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Almost half of the world’s surface is grassland. These vast ecosystems comprise 80 percent of the agricultural land and support more than 1 billion people globally.

Yet, they are threatened by mismanagement, desertification, and conversion to cropland. They are among the most endangered ecosystems on Earth.

Why Regenerate The World’s Grassland?

Grasslands are found on every continent except Antarctica. They comprise 30-40 percent of the world’s land and account for 30 percent of global terrestrial carbon storage, much of which occurs below ground, making them more secure than forests.

Not All Grasslands Are Equal

Despite being called grasslands, these ecosystems contain immense diversity. They are typically categorized as temperate or tropical grasslands. The most significant difference between them is the amount of rainfall and seasonality.

Tropical grasslands have dry and wet seasons that remain warm all the time. Temperate grasslands have cold winters and warm summers with some rain. These variables affect how quickly plants can recover from grazing and fires. Evolutionarily, these pressures shaped the flora and fauna that call these diverse biomes home.

Temperate grasslands have created some of the most fertile soils in the world. They have slowly become the “breadbaskets” of the world from which we depend.

Conversion to Crops Across North America

Across the Great Plains of the United States, 40 percent of shortgrass and 99 percent of tallgrass prairie have been converted to cropland.

Luckily, the largest intact grasslands in the world still remain, mainly because the sandy soils have not allowed for easy crop conversion. 

Four main crops accounted for that conversion: wheat (37%), corn (11%), canola (11%), and soy (9%). These crops have decimated soil structure due to tilling, disrupted nutrient cycles by exposing soils and removing the armor of grasses, and decreased the ability to absorb water and let it infiltrate deep into the soil profile.

They have provided humanity with many calories, but at what cost?

What’s At Stake? What Do We Do?

Grasslands are being lost and degraded every single year.

Across the United States and Canadian Great Plains, around 2 million acres are converted to cropland annually, and the trend shows no signs of slowing down.

Droughts amplified by climate change are heavily impacting grasslands worldwide. These losses have cascading negative impacts, such as increased carbon emissions, loss of biodiversity, dehydration of landscapes, and loss of fertile soils through erosion.

But our fate is not sealed, thanks to the dedication to the team at Savory Institute and the vision of Allan Savory, against immense opposition, has found a solution.

Large-Scale Grassland Regeneration

Savory Foundation’s Catalytic Mission

The Savory Institute has created an ecosystem of initiatives to restore and regenerate the world’s grasslands. One of their initiatives “attracts and deploys mission-aligned capital into large-scale projects to catalyze global transformation at the intersection of finance, climate resilience, and regenerative agriculture.“

These projects are typically multi-year, multi-million dollar investments and landscape-level deployments of between 500k and 1m hectares. The main objective is to bring producers in the area together to be trained in Holistic Management, implement support for Holistic Planned Grazing, and establish Ecological Outcome Verification (EOV) baselines for ongoing ecological monitoring.

The large-scale nature of these projects allows entire communities and regions to be equipped and empowered with the knowledge to regenerate the land they steward.

Introducing Holistic Management

When dealing with nature, we never have the full picture. Humans have immediate needs and desires, which can derail our long-term endeavors, especially regarding ecological management and regeneration.

Thus, Allan Savory, with the inspiration of others, developed Holistic Management.

A Decision-Making Framework for Regeneration

The power to regenerate lands and the livelihoods of those who depend on them lies not in simply adjusting practices. We must reimagine how we manage the ecological, financial, and social dynamics that make up our everyday lives.

Holistic Management is more than a grazing system. It is a decision-making framework amidst the ever-changing conditions of the living world, including the financial and social realities we all face.

It helps align decision-makers toward a “North Star”, ensuring that all actions and choices move stewards in the right direction, ecologically, socially, and financially.

Planning Procedures of Holistic Management

These four planning procedures help farmers, ranchers, and pastoralists make critical decisions confidently, balancing the ecological and financial realities they face.

1) Planned Grazing

Every piece of land is unique, and planning your grazing ahead of time can ensure that your animals are in the right place at the right time, making the right impacts on the land. This ensures that livestock's impact creates a regenerative effect while mitigating the downsides of overgrazing or undergrazing.

This doesn’t have to be a rigid strategy, as nature is dynamic, but it gives land stewards the framework to be proactive instead of reactive and passive in their decision-making.

2) Financial Planning

Financial realities are often tight for farmers, ranchers, and pastoralists worldwide. A simple, cash-based planning procedure that allows them to be profitable while maintaining the quality of life they desire and that the land allows.

3) Land Planning

Infrastructure like watering points and fencing ensures that short-term actions align with a long-term vision of regeneration. As stewards of the land, necessary infrastructure needs to be developed to ensure the safety of the livestock and caretakers.

4) Ecological Monitoring

Monitoring ecological changes from year to year is crucial to ensuring that planned grazing and land planning result in land regeneration. An existing and proven methodology ensures that baseline ecological health is established and changes can be compared over time. Short—and long-term indicators are considered, creating feedback loops for the other decision-making procedures.

The Delicate Balance of Grassland Health

Allan Savory discovered four key patterns that keep grasslands in dynamic equilibrium. These key insights are critical to understanding how and why Holistic Management works and what it truly takes to regenerate grasslands.

Brittleness Scale

A scale from 1 to 10 describes moisture availability across the calendar year and, thus, how plants can decay (or not) during a landscape's growing and dormant seasons. This helps stewards read the landscape more clearly and understand how their management impacts will ripple throughout the season.

Nature Functions in Wholes

Nature doesn’t function at the plant or animal population level, but synergistically at the level of whole biological communities, which management should never lose sight of. Grasslands are complex and full of dynamic relationships that rely on each other.

Predator-Prey Connection

The co-evolved relationship between herding animals and pack-hunting predators shows how livestock behavior changes when grouped in herds. This allows for proper grass trampling, forage utilization, breaking up of capped soils, and movement to fresh pasture. This differs vastly from conventional livestock management, which lets the animals roam freely and graze unevenly across the landscape.

Plant and Soil Recovery Time

Overgrazing and trampling are commonly believed to be caused by too many animals, but they are a function of time—not numbers. Plants and soils aren't damaged when exposed to animals for short periods followed by longer periods that allow full recovery. The balance between animal impact and resting the land is crucial to grassland health.

Support Regeneration By Voting With Your Dollar

The Savory Institute has developed Ecological Outcomes Verification (EOV), which producers use to verify their regeneration claims. It helps their partner program, Land to Market, connect brands and consumers to farming that regenerates the environment. Look for the Land to Market badge on products next time you are grocery shopping. They have more than 1,000 products and 100 brands that are regenerating more than 6 million acres globally.

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