allan savory

[littlejoe]

about half way down the page, there's a great video on desertification, climate change, carbon capture, feeding people, etc---altho preaching to the choir, I think most will enjoy it and possibly think of a city cousin or two to share it with.....

http://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/mob-stocking.811/page-2

 

[Traveler]

I think I watched that before. Will check it out again later. There was another report out recently about the reversal of desertification in Africa happening because of increased rainfall due to climate change. I wonder how climate change has been able to exist since the beginning of time without anyone to blame, take credit for, tax, regulate, or "capture" carbon?

 

[loomixguy]

According to certain people's hero, climate change is the biggest threat to the United States....far bigger than ISIS, even. WTF?

 

[Faster horses]

I think I watched that before. Will check it out again later. There was another report out recently about the reversal of desertification in Africa happening because of increased rainfall due to climate change. I wonder how climate change has been able to exist since the beginning of time without anyone to blame, take credit for, tax, regulate, or "capture" carbon?

:clap:

 

[Soapweed]

 

[4Diamond]

I don't know much about climate change but our weather here has been more extremes than I can remember. Go a month bone dry then month sopping wet, then hot then cold. Seems to me it's more radical than it use to be. What's everyone else think?

 

[Mike]

A timeline of Sahara Desert occupation :
•22,000 to 10,500 years ago: The Sahara was devoid of any human occupation outside the Nile Valley and extended 250 miles further south than it does today.
•10,500 to 9,000 years ago: Monsoon rains begin sweeping into the Sahara, transforming the region into a habitable area swiftly settled by Nile Valley dwellers.
•9,000 to 7,300 years ago: Continued rains, vegetation growth, and animal migrations lead to well established human settlements, including the introduction of domesticated livestock such as sheep and goats.
•7,300 to 5,500 years ago: Retreating monsoonal rains initiate desiccation in the Egyptian Sahara, prompting humans to move to remaining habitable niches in Sudanese Sahara. The end of the rains and return of desert conditions throughout the Sahara after 5,500 coincides with population return to the Nile Valley and the beginning of pharaonic society.

 

[mrj]

4D., I don't know what part of MO you are in, but an uncle of mine lived in Eldon from maybe early 1950's until his death maybe 15 or so years ago. He helped during an extreme ice storm which put dairies in a hard place due to no electricity to milk the cows.......for quite some time. I don't recall if they were hand milking them, or getting generators to the farms, but that was before all this talk of global warming.....or the next ice age being imminent.

I know western SD and most of the nations mid-section and west was in a terrible drought in the 1930's.....then had some record wet years in the early '40's, as having recently seen a photo of a lady in a kayak on the main street of Midland, SD in 1940 from flooding on the Bad River nearby.

Of course, history books tell us that SD has, in various era's had an ice age with glaciers crossing the eastern part of the state, and another time, at least the western part of the state was a vast sea. Not sure if they were connected, but there also was such a sea over the state of Mississippi. At another time, it must have been a tropical forest in western SD, for instance, as the dinosaur skeletons found out here attest.

Personally, I prefer our instability of the current centennial or so of weather to either of the past scenarios' series of 'climate changes' when modern civilization surely wasn't to blame for the severe changes. While some of the current 'wild life' creatures cause some problems from time to time, I do prefer coyotes, deer, and wild turkeys to the dinosaurs!

It seems logical that there will continue to be 'climate change' from time to time, and maybe volcano's, tsunami's, and other natural extremes should bear at least a portion of the blame, shouldn't they?

mrj

 

[4Diamond]

I'll blame it on CFC's, that's all I heard as a kid. Eldon is an hour and a half north of me.

 

[3 M L & C]

In our county last winter was the driest that one family has been recording since 1925. We have had 11.5 inches of rain since April 17 at our place. Which is more than we had been getting all year for a while. Weather has been extreme here also. I remember this winter a day that was 82 degrees. Then late april early May when needing to plant corn we had a hard time getting above 60. Weather is definantly erratic here last couple years.

 

[andybob]

My chief aim during the 70's - before the Holistic concept had fully developed - was to get the grass back to what it had been 60+ years before, and restore the wildlife to historic numbers and varieties, several antelope species had disappeared as the environment deteriorated. A former neighbour managed to get a flexible system working on his new ranch in the 80's (high density grazing) which was incorporated into the Savory holistic context. Having succeeded in restoring my veld, and wildlife population, I achieved my goal at the time, with other benefits such as the restoration of the water cycle being a unexpected (at the time) bonus, if carbon sequestration was another positive effect, then I am pleased we achieved it, but the aim was always restoring grazing and game populations, saving the world didn't come into the equation at the time.

 

[Traveler]

New Year's Day 1949 broke sunny
and bright with temperatures that
reached 70 degrees in parts of the
Great Plains states. Then, overnight
temperatures changed drastically
recording lows of 50 below zero and
winds gusting up to 80 mph.

The Black Hills Flood of 1972, also known as the Rapid City Flood, was one of the most detrimental floods in the history of South Dakota.[1] It took place on June 9–10, 1972[2] in the Black Hills of Western South Dakota. 15 inches (380 mm) of extreme rainfall over six hours sent Rapid Creek and other waterways overflowing, flooding many residential and commercial properties in Rapid City. It also caused flooding of the Battle, Spring, Bear Butte, and Boxelder Creeks.[3]

 

[4Diamond]

My chief aim during the 70's - before the Holistic concept had fully developed - was to get the grass back to what it had been 60+ years before, and restore the wildlife to historic numbers and varieties, several antelope species had disappeared as the environment deteriorated. A former neighbour managed to get a flexible system working on his new ranch in the 80's (high density grazing) which was incorporated into the Savory holistic context. Having succeeded in restoring my veld, and wildlife population, I achieved my goal at the time, with other benefits such as the restoration of the water cycle being a unexpected (at the time) bonus, if carbon sequestration was another positive effect, then I am pleased we achieved it, but the aim was always restoring grazing and game populations, saving the world didn't come into the equation at the time.

You must live in a completely different world than I do. There is more grass in my area by a long shot now days than 60 years ago. Heard my dad and grandpa tell many stories of the days before fescue in our country. Very little ground cover.

 

[andybob]

The Kalahari bushveld used to produce a vast amount of fodder, the outbreak of Rinderpest in 1896 led to the start of deterioration of the foliage cover due to the kill of most of the ungulates in the system. When I bought my land in the early 70's this problem had been increased due to poaching preventing any meaningful recovery of wildlife, and the grasses were by this time sparse, and the ground eroded leaving each grass clump on a pedestal of soil. By herding the cattle and goats in a high density group, stopping the annual burn by the poachers, and protecting the game, the recovery to the native flora was dramatic, and the improvement in wild species numbers followed.

 

[4Diamond]

The Kalahari bushveld used to produce a vast amount of fodder, the outbreak of Rinderpest in 1896 led to the start of deterioration of the foliage cover due to the kill of most of the ungulates in the system. When I bought my land in the early 70's this problem had been increased due to poaching preventing any meaningful recovery of wildlife, and the grasses were by this time sparse, and the ground eroded leaving each grass clump on a pedestal of soil. By herding the cattle and goats in a high density group, stopping the annual burn by the poachers, and protecting the game, the recovery to the native flora was dramatic, and the improvement in wild species numbers followed.

a location would be helpful

 

[burnt]

The Kalahari bushveld used to produce a vast amount of fodder, the outbreak of Rinderpest in 1896 led to the start of deterioration of the foliage cover due to the kill of most of the ungulates in the system. When I bought my land in the early 70's this problem had been increased due to poaching preventing any meaningful recovery of wildlife, and the grasses were by this time sparse, and the ground eroded leaving each grass clump on a pedestal of soil. By herding the cattle and goats in a high density group, stopping the annual burn by the poachers, and protecting the game, the recovery to the native flora was dramatic, and the improvement in wild species numbers followed.

a location would be helpful

I believe this would be referring to andybob's days in what was Rhodesia, now known as Zimbabwe.

 

[andybob]

I was in South West Matabeleland province of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe as indicated by Burnt, 4 Diamond much of Alans' work was still in progress with the regeneration of veld being the primary aim, mainly through short duration grazing in fenced cells or small paddocks. Some of the earlier setbacks were identified by Johann Zietsman a geneticist and hands on rancher, as being too little impact, and often genetics not adapted to the environment, and unsuitable for unsubsidised grazing. The realisation that regenerated grasslands would result in the sequestration of atmospheric carbon was a later subject for research.