Allan Savory - Holistic Management

Holistic Management

Savory had begun working on the ancient problem of land degradation (desertification) in 1955 in Northern Rhodesia where he served in the Colonial Service as Provincial Game Officer, Northern and Luapula Provinces. He subsequently continued this work in Southern Rhodesia first as a research officer in the Game Department, then subsequently as an independent scientist and international consultant. When in exile Savory worked from the Cayman Islands into the Americas introducing his new discoveries about both the cause of desertification and how to reverse it using increased numbers of livestock. This work he subsequently wrote up in the book "Holistic Management: A New Decision Making Framework" written with his wife Jody Butterfield and published by Island Press (1989; 1999 2nd edition).

In 1992 he co-founded the Africa Center for Holistic Management with his wife, Jody Butterfield, and in 2009 the Savory Institute, headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, which he currently heads. The Savory Institute works globally with individuals, government agencies, NGOs and corporations to restore the vast grasslands of the world through the teaching and practice of holistic management and Holistic Decision Making. The Institute's Consulting and Training activities are turning deserts into thriving grasslands, restoring biodiversity, bringing streams, rivers and water sources back to life, combating poverty and hunger, and increasing sustainable food production, all while mitigating global climate change through carbon sequestration. In 2010 Savory and the Africa Center for Holistic Management won The Buckminster Fuller Challenge. In a 2012 address to the International Union for Conservation of Nature World Conservation Congress, on the urgent need to bring agriculture and conservation back together, Prince Charles lauded Savory's nature based approach.

Today, thousands of families, corporations and businesses are using the holistic management framework developed by Savory to radically improve the quality of their lives and regenerate the resource base that sustains them. This includes conservation projects in the U.S., Africa, Canada and Australia, where large tracts of land are being transformed as desertification is reversed through Holistic Management using livestock and holistic planned grazing as the main agent of change.