A Solution to Climate Change is Right Under Our Feet.

Managing land holistically ultimately results in the removal of carbon
from the atmosphere: it offers an incredibly powerful, natural solution
to the problem of global warming.

 

...the increase of CO2 we've caused, from 280 to 385 ppm, is already enough to get us into the danger zone... we probably have to decrease CO2 at least back to 350... closer to what it was before we started messing with the system.
But that's still possible, because... our agricultural practices could be modified to bring CO2 back down much more quickly: it's a natural type of geo-engineering... to get this CO2 back where it came from — and that, I think, will be an important part of solving the problem.

—James Hansen, Ph. D.
NASA Godard Institute for Space Studies

 

 

Healthy grasslands mean more carbon removed from the atmosphere.

Our holistic approach to land management is proven to heal desertified land in brittle environments. Healthy grasslands remove huge amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and store it naturally as organic matter in healthy soil.

 

When organic matter is returned to the soil... soils can be managed to dramatically increase the amount of carbon they contain. Recent estimates are that we could be sequestering, in soils worldwide, something on the order of 1-2 billion tons of carbon per year, with the best possible land management techniques... that is a significant fraction of the approximately 10 billion tons that we're releasing into the atmosphere.

—Chris Field, Ph. D.
Professor of Environmental Earth Systems Science,
Stanford University, California, USA

 

 

Holistic animal and land management means still more carbon reduction.

By maximizing the healthy impacts of grazing cattle, Holistic Management eliminates the need for the standard practice of burning crop and forage residues. That burning currently sends carbon directly into the atmosphere. If we convert just 4 million acres of land that’s operating under the traditional, conventional model to holistically managed land – so that residue isn’t burned – that’s even more carbon that doesn’t go up in the air.

 

The fabulous thing about sequestering carbon in grasslands is that you can keep on doing it forever – you can keep building soil on soil on soil... perennial grasses can outlive their owners; they're longer-lived than a lot of trees, so the carbon sequestration is more permanent than it is in trees: the carbon's not going to re-cycle back into the atmosphere if we maintain that soil management... and there's no limit to how much soil you can build... for example, we would only have to improve the stored carbon percentage by one percent on the 415 million hectares (1,025,487,333 acres) of agricultural soil in Australia and we could sequester all of the planet's legacy load of carbon. It's quite a stunning figure.

—Christine Jones, Founder
Australian Soil Carbon Accreditation

 

 

Properly managed, grazing animals actually reverse desertification,
and greatly increase the soil’s ability to hold Carbon Dioxide.

Holistic Management makes it possible to use animals to improve, rather than degrade, land. Grazing animals and grassland co-evolved. Domestic animals can be managed in ways that mimic nature: animals are concentrated and moved according to a plan (Holistic Management® planned grazing) that causes the animals to till packed soil with their hooves, distribute fertilizer and seed in their manure and urine, and move from one area to another before they can overgraze any one spot. In fact, the animals help maintain the soil, rather than destroying it, and increase the amount of organic matter in the soil, making it function as a highly effective carbon bank.

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Putting Carbon Dioxide in the soil – and keeping it there.

Trees are the most visible –often spectacular– part of the above-ground biomass, so many people think that most CO₂ is stored in that very visible (green) above-ground biomass.

Actually, a much larger amount is sequestered in the the soil — but only when soil is healthy and root systems abundant. Grasses, despite their humble appearance aboveground, have extensive and long-lived root systems underground. Grasses, in fact, account for a huge proportion of the biomass underground – so grassland, when it's healthy, can account for a huge proportion of the carbon safely removed from the atmosphere. Improving grassland is a natural, safe kind of ego-engineering..., putting carbon back into the soil where it belongs.

 

You can think of plants as a sort of bridge that connects atmospheric CO2 with soil carbon. When we're talking about land sequestration, we're talking about two components: the plant biomass, the above ground biomass, that's one vast storage of carbon... about 800 billion tons stored in land plants... but about double that amount is stored in the soil...

—Pushker Kharecha, Ph. D., Climate Scientist
NASA Columbia University Earth Institute

 

 

 

Seven things you can do to help

1. Support Holistic Management International’s outreach efforts to educate others about the need
   for animals to improve land health and sequester carbon. To visit our donations page please click here.
2. Buy locally grown organic produce and grassfed meat & dairy.
3. Buy carbon credits for all your personal fuel emissions.
4. Vote with your dollars. Invest in products that conserve resources
   (water conserving appliances, on-demand water heaters, photovoltaic, etc.)
5. Support low-tech solutions for getting carbon out of the air and high-tech solutions
   for keeping new carbon from getting in the air.
6. Reduce your ecological footprint. Learn how at: www.ecologicalfootprint.org
7. Increase your ecological literacy. Learn how we can develop
   symbiotic relationships with Nature so all may thrive.

Why Holistic Management works: grasslands and grazing animals co-evolved.

Hooves and manure accomplish what mechanical tilling and petrochemical fertilizers cannot: healthy, diverse grassland with abundant root systems and improved soil infrastructure that makes highly effective use of existing rainfall.

Holistic Management also eliminates agricultural burning, preventing the release of even more CO₂. And look at the difference in erosion: compare the severely eroded, conventionally managed riverbank on the left to the lush Holistically Managed bank on the right. All that shrubbery and grass means abundant root systems and healthy soil infrastructure underground — root systems and soil infrastructure that sequester CO₂.

Holistic Management has been proven: HM can actually reverse desertification, even in areas that receive little rain. Properly managed, grazing animals can help us control global climate change.

 

Holistic Management succeeds even in drought, arresting erosion
where other methods fail.

 

The land on the right is under Holistic Management.
The land on the left is not. Look at the difference in erosion.
What you see here is the result of managed animal impact.

The areas on the left and right receive exactly the same amount of rain.
Again, what you see here is the result of managed animal impact.

No irrigation, no energy-intensive mechanical tilling or seeding,
no additional inputs of costly fertilizer are used to achieve these results.

With Holistic Management planned grazing, animals can be made to mimic their role in nature,
tilling and fertilizing grassland in the same way vast herds of buffalo once did on the western plains of the United States, and equally vast herds of wild grazers once did over huge areas in Africa and on other continents.

Carbon sequestration is only one benefit of management techniques now proven
for over 25 years, on more than 30 million acres and four continents worldwide.

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