#081, In Practice, Jan/Feb 2002

HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT

IN PRACTICE

in this Issue

Providing the link between a healthy environment and a sound economy JANUARY / FEBRUARY 200 2 NUMBER 81

New Perspectives

by Allan Savory The following is an excerpt of a letter Allan Savory posted to our general list serve in response to the events of September 11, 2001.

I think it, and the stories in this issue, reflect the new perspectives we must all bring to the table if we want world peace.

--Editor

A

s the events of the 11th unfolded I found myself overwhelmed. Growing up in Rhodesia after World War II, I somehow recognized that guerrilla warfare would be the future form of warfare and I studied and later fought, for over twenty years, in such a war. Having passed much of my life in senseless guerrilla warfare, I now see the past unfolding before my eyes.

What I saw was sinister and frightening.

I felt empty, not for the tragic loss of life, but for the views from leaders and public figures who spoke only of strength, war and revenge.

The President has called it a new form of war and pledged to win it. This pledge, while understandable because of prevailing emotions, is about as meaningful as the many pledges to win the war against drugs.

America and the Western nations, whose way of life is under attack, will need far deeper understanding to bring about peace and to safeguard what we value in our way of life.

This is not a new form of warfare—it is one of the oldest forms of warfare. And, due to technological advances, it is capable of wreaking unbelievable damage.

I see in America a repeat of what I lived through. Our strength is our greatest weakness.

In Rhodesia we had an extremely capable and efficient army for bush warfare. We never lost a single encounter or battle no matter what the odds, but that guaranteed we would lose the “war.” Such “terrorist” acts are not “wars” requiring military solutions, but situations requiring civilian policies that deal with the root cause of people’s frustrations and suffering.

When all your attention and funding is focused on revenge, there is little room for looking deeper.

I use the similarities with Rhodesia because only the scale differs. America’s leaders would be wise not to treat this as a war but rather as a serious wakeup call to look at an extremely broad and comprehensive strategy involving our foreign and domestic policies and our education and business systems.

Right now, the need to motivate people to unite and to collaborate with other nations to bring the perpetrators to justice, should be done without setting people up for retaliatory war.

There is also a deep need to initiate, amid this collaboration, the moves to bring about a civilian strategy to win the peace we all seek.

It is not democracy that is under attack but rather certain aspects of our lives that others see as causing their suffering. It is in our own enlightened self-interest to look at our policies and business activity and the effect these are having on the world’s natural resources and communities.

The present catastrophe will unite Americans as never before and that is good. But the unity will not last. If our leaders cannot see what is happening in our own country, what hope have we of understanding the frustrations of millions who are daily affected by the policies of the US, and our fellow Western powers.

The President’s National Security advisors are intelligent people and the President could not likely put together a more competent team for war. However, this same team will be illsuited to forming a strategy to win the peace.

To win the peace we seek, the President’s advisors should also include men and women who understand the effects on millions of ordinary, peace-loving people of our policies on trade, agriculture, weapons sales, and so on—whether those policies originate in the U.S. government or multinational corporations.

This is a battle for peace that can only be won by statesmanship that takes steps to contain the present violence to the best of our ability while addressing the things that will provide the opportunities and platform for all people to gain greater security and good governance.

Albert Einstein made the point many years ago that you cannot solve problems by using the same thinking that created the problem in the first place. Holistic Management practitioners around the world are using the Holistic Management model to help them find new ways of addressing problems that face us all.

David Perino and Kathryn Ehrhorn are two Savory Center members who are helping others gain a new perspectiv e on mesquite. Read about their ef forts on page 5.

Holistic Management and Environmental Assessments Jeff Goebel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Reducing Carbon Dioxide Emissions at Home Jeff Goebel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3

From Pests to Profit Ann Adams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5

A Turning Point Vicki Ruby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

LAND & LIVESTOCK— A special section of IN PRACTICE Goats as Tools for Flood Control Rob Rutherford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

Grazing Planning on the Colorado Plateau—Measuring the Desert Jim Howell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

Questions & Answers

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Savory Center Bulletin Board . . . . . . .16 Marketplace

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

The Allan Savory Center for Holistic Management Ad definitum finem

The ALLAN SAVORY CENTER FOR HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT is a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization. The center works to restore the vitality of communities and the natural resources on which they depend by advancing the practice of Holistic Management and coordinating its development worldwide.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Lois Trevino, Chair Rio de la Vista, Vice Chair Ann Adams, Secretary Manuel Casas, Treasurer Gary Rodgers Allan Savory

ADVISORY BOARD Robert Anderson, Chair, Corrales, NM Ron Brandes, New York, NY Sam Brown, Austin, TX Leslie Christian, Portland, OR Gretel Ehrlich, Gaviota, CA Clint Josey, Dallas, TX Christine Jurzykowski, Glen Rose, TX Doug McDaniel, Lostine, OR Guillermo Osuna, Coahuila, Mexico Bunker Sands, Dallas, TX York Schueller, Santa Barbara, CA Jim Shelton, Vinita, OK Richard Smith, Houston, TX

STAFF Shannon Horst, Executive Director; Kate Bradshaw, Associate Director; Allan Savory, Founding Director; Jody Butterfield, Co-Founder and Research and Educational Materials Coordinator ; Kelly Pasztor, Director of Educational Services; Andy Braman, Development Director; Ann Adams, Managing Editor, IN PRACTICE and Membership Support Coordinator , Craig Leggett, Special Projects Manager; Mary Child, Regional Program Development Coordinator.

Africa Centre for Holistic Management Private Bag 5950, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe tel: (263) (11) 213529; email: rogpachm@africaonline.co.zw Huggins Matanga, Director; Roger Parry, Manager, Regional Training Centre; Elias Ncube, Hwange Project Manager/Training Coordinator

HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE (ISSN: 1098-8157) is published six times a year by The Allan Savory Center for Holistic Management, 1010 Tijeras NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102, 505/842-5252, fax: 505/843-7900; email: savorycenter@holisticmanagement.org.; website: www.holisticmanagement.org Copyright © 2002.

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Holistic Management and Environmental Assessments

by Jeff Goebel

I

n 1970, Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Over the years, this act has evolved to include the current process we have today of writing Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) for any act that would have an environmental impact. The intent of this act has always been to enhance environmental decisionmaking (unfortunately, often at the exclusion of social and economic values). Consequently, there have been lots of legal and political challenges, and this act has produced the most paperwork and used more time than any act ever passed.

In the spring of 2001, I took an Environmental Assessment class that was required for my Masters Program in Regional Planning at Washington State University (WSU). I have had a lot of experience with NEPA and EIS writing throughout my career in natural resource management, but I enjoyed this class as it gave me a deeper understanding of the development of the law. I was able to assess the law from my own experience with holistic decision-making, and found strengths and weaknesses in the process.

Since this is the law for our nation, I looked at ways to bring holistic decisionmaking into the law to help achieve desired outcomes. I developed a paper with some of my classmates (excerpted on the next page) that reflects an attempt to merge the two. It seemed to be very successful, as my classmates learned about Holistic Management through the focus of completing the assignment.

I share this story to see if my ideas could stimulate others who deal with Environmental Impact Statements to think creatively about how to fulfill a law or policy holistically. I also want to encourage others to figure out how to bring Holistic Management into existing systems in a way that encourages a deeper understanding of Holistic Management and a desire to practice it. However, I think you need to be adaptable in the way you introduce it so you don’t turn people off or make them feel they are doing more work than

they have to.

For example, I was working with classmates who wanted to get an “A” and therefore didn’t want to risk anything too novel or innovative. They didn’t have any training in Holistic Management so they couldn’t accurately assess how it could help our project. I asked them to let me develop one of the alternatives that would be part of the EIS. I used the Holistic Management® model and generated a generic holistic goal for the situation. Later when we developed testing criteria I explained the Holistic Management® testing questions to the group. They saw the reasoning and easily adopted them into our project.

Jeff Goebel integrated Holistic Management into the environmental assessment process.

In this way, Holistic Management enabled us to develop an alternative that would not have existed under the standard approach and, when tested with holistic guidelines and the traditional ways, passed with flying colors. I believe that such a creative merging of two processes has significant ramifications for developing an EIS or for other traditional ways of determining true environmental impact of natural resource use.

Reducing Carbon Dioxide Emissions at Home Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) written by Laurie Ames, Jeff Goebel, Kim Labno, Kholoud Mashal, and Mary Jo Monohan for a graduate planning class project at Washington State University. While an FEIS is not required in this circumstance, this project does of fer an example of how an FEIS is written and how people could incorporate Holistic Management into the process.

Introduction Global warming has become a concern of many, and while policies, such as the Kyoto Treaty, are being formed on a large scale, it is the individual action that can more easily be modified to contribute to the world goal. The proposed action for this Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) is to find a suitable alternative to reduce one Pullman household’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions through a viable alternative that meets the family’s goals and needs.

Proposed Action The proposed action is a combination of several alternatives. Its emphasis is on incorporating efficient use of appliances while educating the family on the need for reduced CO2 emissions. The key is to modify behavior and plan for future activities listed as alternatives. This will be done by first gaining support within the household and from visitors, then replacing 16 light bulbs with energy efficient bulbs, and, third, planting drought-tolerant plants in the yard as good carbon sinks.

To gain consensus, the family will meet to introduce the proposed changes, and future meetings will be used to explore and develop a deeper understanding of the extent of the problem and what can be done to resolve the global climate change issue.

These actions would reduce emissions/increase sinks by including all family members in the job of reducing energy use.

Attributes The attributes used to test the alternatives presented was the effect on air quality, money spent each year and as a one-time expenditure, aesthetics, biodiversity, water use, CO2 saved, electricity saved, nitrogen fixed in the soil, and the seven testing questions of the Holistic Management ® model.

Purpose and Need for Action According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) almost 15,000 pounds of carbon equivalent is emitted per person each year in the United States. These emissions of greenhouse gases are believed by a growing consensus to contribute to global warming.

The EPA suggests that emissions can be reduced by about 4,800 pounds of carbon equivalent by changing three areas of lifestyle: electricity, waste, and transportation. This project will deal specifically with the use of electricity and carbon sinks in order to reduce one family’s CO 2 emissions. Operating our homes produces about 2,700 pounds of carbon per person per year, and most of that is from the energy used to power electrical appliances.

Objectives of Proposed Action The objectives for the proposed action are to reduce energy use and costs, improve quality of life and improve education about global warming and CO 2 emissions. To ensure socially, economically, and ecologically sound decisions, we included the Holistic Management® model in the variables. This is the holistic goal we developed to do that starting with the “whole” the goal refers to: • Whole Being Managed Land base: Home and yard in Pullman People: Family, neighbors, government entities - public works, transit service, recycling, utilities—schools, and employer.

Key decision makers: Family Money & resources: Government revenues and assets; business revenues and assets; Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) revenues and assets (grants); and private individual resources.

• Quality of Life: Basic needs provided—food, water, air, shelter; health care is adequate; excellent educational opportunities; desire to make an effort to decrease consumption of all resources; respect and dignity prevail; conflicts are successfully confronted and resolved; and ability to be meaningfully engaged in society.

• Forms of Production: Awareness of world and local conditions; fears acknowledged and efforts channeled toward hopes, develop consensus; creativity enhanced; effective and efficient utilization of resources; enhanced distribution abilities; value diversity and richness provided as a result; and commitment by family and community members.

• Future Resource Base: Water Cycle: Effective cycling; Mineral Cycle: Effective with changes supporting life sustaining conditions including carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, and other; Energy Flow: Accumulation of energy on earth, not increasing in atmosphere, ability for excess energy (beyond human life supporting) to dissipate out of atmosphere; Community Dynamics: Generally shift to higher serial conditions supporting diversity and complexity, optimum biomass accumulation supported.

Neighbors, peers, mentors and other community members have respect for us and see us as a role model based on our behaviors and actions.

In using the holistic goal to determine the effectiveness of alternatives, we used measurements on a scale relative to the ability for the action to move toward or away from the holistic goal per attribute.

The scale is (1)—no measurable change from the present situation (for example, alternative 1 which was to take no action) and/or moves us away from our holistic goal through (5)-the greatest positive change or moves us toward our holistic goal. Below is a description of the alternatives considering the attributes we discussed.

Alternative 1—No Action Under the No-action alternative, the use of the refrigerator-freezer, water heater and lighting would remain the same as it has for the past year. All calculations are made using the following conversion factors: 3,413 British Thermal Units (Btu) = 1 kilowatt (kWh); 1 kWh = 2.3 lbs CO2 ; 1 kWh electricity costs $.05. We used this alternative as a basis of comparison with the other alternatives

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HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE • JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2002 3

Reducing Carbon Monoxide Emissions at Home continued from page 3 Under this alternative, the electricity generated to power a 17.4 cu foot refrigerator-freezer would emit 12,089 lbs/year of CO2. The electricity generated to keep the 50-gallon water heater running would emit 15,870 lbs/year of CO 2, and lighting would emit 3,706 lbs/year of CO2 . The total yearly output of CO2 for these two appliances and the existing incandescent lighting is 31,665 lbs/ CO2 per year. The total cost per year to keep the existing appliances and lighting running is $668.

Under this alternative no actions would be taken to either increase or decrease carbon dioxide emissions or enhance biodiversity or aesthetics.

Alternative 2—More Effective Use of Existing Appliances This alternative provides a way to reduce CO2 emissions by regulating the use of existing appliances such as the water heater, lighting, and refrigerator. It does not require a short-term monetary outlay and may provide a long-term benefit.

Each of us can help prevent global warming and save ourselves money through our own purchasing decisions and lifestyle choices.

More efficient use of the existing water heating, lighting, and refrigerator can save $453 per year. It can also save 18,617 lbs/CO2 per year.

Alternative 3—Replacement of Existing Appliances This alternative may have the largest short-term monetary outlay, but may provide the best long-term benefit in other desired areas by reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Under this alternative, energyefficient models would replace the existing water heater and refrigerator-freezer, and the 16 incandescent light bulbs would be replaced by fluorescent light bulbs. After an initial monetary output of $1,792, these replacements’ total yearly emissions of CO2 would be 12,492 lbs; a saving of 19,173 lbs of CO2 emissions per year. Total electrical costs for the year would be $272, a savings of $416 per year.

Alternative 4—Enhanced Photosynthetic Capacity This alternative reduces carbon dioxide by increasing the existing plants’ ability to absorb CO2 or by additional plantings. This alternative has some monetary outlay, but may provide long-term benefit.

In an effort to decrease net CO2 emission on a household area basis, it is desirable to increase CO2 gas consumption by proliferation of photosynthetic (P/S) vegetation that can act throughout the year.

Plants selected for utilization should be perennials with high CO2 assimilation, nitrogen and water use efficiency and leafy biomass.

Outdoor plants which photosynthesize in the winter are particularly desirable because they continue to reduce carbon while root respiration remains low.

Calculations described for this alternative use the dimensions of the household area, and the assumption that 10 percent of the area is vegetated under the no action alternative. The alternative action increases vegetated area to at least 15 percent of total household area resulting in a net increase of 495 square feet vegetated area.

We used a birch tree to estimate the average CO2 consumption of

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a deciduous tree at 588 Mg CO2 /ha based on 180-day growing season.

A typical “giant” evergreen, such as a pine, could consume a maximum of 1,220 Mg CO 2 /ha based on a 365-day growing period. Carbon sequestration by grasslands is approximately 1-2 Mg CO2 /ha/yr, a value derived indirectly from biomass accumulation and a defined number of growing days.

From the values above and assuming 15 percent of lot property is devoted to non-dwelling grounds and completely covered with vegetation, an estimated 33 lbs CO2/yr could be consumed by the grounds surrounding the average household. However, there is a large initial cost to implement this alternative ($1000). Following years will include increased water and fertilization input.

Alternative 5 —Public Awareness This alternative provides for long-term benefit and may provide other solutions or alternatives.

The family level of public awareness focuses on gaining support within the household and with visitors in order to support actions addressing global climate change. Actions that can be taken are to foster the opportunity for family members to explore and develop a deeper understanding of the extent of the problem and what can be done to resolve the global climate change issue.

There are six stages important to human change: 1) denial, 2) anger, 3) bargaining, 4) depression, 5) acceptance and 6) adaptation. Actions need to be developed to allow humans to advance through these stages. An assumption about this alternative is that by focusing on the whole family being engaged in the change process, it will ultimately allow for optimal levels of changes in CO2 emission reductions and improving CO2 sinks.

Conclusion The proposed action—alternatives 2 through 5—compared to the no-action alternative, improves air quality in terms of carbon dioxide concentration and reduces energy costs. The higher initial costs of implementing the proposed action, compared to the no-action alternative, is an acceptable and predicted consequence of accomplishing the goal of stabilizing climate fluctuations.

Jeff Goebel is a Certified Educator in Pullman, Washington.

He can be reached at goebel@palouse.net or 509/334-4767. For the complete paper visit Jeff’s website at www.aboutlistening.com.

From Pests to Profit

by Ann Adams

I

f you enjoy talking to people who are enthusiastic about their work, I suggest you visit with Kathryn Ehrhorn and David Perino of San Pedro Mesquite Company (SPMCo). For the last five years they have expanded their mission from harvesting and marketing mesquite to educating both consumers and potential suppliers about the opportunities they are missing because of the conventional view of the mesquite tree. They’ve come a long way in that process and are having more success in that endeavor, while enjoying the journey along the way.

training program, in which they educate others about mesquite as a potential resource, as a way to help others earn a good income.

Rancho La Inmaculada One of their first forays south of the border came about when they were introduced to Certified Educator Kirk Gadzia by a neighbor. He told them about a rancher, Ivan Aguirre, in Hermosillo (Sonora), Mexico who would be interested in learning about their mesquite ideas. David couldn’t believe that he had finally found a rancher willing to think of mesquite as an asset.

Beyond Burning David Perino has been in the mesquite industry for 30 years now, beginning with his father’s encouragement to use the wood more in his work as a building contractor in Tucson in the ‘70s. At one point he had 30 employees in his woodshop making mesquite products, but he eventually had to close his business because he couldn’t find a reliable source for the mesquite. Everyone was so busy viewing mesquite as a nuisance tree, one that encroached on valuable land and needed to be bulldozed and burned, that he couldn’t find anyone willing to harvest it other than for charcoal, which returned about one penny for every pound of mesquite.

In fact, David spent 11 years in Texas trying to get ranchers to change their perception of mesquite, but couldn’t find any takers. The same was true in Arizona. But when Kathryn joined SPMCo five years ago, some things started to change. While Kathryn didn’t have experience in the mesquite industry, she did bring to the table a global perspective and strong administrative skills.

With their combined skills and interests, SPMCo was ready to look outside the U.S., where those working the land might be more willing to see the income potential in this resource.

And what potential there is. Mesquite grows on over 25 percent of the world’s land mass in semi-arid areas, home to 700 million people. This labor force has few other ways to earn a good income from local markets.

Kathryn and David saw their mesquite

While many people have seen mesquite as a nuisance, David Perino and Kathryn Ehrhorn are busy educating others about all the beauty and versatility of mesquite.

Ivan had already made that shift in thinking years before when he began practicing Holistic Management. And as a Certified Educator in Mexico, he had begun outreach work in his community. Kathryn and David contacted Ivan and went down to visit the Aguirres.

Ivan and Martha Aguirre and their extended family have done remarkable things with their ranch since they began practicing Holistic Management almost ten years ago.

With mesquite charcoal only yielding a penny a pound, they were very interested in David and Kathryn’s statement that they could be earning 63 cents a pound by creating value-added mesquite products.

So Kathryn and David developed a

special harvesting and marketing plan for the Aguirres. For $25,000, they determined the Aguirres’ expected yield, helped them determine what the best products would be for the local markets, and purchased or manufactured the appropriate technology for their harvesting needs. As always, the key was to determine what resources were there and then develop products and markets from that resource base in order to sustain it.

The Aguirres live on a rather isolated 24,000-acre (10,000-hectare) ranch with no electricity or phone lines. That means the sawmill they purchased must be run off a generator and marketing done locally by word of mouth. The Aguirres main business is beef cattle, which they wanted to supplement with income that didn’t involve extensively harvesting the mesquite trees.

So the Aguirres merely prune the trees and use the mill to create lumber for a local market. They use the sapwood and smaller slash as a mulch around the trees to increase the efficiency of the water cycle, which they have already improved through their grazing planning.

The effectiveness of the water cycle at Rancho La Inmaculada caught David unawares and caused him to miscalculate mesquite yield projections. Normally, given the 10-inch (250-mm) rainfall Rancho La Immaculada receives, David would expect .25-inch (6-mm) thick sapwood. So he based his yield projections on that figure. But when Ivan began harvesting his mesquite, he wasn’t getting the projected yields. After many faxes and phone calls, David realized that the reason for the difference in yield was that Ivan’s sapwood was an inch (25 mm) thick, a thickness you might see in an irrigated park in Denver. It suggests that the Aguirres are capturing four times as much water in their soil as their neighbors are.

David and Kathryn want to work with more people like the Aguirres to make use of their valuable resource. The Aguirres should recoup their mill investment within two to three years (a longer period than normal due to their isolated location). David believes that most people could use the time and money they are currently allotting to eradicate the mesquite and use that same time and money to build mesquite as an enterprise on their ranch.

In this way he hopes more ranchers will view ranching and timber as synonymous

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HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE • JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2002 5

From Pests to Profit continued from page 5 with an expectation of achieving as much money from their timber resources as they do their livestock. Likewise, David and Kathryn want others to see this mesquite harvesting model as a model for other trees that are considered pests, like juniper and pinon.

Because they recognize each whole is unique, they realize such a model must be adapted on a ranch-by-ranch basis. However, they believe their training model can be a more effective starting point for experimentation for people who have the natural resources but don’t have the knowledge or experience in assessing, harvesting and developing valueadded products, and marketing those products.

As part of their training module, Kathryn and David asked questions and created “assignments” that required the local artisans to do the legwork and determine the products and markets, giving them more ownership in the outcome. For example, one assignment was to look around and see what non-wood products were available that could be made out of wood locally. In addition, Kathryn and David taught them how to communicate with the local media so they could establish the kind of public relations necessary for local marketing.

Bringing It Home

From Ironwood to Mesquite Once Kathryn and David had finished their research and marketing for the Aguirres, they turned to Hermosillo and Miguel Aleman, two towns near the Aguirres.

Because of their success with the Aguirres, and through an introduction from Cooperative Extension Agent and Certified Educator, Manuel Molina, they were invited to help address the issue of a rapidly dwindling ironwood resource that local artisans had used for income.

One of the first steps David and Kathryn took to help these artisans was to develop new, safer tools and to help them learn how to work with the mesquite to protect what was left of the ironwood as it was now illegal to harvest. Many of the artisans were missing fingers from working with crude and dangerous machinery. Part of the switch to mesquite was a switch to woodturning lathes with which they could make other value-added products. The lathes were designed to incorporate the current machines that had powered the crude saws the artisans had been using.

Altogether, Kathryn and David worked with 400 local artisans, as well as others who were involved in the management of the mesquite to harvest it sustainably. Kathryn and David helped local landowners and artisans assess the mesquite resources so they could discern what they could harvest for the longterm and then what type of value-added product they could make that would sell locally so they weren’t at the mercy of exportation.

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milling and joining equipment and traditional laminating techniques, people can learn to make just about any wood product.”

Likewise, another mesquite product of great value is the mesquite bean, which is ground into flour. Containing 20-30 percent protein, this flour is a high source of soluble fiber and Omega 3 fatty acids. A viable food source for both humans and animals, SPMCo encourages local harvesting of the beans.

They sell the flour and the value-added products made from it—like dog biscuits—on their website.

San Pedro Mesquite has helped indigenous populations learn to profit from the mesquite that surrounds them.

In addition to these efforts, the city government of Hermosillo donated land for the shop, and a local technical college donated woodworking equipment. David and Kathryn are donating their time and expertise in partnership with the artisans and the local government so that a local sustainable industry can be established. And as that partnership becomes profitable, everyone shares in the profit.

“We’ve found that this type of economic development works when we’re looking at the whole picture and what is needed to offer industry to local people,” says Kathryn.

“It can take some adjusting on everyone’s part to work with a timber industry that expects certain lengths of wood. But with new

So have all these programs been good for business? It’s booming. In the last five years, gross sales of mesquite products have doubled each year. Projected sales for this year are $750,000. With their five employees, Kathryn and David are busy answering phones for requests for mesquite flooring and the other products offered through their website.

But the training and outreach programs clearly bring much enrichment to the work environment at SPMCo. “We believe in these programs and that what goes around comes around,” says Kathryn. Their interest and involvement in sustainable development is one of the reasons why they became Savory Center members. “The Savory Center was clearly in line with our values,” says Kathryn. We always tell others about Holistic Management. We give Kirk and Ivan’s phone numbers to any ranchers we talk to.”

“But Holistic Management is more than just ranching,” says David. “We’ve used the goal setting process to help create the plans for our outreach programs, and to monitor them. The concept of working with a whole is so important in the work we do. But most of all, Holistic Management has helped make the business more fun. Before it always seemed like drudgery to me. Holistic Management has helped me see that we owe ourselves a living.”

“It’s been a challenging growth curve,” says Kathryn, “but we continue with great zest and optimism. Seeing the mesquite programs actually working for our families and the many others with whom we work makes it all worthwhile.”

Visit San Pedro Mesquite’s website at www.spm.com or call Kathryn and David at 520/212-9663.

A Turning Point

by Vicki Rub y Editor’s note: For the last four years, Certified Educator Wayne Berry has served as a facilitator for the Sheridan County Turning Point Partnership, introducing Holistic Management into this community development project. Hired more as a facilitator than a Holistic Management ® Certified Educator, Wayne introduced parts of the Holistic Management ® model to help the Partnership reach their desired outcomes.

Although some members of the Partnership might not have been fully aware of this Holistic Management influence, both Wayne and Vicki felt it had a significant impact on the success of the Partnership. For example, although there were numerous Turning Point projects around the country, Sheridan County’s was the only partnership out of 40 that started from a whole-community foundation rather than a specific focus. All partnerships had an initial three-year grant for planning, but the follow-up development grants were competitive across the whole country. The Sheridan County partnership was successful in obtaining one of those development grants.

S

heridan County is a sparsely populated, rural county of only 4,300 residents located in the northeast corner of Montana. The county has struggled in recent years with high unemployment rates and nearly half the county’s population living at or below the federal poverty level.

The primary industry in Sheridan County is agriculture, and farmers and ranchers have been selling their goods for prices well below today’s market. Such a depressed economy has led to bank foreclosures and the collapse of main street businesses, and has had a direct impact on the health and quality of life of families and individuals. Migration out of the county has persisted at a rate of one percent for the past 70 years.

To address some of these needs, Sheridan County applied for a Turning Point Partnership grant. I was hired by the Partnership first in the capacity of secretary and bookkeeper and, later, to gather and synthesize information for required reports and for publicizing our efforts. We then hired Wayne Berry, a Holistic Management® Certified Educator, to facilitate our meetings

and help us build a cohesive group from a weren’t given many specific directives, there very diverse mix of individuals. was a lot of frustration — healthy frustration, What Wayne taught us and the way he Wayne told us. We didn’t know what each guided us certainly helped us achieve the member would contribute nor what stake the cohesion necessary to win a development various organizations they represented might grant and provide a service to the community have in our efforts. that wasn’t there before. I also think that One of our members, a banker, said that in Holistic Management has the beginning he was helped me do my work confused about why he because I am better was asked to participate — able to see the what did finances have interconnectivity in to do with health? But all the different kinds after making the effort of work I do, both to become involved he professionally and could see, for example, as a member of this the way that banks dealt community. As we with farmers (especially prepare our final in stressful economic reports for the National times) had a significant Association of County impact on the farmers’ and City Health relationships with their Officials (NACCHO), I families, their neighbors, will be turning to the their own state of health. original holistic testing We began to see the questions Wayne interconnectedness of Holistic Management helped Vicki taught us to help us all the various aspects of Ruby see the interconnectivity of the evaluate our journey, our lives as community work she was doing in her community . and to help us make members. the transition into a We worked to form new beginning. ourselves into a cohesive group. We are pleased to note that unlike Building A Coalition many partnerships, we had few “turf issues.”

The original Turning Point grant awarded People did not feel they had to protect their to us came with the stipulation that we form territory from others who might usurp power a coalition of community members. That, and resources. I think that is, at least in part, a then, was our first challenge. reflection of Wayne’s work.

At our first meeting, Wayne gave a However, we also realized we did not presentation emphasizing our need to take know as much about each other as we a look at the whole picture. Providing us thought. In a small community such as ours, with a list of “Holistic Testing Questions” (the we assume we know everyone’s story, and seven testing questions) to reflect on, he led they know ours. As we continued to meet, us through a series of exercises he called a we learned more about the problems and “grounding session.” Out of this session, we methods of each other’s business, and developed a “Temporary Core Document” learned how we might support each other (our holistic goal). in new ways.

The group of people we gathered For instance, one of our Partnership came from all areas of our community members, Glenwood Inc., is a center for the geographically, and it was a diverse group developmentally disabled. They needed to professionally as well. All they knew at the find useful work for their individuals. At beginning was that we had access to a certain our Turning Point meetings, we identified amount of money, and we wanted to improve a need in our community for light the basic health of our community. Because this goal was so broad, and because we continued on page 8

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A Turning Point continued from page 7

housekeeping services for elderly and handicapped people. The Glenwood representatives were able to match those needs and resources, and came up with a Home Attendant Service. Their individuals, under supervision, were able to offer their skills for a modest fee.

Sustaining Change Wayne has continued to urge us to return to our Core Document to guide our current work as a Partnership. From the beginning this document crystallized our quality of life statement—the things we want for our communities. That statement includes the desire for communities in which every person is treated with dignity and compassion, healthy schools and strong faith communities, and a strong sense of volunteerism. We placed a high priority on safety, with high standards for the quality of our environment and low crime rates. We also identified good accessibility to health care services, as well as health education and health facilities, as very important.

The Core Document also identified our stakeholders: youth, families, working people and well adults, the elderly, low-income families and individuals, and the physically and mentally challenged. It also includes a “Production Statement” that outlined our first tasks as a group. While we don’t measure ourselves against the Core Document, we do keep it in mind, and we still speak in the terms we used in that document.

For example, we wrote that we wanted to establish a “mall” for quality of life issues in which available services coordinate their efforts, and the whole person/family is taken into consideration. To this end, we have hired an architect to complete a feasibility study regarding a Wellness Center that we envision housing fitness space and equipment, community meeting space, and health education and information resources.

Another main thrust in our efforts has been to increase collaboration with other communities statewide and especially in the northeastern counties of Montana. We see more and more clearly that we cannot survive in isolation. For that reason, we hope to increase our regional public health

8 HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE #81

service capacity through alliances with neighboring counties.

of changes—such as moving the office to a less accessible location—that Public Health staff felt would be detrimental to the programs.

A Voice for the Community The staff took these concerns to the While we have done some specific Partnership, asking for their suggestions projects, we haven’t had many concrete and opinions. The individual partners products “available for show and tell,” as overwhelmingly felt that the Public Health Wayne puts it. This has been frustrating for Office should remain at its original, accessible people directly involved, and for others who location in the Courthouse. With the hospital approach them to ask, administration “Just what is Turning increasingly adamant Point, anyway?” that the move But what we would be made, the have done is lay the Partnership sought groundwork for future public opinion. projects to be more Partners were successful and to all instrumental in move toward a developing a public common vision. Early opinion survey and in on, we created a voicing their concerns “Community Values in the community.

Survey” that asked for Eventually, residents’ perceptions following negotiations, of and their level of the County and the satisfaction regarding hospital decided that many aspects of life in the County would Sheridan County. Two reassume sponsorship important points in the of the Public Nurse’s Wayne Berry was hired to facilitate the results showed that Office, and that the Turning Point Partnership meetings. people who live here office would remain Using Holistic Management he helped have a lot of pride in in its original location. them build an ef fective coalition.

Sheridan County, and The entire decisionthat economic stability making process had is a focus of concern for heavy input from the nearly everyone. We’ve tried to incorporate public at large, and this was very much due those concerns as we’ve increased awareness to the existence of the Turning Point of public health, and the idea that all of us Partnership. It was amazing how much people have a stake in our communities. knew and cared about what could easily Most of all we’ve tried to find the have been a behind-the-scenes matter solutions to our problems within our own regarding their public health system. community. We’ve sent people, both official Our grant period ends this year. However, Partnership members and interested the Partners have expressed a commitment to community members, to grant-writing the network we have formed and continuing seminars and leadership training workshops. our existence as an active Partnership.

We are trying to increase our resource base Partners have also given their support to in terms of people and skills, by empowering participating in a Rural Consortium that is individuals and supporting teamwork. being formed by Turning Point grantees An important effect of having the around the nation. For Sheridan County there Turning Point Partnership active here is that is a feeling that this is just the beginning of community members have been given a progress toward a more sustainable future. vehicle through which to voice their opinions and inform themselves. For instance, for Vicki Ruby is Assistant Coordinator several years the County had contracted with of the Sheridan County Turning Point the local hospital to provide personnel to Partnership in Plentywood, Montana. administer the Public Health Office. Then She can be reached at 406/765-3473 or hospital administration proposed a number at vruby@co.sheridan.mt.us.

LAND&LIVESTOCK A Special Section of

IN PRACTICE JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2002

#81

Goats as Tools for Flood Control

by Rob Rutherford

A

promising series of events on the Pacific Coast may be setting the stage for more holistic management of municipally owned lands.

The setting is San Luis Obispo County, California. Located midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, the county features some spectacular coastlines, floodplains with rich vegetable production, inland grazing lands with the greatest collection of endangered species of any place in the continental U.S., and rapidly growing urban centers.

In the southern part of the county, straddling US Highway 101 and running to the ocean, are the towns of Arroyo Grande and Oceano.

Through this area run several waterways, including Arroyo Grande Creek and Los Berros Channel. Years ago, the Lopez Dam was built to capture the water in Arroyo Grande Creek, thereby creating a more predictable release of water throughout the year.

The lower end of Arroyo Grande Creek was straightened in order to quickly “dispose” of excess water during storm events. The Los Berros Channel was made with the same purpose in mind. It flows into Arroyo Grande Creek about two miles from the Pacific Ocean.

With the resulting flood control, vegetables could be reliably grown and houses could be built in the flood plain with no fear of being flooded. Assessments collected from the farmers and community services districts were to be used to maintain the flood control channel.

As the years went by, and several species of concern (notably steelhead trout and red-legged frogs) captured the headlines, the tools available to maintain the flood control channels became more and more limited. The Army Corps of Engineers became stricter about dredging the channel. It became more difficult and expensive to find places to dispose of the dredged materials, even if it was allowed.

Costs soared—up to $100 a yard in some estimates.

The fact that the stockpiled materials would undoubtedly find their way back into the channels wasn’t even figured into the costs of dredging and transporting. Herbicides were ruled out by several agencies concerned about the impacts they would have on many species in the channels as well as down stream. Fire has become less viable because of air quality concerns, plus the difficulty in burning

Some of the 300 goats grazing down the vegetation choking a suburban drainage ditch. The very next day “at least 50 people from the area parked along the side of the road, out of their cars, just looking at the goats. The local TV reporters were there taping interviews.” When the goats came back the following year residents met the first gooseneck as it was being unloaded, expressing their relief that the goats were coming back.

material that is standing in water. Hand crews could be brought in to physically remove the vegetation, but they took a long time and were becoming more expensive.

What about Goats?

It was with this dilemma on the table that George Gibson, an engineer with the County Public Works Department, gave me a call.

I still remember his first words: “Are you the Goat Guy?” Taken a little by surprise, I claimed not to be the Goat Guy, but that I knew one. It seems that at a coffee table conversation at his department, and amid a great deal of frustration—land owners yelling to get the ditches cleaned, and a long line of agencies saying they couldn’t—that one of the staff members jokingly threw out the idea of getting a goat to eat the ditch clean. After a hearty laugh, a junior engineer said there was a guy named Rutherford out at Cal Poly [University] that talked about this stuff. I was only later to get to know more about that junior engineer—a person living in conflict—an engineer who thought we ought to work with the environment rather than beating it into submission! Based on her input, George gave me the call.

I agreed that his proposal to use goats to reduce the vegetation made good sense, but I didn’t have the goats. I contacted Bob Blanchard, a local cattle/goat producer, who has been doing some great grazing management in land adjacent to the Diablo Canyon power plant. He uses the goats to reduce fire fuel hazard under the power lines leaving the plant.

Bob and I met George at the site the next day. Immediately, Bob

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Goats as Tools for Flood Control continued from page 9 started to get cold feet. The channel was about 100-feet (30-meters) wide. On one side was a housing development, with at least one dog in every yard, on the other side was a major county road, and then further downstream, about 200 acres of lettuce—and no fences.

Much to his credit, George Gibson, the engineer who knew nothing of the tools of grazing or animal impact or much of anything else about biology (and whose idea of a good channel is the Los Angeles River with its concrete channel), kept insisting that this goat thing would work. He pushed and pushed, insisting that this needed to be a long-term thing, and that he knew it wouldn’t look like a mowing machine had come through.

The goats would leave some stuff, there might be complaints about animals in the waterway, the lettuce growers would be nervous, he would take the heat if it went wrong, etc.

Let’s Do It

With that kind of pressure, Bob agreed to think about it overnight. The next day, Bob came back with an offer that he thought George would refuse.

We would move the goats in for a four-day trial. No guarantees. If it didn’t work, we’d part company on good terms—and he needed $3,000 for the four-day trial. George’s response was: “Can you have them here this afternoon?” Bob just about fell over (should have asked for more money). We moved the goats in the next day.

Temporary electric net fence was set along the banks with four strands of electric temporary fence stretched through the ditch. We fenced about one acre per day and had about 350 goats in the area. It took about one day to graze the first section.

We moved the goats in on a Tuesday afternoon. The next day, John Phillips and I took our class down to the site to observe. When we got there, there had to have been at least 50 people from the area parked along the side of the road, out of their cars, just looking at the goats. The local TV reporters were there taping interviews. One of the people interviewed was an elderly lady who presented herself as the perfect ambassador for the project. She could have been anybody’s grandmother. She talked about how her home had almost flooded several years ago, how fun it was to see the goats, etc. We were on four different TV news broadcasts, and received nothing but positive press. As George claimed, “We couldn’t have purchased better PR.” The goats did a nice job, leaving plenty of forage to stabilize the banks, but consumed at least 90% of the vegetable matter in the area.

By the end of the second day, Bob’s fears were quelled, and he and George negotiated to extend the contract. The grazing continued downstream to a point where the National Fish and Wildlife folks insisted that we get out of the ditch because of habitat concerns. The goats were there for a total of 31 days and grazed about 1 .5 miles of ditch. The county paid Bob $24,000. The previous time the ditch had been cleared the cost for hand crews was about 3 times higher. During the winter of 2001, a predictably heavy rainstorm brought the annual flood (made worse by the floodplain management) but the area grazed by the goats held.

Unfortunately, the area that had been left ungrazed caused a blockage that forced the stream out of its banks. As a result, the county became liable for about $2.5 million in flood damage to houses, lettuce, and a riding stable.

Berry bushes, morning, day 1.

Berry bushes, afternoon, day 1.

Berry bushes, day 2.

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A predictably heavy rainstorm brought the annual flood but the area grazed b y the goats held.

Unfortunately, the area that had been left ungrazed caused a blockage that forced the stream out of its banks. The county became liable for about $2.5 million in flood damage to houses, lettuce, and a riding stable.

IN PRACTICE #81

There were numerous meetings with agencies pointing fingers at each other, residents praising the goats, the vegetable grower (a member of the Regional Water Board) admitting that the goats did a good job, and so on.

Bob and George continued to communicate, and George was able to secure a budget for this year. He also got permission to graze further down the channel. Therefore, during August of 2001, we put close to 600 goats in the ditch and grazed nearly to the ocean—a distance of about two miles. By the time the first gooseneck had been unloaded, at least ten of the local residents were right there expressing their relief that the goats were coming back, including our TV-star grandmother from the year before. The grazing this year took 41 days, and the county paid Bob $35,000. Of these dollars, Bob paid about $3,000/month to my students who provided part time labor.

The rest was to compensate himself for his time, expertise, and equipment/supplies.

Ungrazed ditch in the residential area.

Lessons Learned During both years of this grazing adventure, Bob and I spent more than a couple of hours sitting on chairs on a ditch bank, watching the goats, and talking about what was going on. We agreed that what we were involved in was addressing a symptom. The channel had become filled with silt due to farming practices upstream. Flooding was inevitable given all the development, and thus the bare ground, in the catchment, and the monoculture practices on the vegetable farms. However, we both felt that this was an opportunity to demonstrate how effective goats could be as a riparian zone management tool—that they could actually enhance habitat.

We noticed that the goats ate different things depending upon what was available. If there were a wide variety of plants, they readily went after the willows. If other types of plants were limited, they didn’t browse the willows nearly as heavily. The goats readily consumed hemlock and castor bean with no deaths or illnesses. We did find that although goats don’t really like to get their feet wet, these goats learned to stand in the water to eat some of the delicacies like watercress.

It was our opinion that the quality of the forage was better the second year, and if asked back, that we would continue to see a change in plant materials. We were of the opinion that if flood control was the primary motivation for the project, we should have grazed the creek later in the year, just before the rainy season.

Because we were asked to be there in August in order to fit the County When the rumor got Engineering calendar, we are concerned out that a local that a lot of regrowth will occur in the five months prior to our wettest time. opponent was going Another very critical part of the to protest about success of this venture was Bob’s ability to visit with the residents and visitors having livestock in at the site—community dynamics if you the creek, a woman will. When the rumor got out that a local opponent was going to protest to in the adjoining the County Board of Supervisors about mobile home park having livestock in the creek, a woman in the adjoining mobile home park started a petition and started a petition and got 650 signatures got 650 signatures in four days supporting the goats.

George Gibson knows a lot more about in four days goats now than he did a year ago. He supporting the goats. also takes credit for the success of the venture, which is interesting in that

Grazed portion of the ditch downstream. Lettuce fields are on the left. On the road is a travel trailer where laborers spend the night, and a water trailer for the goats when the ditch is dry .

he never mentions that the whole thing was the idea of a junior engineer who doesn’t “think that concrete channels are a good thing.”

We’re looking forward to the winter of 2002 and hoping that we do get a “flood” in order to assess the job done this year.

We’re hoping that the success of this venture can be shared with other counties and municipalities as a way of converting solar energy into money, while at the same time improving the functioning of ecosystem processes.

So, here we have a situation of many goals—set by the junior engineer, the senior engineer, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, the residents, the vegetable grower, the goat owner—and we are spending our time perfecting our tool use. I’m hoping that once the various stakeholders understand that we’ve got the tool thing down, it might be a good idea to sit down and create a holistic goal, which should set us up for longer term efficiency at moving towards what we want, rather than just addressing symptoms.

Rob Rutherford is Professor of Animal Science at CalPoly. He can be reached via email at rrutherf@calpoly.edu.

IN PRACTICE • JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2002 LAND & LIVESTOCK

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Holistic Managemen t ® Grazing Planning on the Colorado Plateau—

Measuring the Desert

by Jim Howell

A

few months back I wrote an article about Dave James and his Slick Rock Ranch (IN PRACTICE #78, July/August 2001).

Situated in some of southwestern Colorado’s roughest canyon country, I claimed the Slick Rock was the toughest piece of the West I’d ever seen anybody try to run cows in. Since acquiring the ranch in the late ‘90s, Dave and his crew have spent most of that time just learning the country, figuring out how to coax cattle in and out, under and over, and up and through the maze of canyons, benches, cliffs, mesas, and bowls that constitute the Slick Rock.

They’re still learning and probably always will be learning, but they’re a whole lot smarter now than they were when they started.

They know how to bring a big bunch of cattle out of McIntyre Canyon, over Cougar Bench, and up onto Horse Range Mesa. They know how many cattle can water on the spring in Bush Canyon, and when the ponds thaw out on Egnar Mesa, assuming they’ve got any water. They know that in the dead of winter, they better be watering on the Dolores River if they want their critters to get a drink. If they have snow holding in the shade of the junipers, they know they can push a big mob up onto White Sage Bench and take some pressure off the riparian corridor along the Dolores. They know that Grassy Hills are covered in mostly low quality galleta grass, and if they hope to get some use out of it, they better pack some protein up there ahead of the cattle. They know that sometime around the first of April, the cattle better be somewhere near the Snyder Place. If not, it’ll be a long, hard drive with heavy pregnant cows up to the summer country. That’s a lot of stuff to keep track of, and that’s just a small sample.

Time to Refine Now, five years later and armed with a stockade of local knowledge, Dave finally felt he was ready to take a stab at creating a proper holistic grazing plan. One could argue that if he had started planning holistically from the beginning, even without any practical history, he would have figured out all these practical considerations even quicker. That may be true, but his crew probably would have mutinied and left Dave in a major fix. Actually, Dave did initially try to impose an intensive style of grazing management, but with neither the cows nor the cowboys knowing where they were going, a chain of costly wrecks was the unhappy result.

After that initial reality check, I think he felt it was better to let his guys make the day-to-day decisions, let them figure out how to get around the country in their own way, and let them develop the local knowledge. Now, going through the grazing planning process, it’s their input that’s most valuable. They know whether the whole herd can be expected to stay up on Grassy without bailing off down into the Dolores Canyon, and how far up Summit Canyon a cow will go, and so on. To create a grazing plan that’s going to work, this sort of knowledge is absolutely critical. You can come up with a plan without it, but the frustration that ensues when nothing works, the cattle aren’t happy, and you’re working your behind into the ground, sort of sours you on the whole deal. I know. I’ve been there.

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IN PRACTICE #81

Jerry Heaton, cowboss on the Perkins Desert, gazing out over the Upper Sand Island pasture.

Anyway, this summer Dave gave me a call and asked if I would come help them do a holistic grazing plan for their winter dormant season, not only on the Slick Rock, but also on the new 117,000-acre (47,350-ha) winter grazing allotment in southeastern Utah in which he recently became a partner. The new place, which Dave calls the Perkins Desert, takes in all the country between Bluff and Mexican Hat, Utah, plus some state lease country north and east of Bluff. It’s named after the family that has ranched there for over 100 years, a descendent of which, Corey Perkins, is Dave’s partner. For those of you who’ve been in that part of Utah, you’ll realize that it’s smack dab in the middle of Monument Valley, one of the West’s most scenic but austere landscapes.

Average rainfall is a scant 6 inches, and it can come at any time of the year. Good growing seasons are consequently few and far between.

Grasses include an impressive diversity of dropseed species, lots of galleta, some Indian rice grass, and lots of annual cheat grass. The brush component, which accounts for a big part of their forage resource, includes lots of blackbrush, plus quite a bit of four-wing saltbrush, shadscale, winterfat, and Mormon tea.

Bare Ground and Drought Reserves As you might expect, the dominant feature of the landscape is bare ground. Dave has identified this mostly denuded soil surface as the primary culprit obstructing his goal of more effective ecosystem processes, greatly enhanced biodiversity, and increased profit from livestock. His management aim, therefore, focuses on gradually building a source of soil-covering litter.

I asked him what he expected out of me during our three-day planning session. He said he wanted to figure out how many cattle he could run on both ranches (the Slick Rock and Perkins Desert) and still leave a full year of forage in the event of extended drought. In other words, if no rain came over the course of the coming year, he wanted to feel comfortable that he could still bring his cattle back next year on leftover forage. If it did happen to rain over the next year, that excess forage from the year before would still be valuable as a source of soilcovering litter. By letting those plants accumulate a year or more of growth, there will be organic matter available to not only feed the cattle during the next grazing period, but older, more brittle material to lay on

the soil surface as well.

This hasn’t happened on the Perkins Desert for a long time.

After a day and half of covering lots of country, I didn’t see one plant that had an accumulation of older material, let alone any plant that was suffering from overrest. Energy conversion, or the efficient trapping of sunlight energy by plant leaves, was their weak link in the financial chain of production, not the conversion of excess grass into beef. Along those lines, Dave also wanted to figure out how to stay off the western half of the Perkins Desert, which received no effective precipitation in 2001. It was a tall order, and we got busy.

Bovine Grocery Shopping

One could argue that if he had started planning holistically from the beginning, he would have figured out all these practical considerations even quicker. That may be true, but his crew probably would have mutinied.

estimate how many square yards it would take to comfortably hold a cow for a day, while also leaving a lot of material to serve as litter and food and cover for wildlife. At first the government guys were skeptical, but as soon as we stepped off the first square they could see how easy it was.

For those of you who haven’t done this before, here’s how we did it: Once we found what we felt was a representative sample of a certain vegetation type, we’d have one guy stand still in one spot, then two guys would walk in perpendicular lines originating at that spot. Those two guys would agree to walk out around twenty paces, or about 20 yards, then stop and assess. Would the square they formed (using an imaginary fourth person) feed a cow for a day, leaving a good residual cover? No, not quite. Okay, walk out five more paces. How ‘bout now?

Yeah, easy, come in two paces. That’s about right. That’s 23 by 23, which is 529 square yards to feed a cow for a day. Since there are 4,840 square yards in one acre that means, if you divide 4,840 by 529, one acre of this sort of country could feed about nine dry cows for a day, or 9 ADA. If working with the metric system, you’d perform the same exact procedure, but use meters and hectares instead of yards and acres.

The hard part was estimating how much of that pasture was made up of the type of country in which we were currently doing our estimates. We didn’t have time to go everywhere, and even if we could have, it still would have been awfully tough to guess how much of the pasture was productive bottom land, useless cliffs, sparsely vegetated broken gullies, inaccessible mesas, etc.

The first order of business was to figure out how much forage was out there, on both the Slick Rock and the Perkins Desert. Just looking out over the country, with it’s buttes, mesas, cliffs, benches, gullies, Dealing with Landscape Diversity washes, and deep canyons, it was hard to visualize how in the world we were going to do that in just three days. It seemed like we’d need We dealt with this challenge in two ways. One was to pick the brains a month out there on horseback just to get started. But we had a of the guys who know that country like they know their own living methodology. On their state lease land (leased from the state of Utah— rooms, Jerry and Corey. “How much of this sort of country is there in the balance of both Slick Rock and Perkins Desert are administered this pasture,” I’d ask. They’d have a pretty confident estimate almost under the Bureau of Land Management), I noticed that Corey’s map every time. That sort of knowledge only comes with long, long hours had some numbers written on it by the government-employed range on horseback. It’s the type of knowledge that’s absolutely critical to conservationist in charge of that allotment. These numbers reflected the managing highly diverse and extensive landscapes. It’s also the type of acres that could support one animal unit month (AUM), or one mature knowledge that people who don’t live out there, but claim they know dry cow for one month, in different areas of the allotment. But the what’s best for the arid West, are sorely lacking. They should spend a numbers were based on historical averages, not on the current situation, couple months moving cows with Jerry Heaton. so they had little relevance. Anyway, I have a hard time looking out over The other way was to look at soil survey maps. All those different a piece of country and trying to estimate how much of that country it landscape features typically have slightly to radically different soil types. would take to support a cow for a month.

The types of vegetation that can be expected to grow in those distinct Evidently Allan Savory used to have the same trouble and, using continued on page 14 Andre Voisin’s concept of animal days per acre (ADA), was able to bring the measurement down to the amount of land needed to feed one cow for one day. It’s a whole lot easier to envision that, than the area needed to feed one cow for 30 days.

Once you know how much land it takes to feed a cow for a day it’s easy to calculate the number of animal days one acre will support.

So Dave, his right-hand man Jerry Heaton (who knows the country and is responsible for making things work on the ground), and I spent a day and a half estimating ADA on the Slick Rock. We spent another day and a half on the Perkins Desert, where we were joined by Corey Perkins, Dave’s BLM range conservationist, and another local NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) range Estimating the area required to feed one cow for one day . conservationist. It was fairly straightforward to

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Measuring the Desert continued from page 13

soils are also variable. The soil maps have all that information (soil type, slope, predominant vegetation, etc.) clearly delineated. If we came to an area that Jerry and Corey couldn’t estimate, or if we were wanting to verify their estimates, we’d look at the soil maps. We primarily had to do this in the biggest pastures, a few of which covered 25 sections or more (one section equals 640 acres, or 260 ha).

We’d drive through a good sample of the pasture to get an idea of the different vegetation types (which again closely correlated with soil types). Then we’d stop and step off a few squares that could feed a cow for a day in one type, and calculate ADA from there. Next, we’d look at the soil maps and determine how many acres (or sections) of the total pasture was comprised of that vegetation type. This enabled us to determine how many total animal days (ADs) we had in that vegetation type in that pasture. Then we’d do the same thing for the other vegetation types within that pasture. When we finished doing that in each pasture, we had the total ADs of forage on hand over the whole ranch. We knew how many months we needed to keep cattle on both the Slick Rock and Perkins Desert, so from that total AD estimate, we could calculate our estimated carrying capacity for the season. This was a critical piece of information for Dave and Corey, since they were keenly interested in how many outside cattle they could contract to increase winter cash flow. (See the sidebar for a numerical explanation of calculating ADs in a pasture).

In future years, after having accumulated several seasons of ADA harvest data in each pasture, estimating ADA will be much easier and more accurate. Dave and his crew will know how the pasture performed relative to the estimate of forage on hand, and they’ll be able to make common sense adjustments based on how good the year has been. For example, when doing the planning for the coming dormant season, they’ll be able to go back to last year’s planning chart, and see that the Lime Ridge pasture yielded 5 .0 ADA. If the current year’s growing season produced about the same amount of forage, they’ll be able to plan on a yield of 5 .0 ADA again this year. If the year was better, they might increase the estimate to 7.0 ADA. As the years go by,

Paul Curtis (Dave James’ BLM range conservationist), Jim Ho well, and Corey Perkins calculating ADA.

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IN PRACTICE #81

Calculating Animal Days (ADs) in a Sample Pasture Pasture One Vegetation type 1 Vegetation type 2 Vegetation type 3 Totals

Acreage 2,000 3,000 500 5,500

Avg. ADA 7. 5 4.0 2.5

ADs 15,000 12,000 1,250 28,250

If herd size was 700 dry cows, this pasture could support the herd for about 40 days (28,250 ADs divided by 700 animals equals 40 days).

In this example, 7.5 ADA equates to a 25-by-25-yard square for one animal day, 4.0 ADA to a 35-by-35-yard square, and 2 . 5 ADA to a 44-by44-yard square. Although this example uses yards and acres, it all works the same in meters and hectares. Just remember that one hectare comprises an even 10,000 square meters, and that one meter is just a little longer than a yard.

and as their knowledge and data base grow, they’ll gradually be able to make better and better decisions.

Putting it All Together Once we had all those estimates of forage on hand, it was time to sit down, calculate grazing periods, and start figuring out how to make everything work logistically. We already alluded to a bunch of those practical considerations on the Slick Rock. On the Perkins Desert, we had to take into account livestock theft threats when the cattle were in pastures with access to the San Juan River, busy traffic seasons (an unfenced highway runs right through the allotment), rafting season on the San Juan, and seasonal use restrictions on the state lease country, just to name a few. When all those factors are charted on the planning sheet, the biggest challenge then entails making all the cattle moves work logistically (both for the cows and the cowboys) while still honoring those important considerations. Even with the Holistic Management® Grazing Planning procedure this isn’t easy, but it’s a whole lot easier than trying to take all these factors into consideration without this planning procedure.

In fact, by sitting down and consciously considering all of these factors, each of which is critical to take into account if Dave and his crew hope to move toward their holistic goal, Dave and Jerry both said it contributed significantly to their peace of mind. They could see that it all could work. Only by going through the step-by-step process did that become clear.

Finally, we reminded ourselves that when dealing with the land, we always have to assume our decisions are wrong, and then monitor for the first signs that we’re veering off track. This is especially true with the first plan, when, even after the input of generous practical wisdom, unexpected events and unforeseen circumstances are just about guaranteed. But as Allan Savory says, “that’s why you plan.” If you had no plan, you’d never know you were veering off course in the first place. With the plan, we know where we want to go. If we’re proactively monitoring, we’ll know when we need to adjust the plan to stay on track.

If our initial planning was so off the mark that nothing’s working, we’ll know we might need to start over and replan. This takes discipline, close observation, a willingness to adapt, and a can-do attitude. If we can do it, if we can stay on track, one day we might actually have to change the name of the Perkins Desert when it no longer looks like a desert.

Questions & Answers Low Cost Wintering After visiting lots of ranchers on other continents, I’ve been struck by how cheaply they’re able to produce beef and lamb relative to most North Americans. Usually they have no choice, since their prices are so much lower, often only a third to a half of what Americans and Canadians can expect. I know of one Australian who is producing beef at US$.09/lb. That doesn’t include his land cost, but even so it’s impressive. He claims the key is to figure out how you can get away “without doing anything to ‘em,” while still maintaining acceptable production. In North America, especially in colder climates, this is a major challenge for most producers who are locked into the paradigm that they have to baby their animals through the winter on expensive stored forages. The variable costs associated with surviving the winter represent the majority of the annual cost of running a cow. I’ve read of Canadians wintering their cattle on hay that has been windrowed but then left in the field and strip grazed. Are there any other examples of low cost wintering that not only reduce direct expenses but also labor costs as well?

Q:

I am in southwestern Ontario, on the Bruce Peninsula, which separates Lake Huron from Georgian Bay. We are an area of traditionally higher snowfall (130 inches/3,300 mm on average) in addition to the usual 30 inches (760 mm) or so of rain. For the past three winters I’ve been grazing my sheep outside following a model introduced to me by Janet McNally of Hinckley, Minnesota. I feed 4.5-foot (1.4-meter) round bales in the pastures. These bales are placed in the various paddocks once the grass has gone dormant in the fall. The ewes usually go into these paddocks in mid-December. Ewe lambs go in a bit earlier.

The round bales provide shelter for the sheep during winter storms. Any hay that is wasted composts and contributes organic matter to the pastures. The "hay circles" also make wonderful insulated lambing beds in the spring with the birth fluids, dung, urine, and pawing all helping to expedite the composting process.

Typically, by the next fall, you can tell where the hay bales were placed because the lushest grasses and legumes are growing there.

Using Janet's model as a guideline, my sheep spend 364 days a year on pasture. (They come in for one day in May to be shorn).

An added personal bonus is that winter chores are few and far between and there is no barn and yard cleanup in spring. The first winter I tried this idea we had 100 inches (2,540 mm) of snow in 24 hours and they had to call in the army. The sheep were fine!

—Doug Beggs, Meaford, Ontario, Canada

a:

We used to cut over 1,200 acres (485 ha) of high elevation (7,700 feet/2,340 meters) native hay meadows once and then about half of that again a second time, while most of our cowherd was summering on our National Forest grazing lease in nearby mountains. Now we calve in June, keep all the

a:

cows at home through the summer, and send the calves to the mountain summer range as yearlings.

We graze through our hay meadows once during the growing season, and again during the winter as standing dormant feed.

Because the grass has been grazed once, the standing dormant feed is young and tender enough to be palatable, but mature enough to have had sufficient leaf surface for photosynthesis and root regeneration.

We still put up two to three hundred acres of hay (80-120 ha), both baled (which we contract), and cut-and-piled. Cutting and piling is a process where near-dormant grass is cut and windrowed, then the rows are raked into piles and remain at that location.

Because the forage is not cut until it is nearly dormant, the moisture percentage is very low, so it can be immediately raked and piled. The protein content of the standing dormant grass is 6. 5%, the cut and piled hay 7. 5%, and the baled hay 8.5%.

The cost of production for the standing dormant forage is negligible. For the cut and piled hay it’s about $5/ton, and $30 per ton for the baled hay. For the difference in price, the cut and piled hay provides adequate protein for a cow that is not near calving or newly lactating. Because we now calve in the late spring/early summer, our cows have a low nutritional demand through the winter, and calving coincides with the fresh new grass of spring.

We are often asked, “So what happens during a winter with a five-foot snow?” Well, we use our loader-tractor to clear a snow-free swath in the standing dormant grass for the cattle to graze. In doing so, we’ve still only made one pass across the meadow with a machine as opposed to several with standard haying and feeding methods.

The piled hay is fairly easy for cattle to get to, even in deep snow, especially with a large herd. In addition, snow melts quickly around the piles, which generate quite a bit of heat and also absorb sunlight. Most of the skeptics who worry about snow calve in the middle of winter. We like to point out that it’s probably much more difficult from a labor standpoint to calve in that much snow than it is to feed standing dormant and piled hay. The combination of these approaches to winter feeding and late spring/early summer calving results in much lower expense and far less labor investment.

—Mike and Cathy McNeil, Monte Vista, CO

QUESTIONS? If you’ve got questions, we’d like to help you find answers.

Send your questions to: Jim Howell, 1661 Sonoma Court, Montrose, CO 81401 970/249-0353, email: howelljd@montrose.net; or fax in care of the Savory Center: 505/843-7900.

IN PRACTICE • JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2002 LAND & LIVESTOCK

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Savory Center Bulletin Board Regional Training Program Coordinator

M

ary Child is working with the Savory Center as our Regional Program Development Coordinator. This work began with the development and coordination Mary Child of the 2001 Holistic Management® Certified Educator Training Program being held in the Northeast region of the U.S. Mary is working with individuals and organizations in the Western, North Central, and Southeastern U.S. and the State of Alaska because of interest in Certified Educator Training Programs in those regions. Mary is also the Program Mentor for the Northeast Program, a participant in the 1999 Certified Educator Training Program, and is developing a Savory Center research project titled “Making the Transition to a Collaborative Organization.”

Mary was raised on a farm in Southern Delaware and subsequently lived and worked in Philadelphia and later in the Potomac Highlands of West Virginia. There, in 1985, she cofounded the Lightstone Foundation, a 600acre land-based local nonprofit. She helped develop the organization and design programs on: (a) local food systems and farmer’s markets; (b) organic farming; forest, streambank and wetland restoration; (c) experiential education curriculum and residential training for teachers, professors, parents and students; and (d) sustainable enterprise development. She holds a Bachelors of Arts from the Institute for Social Ecology in Plainfield, Vermont.

Mary lives in Moyers, West Virginia, enjoys gardening and taking care of a small flock of long-wooled sheep, several laying hens, a border collie and assorted cats. If you have suggestions or questions for Mary, please contact her: maryc@holisticmanagement.org or 304/249-5999.

Registered Trademark

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or several years now, we have worked to receive a trademark for Holistic Management as it pertains to the Holistic Management® model and all the various

16 HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE #81

planning processes that are a part of the model.

We recently received word that we have now been registered both for Educational Services and Business Management Services.

This registration means that we can differentiate our product (the Holistic Management® model) from other management processes or educational services that have a holistic approach but are not based on the model. We hope this will help us maintain the integrity of Holistic Management and the services that we offer to others.

We ask all our members to remember that if you are writing about Holistic Management that you please capitalize it. You only use the ® symbol when Holistic Management is followed by a noun, like model or grazing planning (i.e.

Holistic Management® model). In doing so, you help educate others that Holistic Management is a specific process and you help the Savory Center protect our products and services.

under the Public Lands Partnership and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), U.S. Forest Service (USFS), and Department of Wildlife (DOW).

Initially, this alliance formed in response to the Colorado Department of Wildlife’s concern with the decline in mule deer population on the plateau. In working together, the group realized the need to take an ecosystem approach, work beyond agency boundaries and coordinate efforts to improve and sustain the overall health of the natural resources of the plateau. The heart of this effort is public support and input.

To that end, Daniela will work toward putting the necessary pieces together to gather and disseminate relevant information, educate interested and concerned individuals, and gain public input and feedback. The Holistic Management® decision-making framework is one component of that education.

This project is funded by the agencies involved and grants, including one from the Ford Foundation.

Uncompahgre Plateau Project

Holistic Management in Australia

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I

Management®

olistic Certified Educator Daniela Howell has been contracted as the Public Education coordinator for the Uncompahgre Plateau Project (UPP) a large ecosystem restoration project in Colorado aimed at addressing important economic and ecological issues and concerns. UPP is a collective effort between private individuals, the Delta, Montrose, Ouray and San Miguel county governments, citizens from the area represented

n Australia, the University of Sydney senate has just voted to offer Holistic Management as a core unit of study for a degree level course.

This change means that instead of being an elective out on its own, which students have to pay for additionally, Holistic Management is now part of the core curriculum that is covered by their yearly fees. The Holistic Management® curriculum will also be offered through other campuses of the University of Sydney.

Estate Gift

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he Savory Center has recently been made the sole beneficiary of the David B. West estate in Ozona, Texas.

David was a former Savory Center member who participated in several Holistic Management courses taught by Center founder Allan Savory in the mid to late 1980s, but had not been actively involved with the Center since that time. David passed away at his ranch in September at the age of 57.

The estate includes an 11,000-acre ranch near Ozona, personal belongings and stocks and cash. This is the largest single gift the Center has ever received, and we are overwhelmed by David’s David West generosity. We know members of his family and community will miss his presence.

David’s intent was that the ranch would be used as a Holistic Management training and research site, and we intend to honor his wish.

It will be some time before the estate is fully administered and actually passes to the Savory Center. We will keep you posted in IN PRACTICE and on the Savory Center’s electronic conference as we receive more information.

Western U.S. Training

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he Savory Center, working with Certified Educator Don Nelson of Washington State University, plans to hold a Western Region Holistic Management® Certified Educator (HMCE) Training Program and has applied to the Western Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) Professional Develop Program for funds to support agricultural professionals in this training.

We are currently seeking qualified applicants for this training program who may be eligible for SARE funding or through other avenues. f you know of anyone, please pass this information along. We will find out the decision to award SARE funds in May 2001.

Agencies and organizations supporting the

proposal submitted to SARE are: Cooperative Extension from the Universities of Alaska, Arizona, Montana State and Washington State; the California Association of Resource Conservation Districts; NRCS–California; NRCS–Maui, Hawaii; Wyoming Resource Conservation Districts; American Farmland Trust, CO; and the California Agricultural Leadership Program.

This first residency for this program is scheduled to begin in November 2002.

Applications are available on-line at www.holisticmanagement.org/wwo_certed.cfm.

If you have any suggestions, ideas or questions, please contact Don Nelson at 509/335-2922 or nelsond@wsu.edu; Kelly Pasztor at 505/842-5252 or kellyp@holisticmanagement.org; or

Mary Child at 304/249-5999 or maryc@holisticmanagement.org.

New Branch Efforts

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group of Holistic Management ® Certified Educators in California met recently to see what they could do to promote and support Holistic Management in their state. If you are interested in joining them and willing to commit energy to furthering this purpose, please email Christopher Peck at Ctopher@Holistic-Solutions.net or 800/736-7892.

In Arizona, Kelly Mulville is also looking to revitalize the Arizona Branch. If you are interested in helping with that effort, please contact him at: 520/558-2472 or kmulville@hotmail.com.

Readers Forum

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just received the #79 issue of IN PRACTICE. I would like to express my sincere thanks for your work. Every issue contains a new aspect of our life and work. I was very inspired by the micro-credit activities. Suddenly it dawned to me that I can do much more than I actually do to include Holistic Management in my work. Thanks again for being so committed on keeping all of us in touch with IN PRACTICE. Dieter Albrecht Berlin, Germany and Beijing, China

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t Colorado’s celebration on Healthy Land, Healthy People I realized how much I appreciate Allan Savory for always bringing me back to the fundamentals. I have a tendency to get my head in the clouds, get a little cocky and focus on big ideas while the fundamentals are crumbling beneath my feet.

Allan’s comments throughout the conference remind me how important it is to plan grazing, not to become complacent about partial rest, continue working on ways to improve herd effect, and that mantra—replan .

Once again I was reminded that “it is simple, but not easy” to manage holistically.

Another important fundamental is vocabulary. Allan reminded me that “We think in words.” It is important to plan grazing vs. rotate. It is important to say that Holistic Management is a process rather than a system.

If we are sloppy with the fundamentals, decisions are sloppy. It’s all about making decisions, and crisp fundamentals make crisp

decisions. Certified Educators and practitioners can put a lot more backbone in our efforts by remembering the fundamentals.

Thank you to the Colorado Branch for a great time, new ideas, companionship, and most importantly, remembered fundamentals.

Tony Malmberg Lander, W yoming

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ast spring I received a call from the Savory Center referring a consulting/training job to me. I called the potential client, sent a letter of what I would do, then arranged a time, place and fees. Upon completion of the course, my co-facilitator and I decided to donate 25 percent of our fee back to the Savory Center.

Later, I called Kelly Pasztor, Director of Educational Services, to see if the check had arrived. I was surprised to discover such a donation is not standard practice. My feeling is that if a job comes to me by way of the Center, I am indebted to them. I had assumed that everyone saw the necessity and importance of such contributions. What would we do if no jobs came to us?

Last summer, I brought the idea up at the Educators Alliance meeting at Chico Basin.

I felt that all of us would be honored to give back and I worked at getting the idea to others.

There was some discussion, the information made it to the minutes, but I do not recall a decision being made. Since the summer meeting I have heard no further discussion about this issue.

In the last issue of IN PRACTICE, I looked at

the pie charts and noticed that the Center is living in the red. I feel, as educators, our relationship with the Center should be a twoway street where the Center refers to us as educators and we give back to support their efforts to help others effectively manage our precious resources whilst making better decisions. In the meantime, the Center survives mostly on donated funds. It can also close due to lack of funds. Furthermore, by our gifts and contributions, the Center has a better chance at remaining viable. It just makes sense!

These contributions are tax deductible as you know; so instead of income we get to have a deduction on our taxes which results in lower taxes ultimately paid out. Last winter, when I finally got out of debt due to employment of the ideas and concepts in Holistic Financial Planning, I was also able to give a sizable contribution to the Center. From a tax standpoint, I needed that deduction since I no longer have a property payment and interest that is deductible. The way I see it is, I now get to support a non-profit of my choice rather than a financial institution.

I hope you will consider contributing back to the Savory Center so we may all continue to move forward with clarity, vision, and purpose!

As I look back on my life, thinking of the greater whole and how I have benefited as a result of being involved with Holistic Management, I realize that I have been especially blessed!

Kitty Boice Sonoita, Arizona

HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE • JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2002 17