I started actually working here on my thesis in late '94, and what this area
looked like was... lots of bare ground, with frequent wire grass tussocks: wire grass, which is not a particularly desirable species, was certainly the dominant plant in this area...
...the question was, does changing the grazing management change the
species diversity and the ground cover, and what happens to the function of that surface? The study was three years, and came up with some pretty phenomenal results.
I was mostly surprised at the speed at which the land changed ... once you
start to manage land in tune with nature, manage it in tune with natural cycles, then phenomenal things can happen...
How to Donate
Q. Why should I make a tax-deductible donation to HMI?
A. The most critical Green emergency of all is also the most overlooked.
What we humans have done to our air and water, we have also done to our life sustaining soils. Billions of acres of earth’s grasslands are turning to desert, with the result that they can no longer support our food needs or remove and store Carbon Dioxide with the efficiency required to slow global warming.
HMI has been working for more than 24 years to reverse this degradation of our grasslands.
What Exactly Will My Donation Achieve?
Your donation's ultimate point of impact is the restoration of living organic matter to soil from which this organic matter has been depleted (see diagram). By helping to restore our planet to health and our ranches and farms to economic viability, your gift is "as green as it gets."
There are three major giving opportunities in which your donation will have an immediate and direct impact.
Grasslands Legacy Fund
Your gift to the Grasslands Legacy Fund will provide scholarships to aspiring farmers and ranchers in the U. S. who are determined to beat the odds and make small farms and ranches sustainable. Your help now means that these ranches and farms will be able to grow healthy food for you and your children for generations to come.
$500 funds a scholarship for one individual to attend a Holistic Management workshop.
$5,000 underwrites the costs of a two-day workshop for ten participants.
$10,000 underwrites the two-year training of a HMI Certified Educator.
Communities Fund
In some areas, HMI assists entire communities in the healing of communal
lands. For example, in Africa, we work with pastoral communities who
depend on the health of tribal lands for their livelihoods and the
future of their children. The Land Restoration Project in Zimbabwe
helps four villages in the Hwange tribal lands to restore their grazing
lands. Other community development efforts are in the works in the
U.S. and Africa, and we need your help to move those forward.
Impact of Your Communities Fund Gift:
With your help, villagers across three continents can, once again, rely on their land to feed their families. Your gift will help HMI to: provide families with the training they need to properly graze their livestock and improve the health of their land; teach them how to increase their crop yields; improve family nutrition; and, create sustainable communities for generations to come.
Outreach and Operations Fund
The need to heal grasslands is one of the most urgent, but least understood, green emergencies facing our planet, and building public awareness is crucial. Your Outreach and Operations gift makes you a valued, day-to-day partner in HMI's efforts to heal the earth.
Impact of Your Gift:
Your gift helps alert a wider public to the degraded state of our planet's grasslands, why we must heal them, and how we can do it. It enables HMI to participate in projects like the PBS documentary "The First Millimeter: Healing the Earth" (Spring 2009), and to promote education about land health through articles, editorials, personal appearances, webcasts and the like. As a non-profit, we are fortunate to be able to alleviate some costs by offering services and education. But, in addition to helping build awareness, your Outreach and Operations gift supports everything from administration to offering training programs, from supporting practitioners and educators on four continents to developing consulting services. Thanks to your gift, more stewards of private, public, and communal lands will manage land in partnership with nature.
Ways To Donate
There are several ways In which you can make a gift:
Send a check to: Holistic Management International; 1010 Tijeras Avenue NW; Albuquerque, NM 87102.
Make your donation online
Call in your gift, by giving us your credit card information by phone: 505.842.5252
Make a gift of appreciated securities , real estate or other assets to Holistic Management International. Please call our Senior Director of Philanthropy, Jutta von Gontard, for further information at 505.842.5252 or e-mail: juttavg@holisticmanagement.org
Make a bequest to Holistic Management in your will. For more information, please contact Jutta von Gontard by calling 505.842.5252 or e-mail: juttavg@holisticmanagement.org.
However you choose to join our donor community, know that your gift helps restore degraded grasslands to health and productivity, protect wildlife habitat, pulls harmful carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and, ultimately, creates a sustainable future for your children and grandchildren.
Our goal is the same as yours. An investment in healthy land is an investment in sustainability. By restoring our lands to health, together we can provide a sustainable future for our children and grandchildren.