Reversing Climate Change Part 2

Reversing Climate Change Part 2. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Yesterday we began a talk with Zimbabwean farmer and biologist Allan Savory who recently addressed a group on desertification or land that is turning into desert. Savory says he, like many others, believed that herds of livestock were responsible for the erosion of the land.

SAVORY: We know that desertification is caused by livestock, mostly cattle, sheep and goats, overgrazing the plants, leaving the soil bare and giving off methane. Almost everybody knows this, from nobel laureates to golf caddies, or was taught it, as I was. And I loved wildlife, and so I grew up hating livestock because of the damage they were doing. And then my university education as an ecologist reinforced my beliefs.
Well, I have news for you. We were once just as certain that the world was flat. We were wrong then and we are wrong again.

Through his recommendation in the 1950’s over 40-thousand elephants were killed to help save the environment and he says that the tragedy is it only made the problem worse.

SAVORY: Loving elephants as I do, that was the saddest and greatest blunder of my life, and I will carry that to my grave. One good thing did come out of it. It made me absolutely determined to devote my life to finding solutions.

What he has found that went against all common knowledge is that environments need animal herds to thrive and we’ll talk more about that tomorrow.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.