“Two thirds of the earth is now in the process of turning into desert. In the satellite photo above, the green areas are moist year round. The tan areas are turning to desert, and this process has been a larger source of climate change than fossil fuels. So this is a problem that must be solved, and soon.”
“…A basic evolutionary fact has been staring scientists in the face all along. These tan-colored places are (or were) mostly grasslands. And what do you always find on grasslands? Large, hoofed animals grazing on the grass — buffalo, zebra, gazelles, wildebeest, etc. The grass and the animals evolved together, much like bees and flowering plants. They evolved to rely on each other. They developed characteristics that are adapted to each other.
“So if you take away the grass, the hoofed animals die off. And if you take away the hoofed animals, the grassland turns into a desert.l”
“…Domesticated animals made the land turn into desert. But leaving the land alone also made it turn into desert. The biologist Allan Savory has done more to solve this puzzle than any other scientist. The answer was surprising to everyone involved. It didn’t really matter which animals were grazing. The key was HOW the animals were grazing. If the hoofed animals graze in a particular way, the grass grows and the deserts turn back into rich grassland. If they graze in any other way, or don’t graze at all, the land turns into a desert.”
“Savory’s discovery is this: For grasslands to be healthy they require herds of hoofed animals to graze on it. But they must graze in a natural way, which means: 1) all bunched up as grazing animals do (for safety in numbers — safety from predators), 2) never staying in the same spot for very long, and 3) not coming back to that spot for a while (which allows the grass to grow). If you graze the animals that way, it doesn’t matter which hoofed animals are doing the grazing — wild or domestic, or both — the grass begins to thrive.”