Holistic Resource Management

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Sustainability •Nomads •Garden of Eden •
Posted by Rezwan • Feb 12, 2009 • (0) Comments •
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If you take a look around Iran these days, much of it is badly desertified. You may attribute this to climate change or overgrazing, but the "holistic resource management" (HRM) model offers an alternative view. How valid is this view? How can it be tested? The great thing about HRM is that it suggests a solution to the problem that shimmers with possibility and validates the nomadic lifestyle. For this reason alone, it bears investigating.

New Range Management Practices?

I attended a workshop in Albuquerque that was hosted by Holistic Management International ("HRM"). They contend that most of modern range management which emphasizes only “rest” from animals for land is misguided in arid climates. They make a distinction between "brittle" and "non-brittle" environments. The arid lands, like most of Iran, are "brittle", that is, very low rainfall. Most of modern range management practices were developed by euro-colonizers, bringing their practices from wet, rainy, non-brittle environments and imposing them on the rest of the world where these practices are inappropriate. This has caused a great deal of harm to many ecosystems throughout the word and may be the biggest factor in global desertification problems.

Brittle vs. Non-brittle Environments

Once you make the brittle/non-brittle distinction, the next important thing is the different strategy for animal use in these types of land. In wet, non-brittle environments, the soil remains moist most of the time and plants decay quickly and become part of the soil. These are great environments and nothing much needs to be done to maintain them. In fact, animals trampling over them are a bad thing, and so "Rest" from animals is a primary tool for managing these lands.

In brittle, dry environments however, the land remains dry most of the year. This means that by themselves, in such an environment, plants don't decay and build up soil. Instead, they remain on the surface and dry out, turning grey. In this kind of environment, you need "animal impact" to build soil. In a way, it's counter intuitive. Most Europeans arriving at these arid lands thought, animals are damaging the land! They must be removed! When in reality, the animals are a key worker of the land, critical to its vitality. It's not the number of animals you use, it's HOW the animals are working the land.

The Animal Effect

In Africa and America, herds of millions of herbivores used to thunder across the plains. These animals weren't exploiting the grasslands and destroying them, as Europeans thought, but were actually the main factor in keeping the grasslands healthy. They are a critical component of the life-cycle of grass in brittle, arid environments. The new immigrants to America proceeded to decimate the herds of Buffalo and deprive Indian tribes of their livestock. Then they imposed European style grazing practices on the land. This has plunged the American southwest into a spiral of desertification.

The animal effect is an important concept that has not yet penetrated the mainstream. In brittle environments, animals are needed to keep the plants growing by chipping up the ground, trampling organic matter into it and fertilizing it. A great site that explains the animal effect is: http://managingwholes.com/animal-impact.htm

And here’s an excellent flash slide show about how plants are needed to maintain water in the land, and how animals keep the plants growing: Basically, it isn't about how little rain is falling, but how much of the rainfall the land can keep, absorb, and use to recharge aquifers. A healthy grassland can absorb 75% of rainfall. "Managed to regenerate grasslands, grazing animals can increase soil's ability to absorb water by 600%."

Validation for the Nomadic Lifestyle

What’s great about these concepts is that they totally validate the nomadic way of life. This is a big boon for traditional peoples everywhere. For the past century, guided by range management concepts developed in non-brittle environments, most governments have attempted to curb and restrict such peoples, to the detriment of the land. The idea is that nomadism is a “dying way of life.” But in fact, it’s not. It’s essential to keeping this planet going! Nomads can save the earth.

Some people have said that this is romanticizing nomads, and that it's going backwards. Nobody wants to go backwards. Nomads want a modern life.

Well, in fact, there is nothing contradictory about modernity and nomadic herding practices. In fact, we can get a lot of use out of technology in implementing some of these range management concepts. We'll have the herders out there with their GPS devices, entering data from the field on plant regrowth and ground cover rates, because where we move the animals has a lot to do with how the ground cover is doing. So I can imagine a totally wired nomadic operation. Cell phones, laptops, digital cameras. These folks are on the front lines - جبهه - of restoring the earth. They need the best support we can offer.

But does it work?

That's the big question. I am undecided. I would like to visit the ranches in Australia, Zimbabwe, Namibia and the US that are using these practices and see for myself. Their website shows dramatic differences between land under HRM management and under standard, low stocking management. But if you use Google Earth, you don't really see much of a difference.

More investigation is required.

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