Running out of Time | Documentary on Holistic Management
Savory Institute
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Key ideas
- Agriculture generates over 75 billion tons of eroded soil worldwide annually, equating to more than 10 tons of soil lost per living person each year while each person consumes roughly half a ton of food. (0:09)
- Allan Savory contends that livestock do not inherently cause desertification; rather, unmanaged animals roaming widely destroy ground cover, whereas high-density, planned herd movement mimics historical migratory herds and restores soil structure. (2:12)
- Fields conditioned with mobile overnight kraals that concentrate livestock dung, urine, and trampling produce five to eight times the crop yields of traditional communal agriculture. (13:36)
- Holistic planned grazing has expanded to an estimated 16 million hectares globally through the Savory Institute and regional learning hubs in over 10 countries. (27:07)
- Savory argues that institutional academia historically resists new scientific paradigms until public consensus forces a shift, crediting his viral 2013 TED Talk with circumventing decades of official opposition. (43:08)
Detailed notes
## Background Published on YouTube by the Savory Institute on May 1, 2018, this documentary was produced by Trevor Langham and Fig Multimedia Tech in Zimbabwe. It explores how ecologist Allan Savory developed Holistic Management to transform degraded rangeland in Zimbabwe, highlighting practical grassland restoration as a planetary solution to desertification, climate change, and rural poverty.
## TL;DR The film chronicles Allan Savory's proposition that desertification in brittle environments is driven not by overgrazing or drought, but by the loss of biological decay and ineffective rainfall caused by bare soil. By using bunched, moving livestock and movable overnight kraals to mimic ancestral wild herds, land managers break soil caps, restore ground cover, recharge aquifers, and multiply crop yields fivefold to eightfold. Rooted in empirical results at Dimbangombe Ranch and surrounding Hwange communal lands, the documentary shows how the Africa Centre for Holistic Management and the global Savory Institute network scale these principles worldwide. Despite facing decades of academic and institutional resistance, Savory argues that holistic decision-making is an urgent, indispensable prerequisite for civilizational survival.
## Atmosphere & style The film carries an impassioned, contemplative, and resilient tone, alternating between grand ecological stakes and gritty, tactile field demonstrations in the Zimbabwean bush. Allan Savory speaks with the quiet gravitas and weathered conviction of an elder scientist who has endured decades of institutional scorn, infusing technical discussions of soil crusting and rainfall infiltration with deep personal grief and dedication. Watching the documentary feels grounded and authentic, juxtaposing satellite-linked Skype calls with remote bush camp encounters—from lions prowling outside the kitchen to clear streams flowing through once-barren landscapes.
## Bulletin - [00:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=9s) Agriculture generates over 75 billion tons of eroded soil worldwide annually, equating to more than 10 tons of soil lost per living person each year while each person consumes roughly half a ton of food. - [02:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=132s) Allan Savory contends that livestock do not inherently cause desertification; rather, unmanaged animals roaming widely destroy ground cover, whereas high-density, planned herd movement mimics historical migratory herds and restores soil structure. - [13:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=816s) Fields conditioned with mobile overnight kraals that concentrate livestock dung, urine, and trampling produce five to eight times the crop yields of traditional communal agriculture. - [27:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=1627s) Holistic planned grazing has expanded to an estimated 16 million hectares globally through the Savory Institute and regional learning hubs in over 10 countries. - [43:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=2588s) Savory argues that institutional academia historically resists new scientific paradigms until public consensus forces a shift, crediting his viral 2013 TED Talk with circumventing decades of official opposition.
## Key takeaways - [00:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=9s) Global topsoil erosion outpaces food consumption at an unsustainable rate, with over 75 billion tons of soil eroded annually against roughly half a ton of food consumed per person. - [02:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=132s) Desertification is driven by bare ground and ineffective rainfall rather than drought alone; rain striking exposed earth evaporates or runs off instead of recharging soil aquifers. - [05:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=334s) In brittle grassland environments, resting land causes vegetation to oxidize and die rather than decompose biologically, which historically prompted destructive seasonal burns across more than one billion hectares in Africa annually. - [08:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=491s) Holistic planned grazing uses livestock bunched and moved deliberately to break crusts, trample plant litter, and fertilize soil without causing overgrazing. - [11:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=714s) Mobile predator-friendly kraals built from opaque plastic sheeting protect livestock from predators at night while concentrating animal impact to dramatically rejuvenate degraded soils. - [13:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=816s) Overnight kraaling transforms poor Kalahari sands into fertile soil, delivering five- to eightfold increases in crop yields and buffering fields against erratic rainfall. - [16:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=999s) The Africa Centre for Holistic Management (ACHM) was founded at Dimbangombe Ranch in 1992 to demonstrate the restoration of degraded catchments, forage, and perennial river systems. - [18:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=1126s) Expanding holistic grazing into communal areas requires overcoming social and cultural hurdles—such as clan taboos and livestock pooling hesitations—via community action frameworks. - [24:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=1474s) Consolidating communal herds in Hwange virtually eliminated dry-season livestock starvation, enabled multi-fold crop yield gains, and prompted Zimbabwe to form an inter-ministerial committee to scale holistic management nationally. - [27:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=1627s) The Savory Institute was established in 2010 to deploy a global network targeting 100 locally governed learning hubs across seasonal rainfall environments. - [35:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=2126s) Effective rainfall management at Dimbangombe ensures rivers run clear after heavy rains, contrasting sharply with severe flash flooding and dry beds on unmanaged neighboring lands. - [38:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=2290s) Operations at Dimbangombe integrate livestock with wildlife and have relied primarily on safari hunting revenues due to a lack of funding from mainstream environmental groups. - [40:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=2425s) Vigorous regeneration of Faidherbia albida and indigenous teak on dry sands treated with kraals disproves conventional theories that tree recruitment failures stem strictly from altered river flooding. - [43:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=2588s) Savory emphasizes that paradigm shifts occur when widespread public awareness overrides institutional resistance, pointing to the international impact of his 2013 TED Talk. - [45:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=2718s) Holistic Management is positioned as an urgent civilizational necessity, directly linking soil health, water security, and rural livelihoods to planetary stability.
## Detailed walkthrough ### [00:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=9s) A Radical Solution to Global Desertification
On February 27, 2013, Zimbabwean wildlife ecologist and international consultant Allan Savory stepped onto a stage before a global audience to address desertification and climate change. His proposition challenged mainstream ecological doctrine, sparking standing ovations from supporters and bitter hostility from conventional circles. Rather than accepting environmental decline as an inevitable consequence of human existence, Savory argued that our fundamental understanding of resource consumption and soil loss is critically broken.
To illustrate the sheer scale of the crisis, Savory pointed out the staggering gap between the food humanity consumes and the topsoil lost to produce it. Every human requires approximately half a ton of food annually for basic healthy maintenance, yet global agricultural systems discard topsoil at an unsustainable rate. Allan Savory summarized the grim arithmetic: “Clearly we're going out of business.”
- Humans require roughly half a ton of food per person annually. - Agriculture generates over 75 billion tons of eroded soil worldwide each year. - This loss equates to more than 10 tons of eroding soil per person currently alive on the planet.
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[02:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=132s) Rethinking Livestock and the Mechanics of Desertification
A longstanding assumption among ecologists and conservationists is that livestock cause land degradation and desertification. Savory argues the exact opposite: it is not the animals themselves that degrade the land, but the way humans manage them. Left to wander without herders or the natural pressure of predators, small numbers of livestock disperse across wide areas, grazing selectively and continuously damaging plant communities. Under this dynamic, having too few animals aimlessly roaming the land causes far more destruction than having large, tightly concentrated herds.
Walking across parched Zimbabwean rangeland punctuated by bone-dry riverbeds that only briefly flash flood, Savory dismissed the prevailing view that changing weather patterns originate the damage. Desertification—the process of land drying out and becoming barren—stems from management practices that destroy ground cover and render rainfall completely ineffective. When rain strikes exposed, sun-baked earth, high surface temperatures drive immediate evaporation while remaining water sheets off, carrying away protective plant litter and topsoil.
Allan Savory directly challenged conventional ecological teaching: “And this saying that people have that droughts cause the bare ground is nonsense it's the background that causes the the droughts it's the other way around.”
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: The Desertification Cycle of Bare Soil accDescr: Flowchart illustrating how bare ground prevents water infiltration and accelerates drought conditions.
subgraph LandDegradation["Surface Exposure"] A["Unmanaged / Dispersed Livestock"] --> B["Loss of Ground Cover & Plant Litter"] B --> C["Hot, Exposed Bare Soil"] end
subgraph HydrologicalFailure["Ineffective Rainfall"] C --> D["High Evaporation Rates"] C --> E["Surface Runoff & Silt Loss"] D --> F["Flash Flooding & Rapid Desiccation"] E --> F end
subgraph Impact["Ecosystem Collapse"] F --> G["Man-Made Drought & Desertification"] G --> B end ```
- Two-thirds of the world's landmass is currently desertifying. - In Saudi Arabia's Tihamah desert, 25 millimeters (1 inch) of rain dumped the equivalent of 1,250 drums of water per hectare, yet the surface dried out completely by the next day due to runoff and rapid evaporation. - Water must leave the soil primarily through living plants or subterranean movement into aquifers and rivers, rather than through direct surface runoff and solar evaporation.
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[05:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=334s) The Paradox of Rest: Plant Oxidation and Grassland Fires
At Dimbangombe Ranch, located 30 kilometers south of Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, Savory manages land through erratic wet seasons by maximizing rainfall effectiveness. Standing out in the downpour, he demonstrates that where grass and plant litter carpet the ground, water soaks directly into the soil profile with zero surface runoff. In contrast, nearby bare patches wash silt away immediately. Yet maintaining this vital ground cover presents a counterintuitive challenge: grasslands deteriorate and die if they are merely rested and left ungrazed.
In brittle environments, standing grass that is not eaten or trampled before the dry season cannot break down biologically through soil organisms. Instead, it slowly oxidizes in the air, changing color to a lifeless gray and choking new growth at the plant base until the grass tuft dies. Pastoralists have historically used fire to clear this decadent, oxidized vegetation, but burning incurs an enormous environmental penalty.
Allan Savory highlighted the catastrophic atmospheric scale of burning rangelands: “Burning one hectare of grassland gives off more and more damaging pollutants than six thousand cars.”
- When grass is not grazed, chemical oxidation replaces rapid biological decay, causing perennial grass plants to self-terminate. - Across the African continent, more than one billion hectares of grassland are deliberately burned every single year. - This widespread seasonal burning emits immense quantities of pollutants with minimal public or scientific scrutiny.
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[08:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=491s) Holistic Planned Grazing: Mimicking Natural Herds
Because grasslands depend on cycling matter through biological digestion, Savory contends that eliminating livestock or relying on technology cannot restore rangelands. The only practical mechanism capable of reversing desertification at a planetary scale is utilizing livestock to mimic the dense, migrating wild herds that historically shaped these ecosystems alongside pack-hunting predators.
Allan Savory underscored this singular intervention: “There is only one option I repeat to you only one option left to climatologists and scientists and that is to do the unthinkable and to use livestock bunched and moving as a proxy for former herds and predators and mimic nature.”
Simply bunching animals together is not enough; past pastoral cultures bunched livestock for millennia and still created deserts when grazing lacked structured timing. Savory's Holistic Management framework replaces guesswork with a formal chart-based planning process. Grazing planners divide the land, plot the months across a planning chart, list individual paddocks down the side, and map out wildlife movements, calving seasons, and forage ratings before laying out animal movements.
On Dimbangombe, a mixed herd of over 500 cattle alongside sheep and goats moves through designated paddocks according to the grazing plan. Herders keep the animals gathered, allow them to graze, escort them to midday water for a rest, and drive them into scheduled grazing blocks. The animals trample standing moribund vegetation into a protective litter layer, scallop the soil crust with their hooves so water and carbon can penetrate, and enrich the ground with dung and urine before being moved before they can overgraze the recovering plants.
- Hoof impact breaks up capped soil surfaces, enabling moisture and aeration to reach seedbeds. - Trampled grass covers the soil, insulating it from the desiccating effects of sun and wind. - Because animals will not feed where they foul, dense herds are kept on the move, naturally curbing overgrazing while cycling carbon purely through solar energy. - Cattle are grazed across all terrains—including steep, rocky hillsides—to establish uniform seasonal ground cover.
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[11:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=714s) Predator-Friendly Mobile Kraals
Managing a combined herd of 500 animals across a 3,000-hectare ranch creates a logistical problem at nightfall. Forcing livestock to trek miles back to fixed, permanent enclosures (kraals or bomas) every evening drains animal energy, causes erosion along trails, and disrupts the grazing plan. To solve this, the ranch engineered mobile, predator-friendly kraals constructed from opaque plastic sheeting. Lions, hyenas, and other carnivores will not attempt to breach or jump a barrier they cannot see through, providing total protection for the animals out in the bush.
These portable enclosures move across the landscape in tandem with the grazing schedule. Confining hundreds of hoofed animals within a small perimeter for seven consecutive nights concentrates incredible amounts of dung, urine, and trampling into targeted areas. A mobile chicken coop moves alongside the kraal, allowing poultry to scratch through the manure. Once the temporary fence is dismantled and moved, the heavily impacted patch undergoes rapid biological rejuvenation, rebounding with significantly higher fertility and vegetative productivity than the surrounding untrammeled rangeland.
[13:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=816s) The Overnight Kraal: Soil Transformation and Crop Yields
```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: Overnight Kraal Soil Transformation Cycle accDescr: Diagram tracing the use of movable predator-friendly kraals on poor sands to fertilize crop fields and multiply yields. subgraph Kraal["Movable Overnight Kraal"] A["Poor Kalahari Sand"] --> B["High-impact dunging, urine & trampling"] B --> C["Short duration / frequent moves"] end subgraph Soil["Enriched Soil Profile"] C --> D["Thick protective layer of manure & litter"] D --> E["Dark, rich, fragrant topsoil"] end subgraph Harvest["Cropping Phase"] E --> F["5x to 8x higher crop yields"] F --> G["Stalks & crop residue for ground cover"] end ```
When livestock are concentrated inside a kraal (corral) and periodically moved, the soil undergoes a dramatic transformation. High animal impact—the concentrated deposition of dung, urine, and the physical trampling of hooves—triggers strong grass growth rather than degradation, provided the animals are not kept in place for too long. Demonstrating on an area of Kalahari sand chosen specifically for its poor fertility, Allan Savory scrapes away the surface layer to show visitors how an overnight kraal, shifted across the ground, completely changes the land. Beneath a thick blanket of manure and plant litter lies dark, rich, fragrant soil that looks and smells entirely distinct from the dry, infertile sand just steps outside the treated perimeter:
> “The higher the impact from the cattle, the more of the dunging, the trampling, the more grass tends to grow, as long as you don't repeat it too long—as long as it's a short time.”
Visitors to Dambangombi Ranch discover a simple, economically viable mechanism to elevate rural livelihoods, especially for communities trapped in dependency on food aid programs. On fields where cattle had been corralled overnight during the previous year, heavy stalks and crop residues remain from an abundant harvest:
- **Yield comparison:** Fields conditioned by overnight kraals produce on average five to eight times the crop yields obtained through traditional communal agriculture. - **Resilience under stress:** In a demonstration field, crops still grew remarkably well despite two severe setbacks: the area had received only half of its expected seasonal rainfall, and a troop of baboons had invaded and wrecked the entire first crop, forcing a replanting after Christmas.
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[16:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=999s) Dambangombi Ranch and the Birth of ACHM
When Allan Savory purchased Dambangombi in the 1970s, the ranch was in severe distress. Grasslands were virtually eliminated, and recurrent veld fires swept across the landscape. The previous owner had grazed cattle down in a single vlei every day of the year, reducing it to hard bare earth:
> “And this was so bare that you could see a guinea fowl at 100 yards almost any time in the year, and now I can't see anything a yard from me, it's so well grown up now.”
This marked turnaround supplied empirical proof that holistic management could rehabilitate degraded grasslands anywhere on Earth, validating years of research. But Savory recognized that an isolated success on a private ranch was meaningless without universal application across the African continent and globally.
In 1992, Savory and his wife, Jody Butterfield, established the Africa Centre for Holistic Management (ACHM) at Dambangombi Ranch as a regional learning hub. The center focuses on practical skills for communal self-sufficiency: - Restoring water catchments and perennial river flows. - Increasing forage, livestock numbers, and wildlife abundance simultaneously. - Multiplying crop yields through concentrated animal impact. - Rehabilitating degraded and bare ground. - Implementing low-stress livestock handling techniques.
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[18:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=1126s) Scaling Holistic Management into Communal Lands
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: ACHM Community Rollout Process accDescr: Workflow from ACHM training and funding to community consensus and herd consolidation. A["$5.8M ACHM Program Grant"] --> B["Training materials, staffing & field officers"] B --> C["Hwange Communal Lands outreach"] C --> D["Community Action Cycle"] D --> E{"Overcoming Clan Hesitations"} E -->|"Address cultural medicines & clan history"| F["Consolidated village herds"] F --> G["Coordinated planned grazing & kraaling"] G --> H["Improved animal condition, forage & self-reliance"] ```
To take the philosophy beyond ranch fences, ACHM designated the adjacent Hwange communal lands as its proving ground to expand across Zimbabwe and southern Africa. Supported by a donor award of nearly $5.8 million over five years, the center formulated training manuals, hired local personnel, and addressed communal adoption.
The primary barrier was not ecological, but social. Historically, small communal factions had attempted holistic management in isolation, but the process demands whole-community participation to function properly. Using a mobilization tool called the Community Action Cycle, facilitators helped villages build self-reliance and collective pride. They had to navigate deeply rooted mythic and cultural fears: many families initially dreaded grouping their livestock together because of clan-specific traditional medicines, ancestral taboos, and long-standing domestic conflicts. Over time, as communities observed healthier, fatter cattle emerging from the pilot herds, these anxieties receded. Reflecting on the slow societal uptake, Savory laments the decades of lost opportunity:
> “The tragedy of all this is that it doesn't have to be like it is; if we could have begun doing what we're doing for the communities now 40 years ago, we would be a long way ahead of it now.”
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[21:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=1272s) Extension Work in Hwange: Water, Health, and Village Livelihoods
Despite an exhausting international travel schedule promoting holistic management abroad, Allan Savory routinely drives 50 kilometers out to rural villages to review local progress. In the Hwange communal lands, ACHM livestock management specialist Innocent Tshuma mentors smallholders who have abandoned fragmented, solitary herding in favor of pooled, planned grazing. Cattle managed under the collective system are visibly heavier and healthier than the thin, struggling stock grazing unmanaged along the nearby roads.
ACHM's strategy began on the ranch and is now spreading into a broader target community of roughly 150,000 people. Field officers demonstrate integrated land and water planning step-by-step:
- **Water and garden infrastructure:** Villagers constructed a water reservoir tank on an old kraal site, establishing productive vegetable gardens directly beside livestock watering points. The sale of excess produce has created new household income and elevated family nutrition. - **Grazing plans in action:** Field officers review rotational grazing charts alongside local herders like Philip, moving herds methodically through mapped paddocks (advancing from paddock 5 to paddock 6, and onwards to paddock 7). - **Yield increases:** Moving night kraals across family arable lands every week before sowing generates a threefold to fivefold jump in crop production across the fertilized strips.
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[24:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=1474s) Community Voices: Dignity, Food Security, and National Support
Local villagers express relief at the practical turnaround in their households. Where cattle mortality once depleted family assets every dry season, communal herd consolidation and managed rotations have virtually ended starvation losses:
> “Now we don't have any cow dying, because they taught us how we should do keep them, and I'm sure at the moment when these five cattle I'm having now, they will increase and I'll have money to buy more, which is something very good.”
Villagers celebrate managing their own affairs independently without perpetual external intervention. Reliable water storage tanks have replaced daily shortages, ensuring both garden irrigation and herd watering needs are met year-round.
The impact on local women has been especially stark: two to three years earlier, local mothers could feed their households for only three to four months of the year, leaving their families vulnerable to hunger for the remaining eight to nine months. Under the new grazing and cropping regimen, they produce reliable, year-round food supplies.
These communal outcomes have captured the attention of the Zimbabwean national government. Observing the turnaround in land stability, cattle health, and rural food security, the government established a permanent inter-ministerial committee of ministry heads tasked with scaling holistic management throughout the country, including initiatives to integrate these ecological decision-making frameworks directly into the national school curriculum.
[27:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=1631s) Animal Impact on Crops and the Global Reach of Holistic Management
Educating future generations begins by instilling foundational environmental literacy in children at an early age. They need to understand the paradox of pastoral land: having too few livestock can destroy communities and dry up water sources, whereas running significantly higher numbers of animals under proper management can regenerate the land. A clear example of this is Regina's crop field. She applied concentrated animal impact to her plot, planting it on January 14. Inspected on March 6, her maize stands tall, lush, and vigorous. In contrast, an adjacent plot planted much earlier without animal impact looks visibly stunted and unhealthy. Regina was able to produce enough food from her treated field to feed visitors and her family.
In 2010, the Africa Centre for Holistic Management won the prestigious Buckminster Fuller Challenge for its breakthroughs in reversing desertification. That same year, Allan Savory, his wife Jody Butterfield, and other partners founded the Savory Institute in Boulder, Colorado, to spearhead the large-scale restoration of the world’s grasslands. Today, Holistic Management is practiced by tens of thousands of land managers internationally. An estimated 16 million hectares (roughly 40 million acres) are managed holistically across the globe, with the greatest impact occurring in seasonal rainfall environments that constitute nearly two-thirds of Earth’s land surface. This worldwide movement represents the flowering of an idea that took root in the African bush half a century ago.
- **Award:** Winner of the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge. - **Savory Institute headquarters:** Boulder, Colorado (founded 2010 by Allan Savory, Jody Butterfield, and partners). - **Global scale:** Reliable estimates indicate up to 16 million hectares (40 million acres) managed holistically. - **Target eco-region:** Seasonal rainfall environments comprising approximately two-thirds of the planet's land area.
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[29:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=1747s) The Global Hub Strategy and International Visitors
The site at Dimbangombe operates as the primary prototype for a worldwide network of regional hubs. As Allan Savory explains: “What we're doing here is a small part of our global operations the Savory Institute is headquartered in Boulder Colorado and they run the global effort from there and then part of our strategy to get this to go to scale worldwide because of the seriousness of climate change desertification is to have locally led locally managed learning hubs around the world and this was the first of the hubs on which we're modeling others from 10 different countries Mexico chile Argentina turkey the UK Ireland United States etc so there are many countries getting involved.” People from at least 21 countries have traveled to this facility for training. Accommodating groups of 30 or more, the hub relies on comprehensive materials, including Savory's foundational textbook, handbooks authored by Jody Butterfield, and expanding digital resources. The overarching goal is to seed 100 self-led, locally governed learning hubs worldwide where communities learn and teach in their own languages and cultural contexts.
International trainees visit Zimbabwe to observe these biological principles in person. Matt Rales and Katrina Fowler, cattle producers from Maryland who finish beef on grass, traveled to witness the reversal of desertification firsthand. Matt noted: “I can't believe it's taken us this long to get here it succeeded my expectations beyond imagination.” He was startled by grass stands that were thicker and more diverse than he anticipated, resolving to return to the United States to implement planned grazing across as many head of livestock as possible. Similarly, Sally Nicoll, a business owner from Johannesburg, arrived with little prior concern for ecological issues: “Two months ago I had no interest in climate change and I discovered managing holistically and it has completely changed my life.” She was deeply moved after meeting a local widow whose husband died in 2011, leaving her with eight children (and another lost the previous year). By combining her livestock with her neighbors' to form a herd of 15 animals, treating her field, and borrowing seed, the woman grew the healthiest stand of maize (*mealies*) in the area without synthetic fertilizers, securing enough food to sustain her seven remaining children for the entire year.
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[33:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=1980s) Bush Camp Life and Global Connectivity
At the close of each day, Savory unwinds at his bush camp alongside Jody Butterfield, his wife and collaborator of 32 years. Savory holds deep familial roots in the landscape, having been born just south in Bulawayo and raised on a 45,000-acre ranch roughly 25 miles away. His personal history is woven into the earth: “My father I buried his remains in the river and my sister and my eldest son here are buried here and my youngest son so it's very much just home to me and this is the way I like to live here amongst the game I don't actually like living in a house at all.” While the couple maintains a second home in New Mexico—which they jokingly refer to as Jody’s home compared to Allan’s bush camp—Savory prefers outdoor life among wildlife.
Daily existence in the camp brings routine encounters with the wild. Elephants frequently roam near the camp perimeter after nightfall, wild dogs chase down bushbuck right outside the windows, and lions have pursued kudu down along the riverbank in plain sight of the kitchen. Despite its remote setting, the camp functions as an operational command post. Powered entirely by solar panels and battery banks, it uses satellite broadband to maintain contact with the international team. Savory and Butterfield routinely conduct Skype conferences with Daniela Howell, CEO of the Savory Institute in Boulder, coordinating international programs and scheduling addresses to European conferences before traveling abroad.
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[35:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=2126s) Water Catchment Dynamics: Runoff vs. Effective Rainfall
A passing morning shower illustrates how soil surface conditions dictate the fate of water. Upstream in the catchment area where ground cover is poor, rainwater fails to penetrate. The surface water pools into a dense, muddy brown slurry where one cannot see half an inch below the surface. Severe soil erosion actively cuts trenches into the ground around struggling perennial grass plants, washing critical topsoil away. By the time water travels down into the managed sections of the ranch, however, the river runs crystal clear.
The primary difference lies in making rainfall effective by enhancing infiltration and drastically curtailing bare-ground runoff. Two days prior, a heavy downpour delivered 50 millimeters (two inches) of rain only a kilometer upstream. Savory observed: “What's amazing to me here is because we've made the rainfall more effective soaking into the soil less surface flow so that the soil really absorbs the rain is that this remained clear after we'd had 50 millimeters or two inches of rain two days ago only a kilometer above this.” In previous decades, that storm would have unleashed a violent, silt-choked torrent that required days to settle; now the river barely rises and stays clear. In sharp contrast, a neighboring river draining national park and hunting lands demonstrates massive destructive flooding. Debris lines reveal floodwaters reaching 50 meters back from the riverbank, deep enough to submerge a vehicle. Because that surrounding land is capped and bare, millions of gallons rush away as floodwaters instead of recharging the aquifers, guaranteeing that the river will run completely dry later in the season. Meanwhile, the permanent pool on the Dambangombe River—though experiencing its lowest level in 15 years—continues to hold water, conserved by Savory for hundreds of visiting wild elephants and buffalo while livestock are watered elsewhere.
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Catchment Management and Water Outcomes accDescr: Diagram contrasting runoff and water retention under conventional degraded land versus holistically managed land.
subgraph Degraded["Unmanaged / Neighboring Land"] A1["Rainfall Event\n(e.g., 50mm / 2 inches)"] --> B1["Bare, Capped Soil Surface"] B1 --> C1["Severe Surface Runoff & Soil Cutting"] C1 --> D1["Destructive Flash Floods & Muddy Rivers"] D1 --> E1["Aquifers Depleted: River Dries Up Rapidly"] end
subgraph Managed["Holistically Managed Dimbangombe Catchment"] A2["Rainfall Event\n(e.g., 50mm / 2 inches)"] --> B2["Trampled Litter & Dense Perennial Cover"] B2 --> C2["High Water Infiltration into Soil Profile"] C2 --> D2["Minimal Surface Flow & No Silt Runoff"] D2 --> E2["Living Aquifers: Sustained, Crystal-Clear Pools"] end ```
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[38:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=2290s) Integrating Wildlife, Bare Ground, and Safari Hunting Funding
While Dimbangombe's primary mission began as regenerating degraded ground and wildlife habitats, Savory realized cattle were indispensable as the primary biological tool to mimic ancient herding ungulates. Across the 3,000-hectare property, livestock and abundant game are integrated through planned grazing. Paradoxically, successful grassland restoration creates a new challenge: grass grows so densely across the property that managers must deliberately preserve select areas of bare ground so that wildlife requiring open terrain do not abandon the area.
Financing these operations requires pragmatic economic decisions. Savory highlights that mainstream conservation groups have consistently withheld practical backing: “Wildlife and this whole project are a critical part of it not just because of my passion but because it takes funds to run this sort of operation and we've been completely unable to get any support or financial support from environmentalists or environmental organizations and the bulk of the funding that supports us and has done all this work has come from the hunting so we are safari hunting at the same time and that literally has been what has supported most of this work.”
To observe wildlife on the open patches, staff built viewing blinds (hides). On one occasion, guests inside the blind found themselves pinned when three wild lions climbed onto the roof of the blind, terrifying the visitors while providing dry amusement for the staff. The property is also home to Dojiwe, a gentle orphaned elephant rescued 15 years earlier. Because she was hand-reared, staff stay by her side during the day and keep watch over her at night to protect her from predators.
[40:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=2425s) Tree Regeneration and Wildlife Return
Mana Pools National Park in the Zambezi Valley is considered one of the last unspoiled sanctuaries on Earth, earning recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The park is renowned for a cathedral-like atmosphere created by surreal light filtering through the forest canopies. However, one of its most prolific tree species, *Faidherbia albida*, is facing a mysterious decline and failing to regenerate across the valley. While mainstream consensus attributes this failure to upstream dam construction and the cessation of natural flooding, Allan Savory demonstrates that saplings are regenerating vigorously in his own maize garden on dry Kalahari soils, far removed from river alluvial floodplains. As Savory explains: “Well here we are far from alluvial soils we're on a Kalahari soil and this is a *Faidherbia albida* that has established with the cattle grazing that we're doing and it's now freely growing showing that it was nothing to do with flooding or any of the things we were saying and again I think it's the buildup of the soil structure that is affecting this.”
Convinced that holistic principles apply universally across ecosystems, Savory has expanded his trials to the struggling Kalahari sand forests in a neighboring national forest, where indigenous teak trees (*Baikiaea plurijuga*) have ceased natural regeneration. By setting up mobile overnight cattle kraals on the Kalahari sand, the team uses livestock impact to break the soil cap, deposit dung and urine, and trigger dormant seeds. Decades earlier, the hills appeared lush only during peak growing seasons, while the valleys suffered heavy overgrazing and pervasive bare ground. Today, bare earth is restricted strictly to the designated water points provided for wild game, with herds of buffalo, sable antelope, and elephants congregating in large numbers across restored grazing land. Savory underscores that “every bit of this has been made possible by the cattle used as a tool.”
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Tree and Landscape Regeneration via Livestock accDescr: Diagram illustrating how overnight cattle kraaling transforms soil and regenerates trees and wildlife. subgraph Intervention["Livestock as a Tool"] A["Mobile Cattle Kraal on Kalahari Sand"] --> B["Dung, Urine & Hoof Action"] end subgraph SoilTransformation["Soil & Vegetation Recovery"] B --> C["Buildup of Soil Structure & Moisture"] C --> D["Faidherbia albida & Teak Regeneration"] end subgraph EcosystemResults["Ecosystem Resurgence"] D --> E["Elimination of Bare Valley Ground"] E --> F["Return of Wildlife: Elephant, Buffalo, Sable"] end ```
- **Mana Pools National Park**: Designated a World Heritage site in the Zambezi Valley, facing an unaddressed ecological crisis with *Faidherbia albida* die-off. - **Dispelling Flooding Theories**: Seedlings established on upland Kalahari soils without seasonal inundation prove that soil structure, rather than damming or flooding, governs regeneration. - **Teak Forest Experiments**: First trial using overnight cattle kraals placed directly on sand forest soils to stimulate dormant teak tree recruitment. - **Landscape Transformation**: High-density cattle trampling replaced bare valleys with permanent perennial cover, leaving exposed ground only immediately around wildlife drinking sites.
[43:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=2588s) Academic Resistance, Public Opinion, and the TED Talk
Despite five decades of demonstrable on-the-ground ecological recovery, holistic management continues to encounter entrenched rejection from mainstream academic and institutional circles. Savory recalls that even though the foundational textbook had circulated for over twenty years, expanded into a Spanish translation, and was preparing for a third edition, established environmental bodies and universities systematically refused to peer review it—even while over twenty universities and agricultural colleges adopted it into their active curricula. Reflecting on decades of institutional hostility, Savory attributes his endurance to deep commitment rather than personal grievance: “I kept going despite all the abuse and ridicule rejection and people claiming it doesn't work and it just comes down to one word I believe and that is caring.”
He notes that scientific history demonstrates that institutional resistance never yields to data, logic, or empirical evidence alone; instead, institutional inertia breaks only when broader public sentiment shifts. Savory highlights this dynamic by pointing to the viral reach of his 2013 TED Talk, emphasizing that direct public engagement accomplished what decades of academic debate could not: “And that's why 20 minutes of talk on the TED Talk has literally done more to advance this knowledge in worldwide than 50 years of struggling against an official opposition has done.” With the lecture viewed over two million times and continuing to accumulate thousands of views daily, broad societal awareness has begun circumventing institutional gatekeeping.
- **Textbook Dismissal**: Major academic and conservation institutions refused formal reviews of the core Holistic Management textbook, despite its adoption across more than 20 colleges and universities. - **Mechanics of Scientific Change**: Historical evidence indicates paradigms shift only after public consensus changes, rather than through empirical evidence alone changing institutional minds. - **Global Reach**: The 2013 TED Talk bypassed traditional barriers, quickly surpassing 2 million views and accelerating international recognition of holistic planned grazing.
[45:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=2718s) Global Proof, Livelihoods, and the Urgency for Civilizational Change
Demonstrating ecosystem recovery at the Africa Centre for Holistic Management proves the framework's viability under the most adverse political, social, and economic conditions imaginable. Project leaders challenge detractors to abandon secondhand preconceptions, visit the site in person, and inspect the restored perennial rivers, recharged aquifers, and reversed desertification with their own eyes. Drawing on thirty years of field experience spanning Latin America and Africa, practitioners argue that Holistic Management provides unparalleled sustainability because it anchors directly into community survival, social cohesion, and rural livelihoods, bridging vital human and ecological dimensions that conventional development schemes overlook.
In his closing reflections, Savory stresses that soil erosion, escalating biodiversity loss, desertification, and climate destabilization represent interlocking symptoms driving human poverty, armed conflict, and the breakdown of human civilization. The era of debating whether decision-making should account for the whole is over. As Savory warns, the implementation of holistic, cross-disciplinary science can no longer be delayed: “Now while it might have been argued 30 years ago today I don't believe any scientist would argue that management needs to be holistic embracing all science all sorts of knowledge and but if we're to have a hope it has to be done now.”
- **Standing Challenge to Critics**: Detractors are urged to travel to the Africa Centre in Zimbabwe to inspect the reversed desertification, flourishing grasslands, and year-round surface water firsthand. - **Multicontinental Validation**: Three decades of community implementations across African and Latin American countries demonstrate that the framework secures local food systems and social stability far beyond conventional aid programs. - **Existential Urgency**: Unchecked topsoil loss, climate disruption, and environmental degradation threaten civilizational continuity unless holistic management is deployed immediately at global scale.
## Notable quotes > [08:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=491s) There is only one option I repeat to you only one option left to climatologists and scientists and that is to do the unthinkable and to use livestock bunched and moving as a proxy for former herds and predators and mimic nature. — Allan Savory
> [13:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI&t=816s) The higher the impact from the cattle, the more of the dunging, the trampling, the more grass tends to grow, as long as you don't repeat it too long—as long as it's a short time. — Allan Savory
## Mentioned Allan Savory, Jody Butterfield, Trevor Langham, Fig Multimedia Tech, Savory Institute, Africa Centre for Holistic Management (ACHM), Dimbangombe Ranch, Hwange Communal Lands, Innocent Tshuma, Daniela Howell, Matt Rales, Katrina Fowler, Sally Nicoll, Buckminster Fuller Challenge, TED, Mana Pools National Park, Zambezi Valley, UNESCO, Victoria Falls, Bulawayo, Boulder, Colorado
## Video description http://savory.global | This in-depth documentary explores Allan Savory and how he has used Holistic Management to completely transform his land in Zimbabwe. See more of our docs here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRLvOlmv3cRbZ1-n8wBv1Hptm-G0vGZ_Q
Holistic Management was made popular in Savory's 2013 Ted Talk, How to Fight Desertification and Reverse Climate Change.
This documentary was produced by Trevor Langham and his crew at Fig Multimedia Tech in Zimbabwe. We share this video in hopes that Trevor's amazing work will reach a wider audience to honor his memory.
Stay connected: http://savory.global https://www.facebook.com/savory.global/ https://twitter.com/SavoryInstitute https://www.instagram.com/savoryinsti...
About Savory Institute: Loss of grasslands leads to climate change, floods, droughts, famine, and worldwide poverty. It’s our mission to promote large-scale restoration of the world’s grasslands through Holistic Management.
Holistic Management is a process of decision-making and planning that gives people the insights and management tools needed to understand nature: resulting in better, more informed decisions that balance key social, environmental, and financial considerations.
[Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI)