprise, OR 97828-1345

541/426-2145

www.managingwholes.com

Sandra Matheson

228 E. Smith Rd.

Bellingham, WA 98226

360/398-7866; smm1@gte.net

Don Nelson

Washington State University

P.O. Box 646310, Pullman, WA 99164

509/335-2922

nelsond@wsu.edu

Maurice Robinette

S 16102 Wolfe Rd

Cheney, WA 99004

509/299-4942; mlr2@mindspring.com

Lois Trevino

P.O. Box 615

Nespelem, WA 99155

509/634-4410; 509/634-2430 (w)

lois.trevino@colvilletribes.com

Doug Warnock

151 Cedar Cove Rd.

Ellensburg, WA 98926

509/925-9127; warnockd@elltel.net

WYOMING

Miles Keogh

450 N. Adams Ave

Buffalo, WY 82834

307/684-0532; mkeogh@trib.com

Guadalupe, NL 67173

tel/fax: 52-8-349-8666

fmh@prodigy.net.mx

NAMIBIA

Namibia Centre for

Holistic Management

Anja Denker, contact person

P.O. Box 23600

Windhoek 9000

tel/fax: 264-61-230-515

unicorn@iafrica.com.na

SOUTH AFRICA

South African Centre For

Holistic Management

Dick & Judy Richardson

P.O. Box 1806, Vryburg 8600

tel/fax: 27-53-9274367

judyrich@cybertrade.co.za

Printed on recycled paper

Books & Vi d e o

Holistic Management: A New Framework for Decision-Making,

Second Edition, by Allan Savory with Jody Butterfield. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $30($34/Mexico & Canada; $36—all others)Hardcover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $50($54/Mexico & Canada; $56—all others)

At Home With Holistic Management, by Ann Adams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $20($24/Mexico & Canada; $16—all others)

Holistic Management: A New Environmental Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $10($14/Mexico & Canada; $16—all others)

Video: Creating a Sustainable Civilization—

An Introduction to Holistic Decision-Making, based on a lecture given by Allan Savory. (Please specify if you want PAL format) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $29($32—All outside U.S.)

S o f t wa r e

Holistic Management® Financial Planning (single-user license) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $259($264—Canada/Mexico; $275—all others)

Please specify PC or Mac, Office ‘ 95 or ‘ 97 or 2000 and version of Excel you are using

Pocket Cards

Holistic Management® model & testing questions, March 2000. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $4

To Order . . .Indicate quantity in box preceding item, print shipping address at right,mail this page (or a copy) and your check or international money orderpayable in U.S. funds from a U.S. bank only to:

The Allan Savory Center for Holistic Management

1010 Tijeras NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102

Credit card orders: 505/842-5252,or fax: 505/843-7900. All prices quoted include shipping and handling, unless otherwise noted.

Bulk discounts available on all items, please call for prices.

For online ordering visit our secure website at: www.holisticmanagement.org

Holistic Management IN PRA C T I C E

—A bimonthly journal for Holistic Management practitionersSubscribe for 1 year for only $27/U.S. ($33/International)

2 years ($50/U.S.; $60/International) 3 years ($70/U.S.; $90/International)

Special Edition: An Introduction to

Holistic Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $5/$6 International

(Audio tape) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$12/$14 International

(Compact disc) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$14/$16 International

Bulk subscriptions available.

One year for $17 each/U.S., or $22 each/International(To qualify you must order 7 or more one-year subscriptions, paid in full. Issues will be sent in bulk

to one address for distribution at your end). ______ # of one-year subscriptions

Back Issues: $5 each; bulk orders (5 or more issues) $4 each. List

issues by number: _____________________________________

Overseas? Most of the items listed here are available in Australia/New Zealand

and southern Africa from:

Australia: Holistic Decision Making Association, Lennie Chaplain, P.O. Box 1157,

Moree NSW 2400, fax: 61-2-6752-9064; tel: 61-2-6752-9065; cvchaplain@bigpond.com.

South Africa: Whole Concepts cc, PO Box 1806, Vryburg 8600;

tel/fax: 27-53-9274367; judyrich@cybertrade.co.za

Holistic Management® Planning and Monitoring Guides

The Complete Holistic Management®

Planning and Monitoring Guide

September 2000, 192 page 3-ring binder($39/Mexico & Canada; $41—all others) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$35

Financial Planning

May 2000, 44 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$15

Aide Memoire for Grazing Planning

May 2000, 46 pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$15

Early Warning Biological Monitoring— Croplands

April 2000, 26 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$12

Early Warning Biological Monitoring—

Rangelands and Grasslands

January 1999, 32 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$13

Land Planning—For The Rancher or Farmer

Running Livestock

January 1999, 36 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$13

Holistic Management® Planning Forms(All forms are padded - 25 sheets per pad)

Annual Income & Expense Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10

Worksheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$ 7

Livestock Production Worksheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$15

Control Sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$ 3

Grazing Plan & Control Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$15

Membership Items

Savory Center Membership/Gift Membership

(non-U.S. add $5/each) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$30

Organic Hemp Cap w/ logo

($29 Mexico & Canada; $31 all others) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$25

Organic Cotton T-shirt w/ logo

($19 Mexico & Canada; $21 all others) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$15

All the Time in the World CD or Cassette

($9 Canada; Mexico & International) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$7

(non-U.S.: add $1/ea.)

(non-U.S.: add $2/ea.)

The Allan Savory Center

for Holistic Management

1010 Tijeras NW Albuquerque, New Mexico 87102 U.S.A.

RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED

NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION

U.S. POSTAGE PAIDALBUQUERQUE, NM

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C o n t r i b u t i o n sAmount $_____________ Designate program you would like us

to apply contribution toward______________________________

PLEASE SEND ADDRESS CORRECTIONS BEFORE MOVING SO THAT WE DO NOT INCUR UNNECESSARY POSTAL FEES

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