In March and July, 2013, I posted articles on Allan Savory and Bill McKibben. I subsequently added a number of postcripts. Here’s another, posted as a stand-alone article.
If you don’t know of them, Savory promotes intensive livestock grazing systems, and McKibben is the founder of climate change campaign group, 350.org.
I was prompted to post this article by a high-profile critique of Savory’s work by Guardian columnist, George Monbiot, published on 4th August, 2014. (Monbiot covered much of the material that I had referred to in my own article.)
I was criticising Savory for the lack of scientific evidence to support claims that his form of intensive livestock grazing could reverse climate change and prevent desertification. I was similarly critical of McKibben for his lack of evidence and detail in promoting intensively grazed systems.
McKibben was supporting Savory’s approach during a 2013 visit to Australia. He also seemed…
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Exposing the Big Game 
This problem is by far the most serious environmental catastrophe (a major contributor to climate change), enveloping the last wild areas of this planet. It is the final nail in the coffin for Earth, along with the human population explosion: The Domestication of Nature.
What has long bothered me most about the snake oil preaching by Savory, is a favorite term he uses: Mimic Nature. Apparently, this preacher, of what unthinking people want to hear, actually believes that HE can “Mimic Nature” with his grazing scheme, which is really the same ol’ destructive grazing, just in slicker marketing and packaging. Another thing: Savory, in his shallow, anecdotal talks, never really discusses the native wild animals out on the range, and what happens to them. Now, he may once in awhile, mention deer or some other ungulates (good hunting fodder), but he simply ignores what happens to coyotes, wolves, bobcat, lion, prairie dogs, and millions of other native animals because of livestock grazing. He talks of “grass fed” cows. Really? I’d like to see some of that “grass” in the west. Most native grasses are in severe decline. Here in New Mexico, what I see traveling down the highway, are the hundreds of large semi-trucks carrying tons of hay to those so-called “sustainable/environmental” ranchers.
Livestock grazing, whether Savory’s scheme or the “regular” grazing, is simply grazing, and it is turning the west into a Domesticated Feed Lot, devoid of native flora and fauna, especially any wolves. coyotes, bears or other perceived “predators” to domesticates. It is a cruel hoax, that many people fall for, because Savory tells them what they want to hear: that The Preacher has a “solution” a “fix-it” for our human-caused environmental catastrophe.
Yep, slick, snake oil marketing campaign (as in lie) to justify the same ol’ shit, literally. I used to work as a contractor for the USFS taking tree growth and survival surveys. Every time a we recorded livestock damage to a seedling (whether terminal browsing or cow pie completely covering a young tree) the Forest Service wanted it marked as “wildlife damage” (even though, being open range, the cows made their homes on the newly-planted clear cuts). I didn’t blame the cows for being there, some human dropped them off at the end of the logging road to try to survive, but I always marked down their obvious damage as Livestock instead of deer.
But of course, any supposed “good” cattle do for the climate is outweighed by the methane they produce, which is 100 worse for the planet than carbon.
Jim, thank you for that information when you worked with the USFS–an eye opener, worthy of continued mention–more cover ups for the livestock industry. I, too, do not blame the livestock themselves. They are victims as well, inbred, any traces of eons-past wildness is gone. It is the human livestock industry which is to blame.