How to Reverse Climate Change through Regenerative Organic Farming and Ranching: A Bibligraphy

Videos, websites, books and papers addressing a wide variety of issues in biodiversity, eco-restoration and holistic management of grasslands. Those particularly helpful for people new to various aspects of this discussion are marked with an...

August 1, 2014 | Source: Biodiversity for a Livable Climate | by

For related articles and information, please visit OCA’s Environment and Climate Resource Centers page and our Organic Transitions page.

Videos

Holistic Management

*Allan Savory’s e-book,
The Grazing Revolution: A Radical Plan to Save the Earth
, December 2013, telling the personal story of his long journey of discovery in managing holistically and restoring degrade lands worldwide, with lucid explanations of how it all works (only $1.99!). 

*Allan Savory’s milestone 2013 TED Talk, How to fight desertification and reverse climate change, addresses the “Perfect Storm” of the current global climate crisis by promoting a solution to the complex and widespread desertification problem: holistic land management and planned grazing. Using examples of soil regeneration in areas such as Zimbabwe and Patagonia, Savory illustrates how planned livestock grazing can profoundly restore barren desertified land to a lush, healthy grassland. Restoring grasslands in desertified areas across the earth has enormous potential to sequester atmospheric greenhouse gases and can play a major role in reversing the climate change trends. 

*Seth Itzkan’s 2012 TEDx talk, Reversing global warming with livestock?  Sharing his experiences at the Africa Center for Holistic Management in Zimbabwe, Advisory Board member Seth Itzkan describes the central role of animal grazing as a part of a healthy grassland ecosystem. By mimicking the patterns of mobile wild herds with livestock, we can-and already have-restore grasslands in desertified areas of the globe, allowing the land to store more carbon and water. By revitalizing the health of the water-carbon cycle with planned grazing, we can mitigate warming trends in some of the most vulnerable areas of the globe. 

*Savory Institute brief animated intro, Holistic Planned Grazing 

*Darren Doherty, End Global Warming 

Greg Judy, “The Healing Effects of Holistic High Density Grazing on Land, Livestock & People’s Lives” 12th Annual Virginia Biological Farming Conference, 2011, 

Allan Savory, “Keeping Cattle: cause or cure for climate crisis?“, Feasta Lecture, Ireland, 2009, 

*Don Nelson, Maurice Robinette, others, “Beefing Up the Palouse” 

*Peter Byck on Bill Maher, 4/12/13.  While the game might be over for reducing carbon emissions enough to achieve safe atmospheric levels, in this brief interview Carbon Nation filmmaker Peter Byck assures TV host Bill Maher that there is a way to draw carbon out of the atmosphere right now: strategic livestock grazing. By working with cattle and other land grazing species to replenish degraded land, we can capture enough carbon to restore the planet and mitigate climate change. 

*Prince Charles’ endorsement of Allan Savory, 2012.  Brief and eloquent advocacy of Allan’s work. 

*Holistic Management at Work 

*Dan Dagget, The Right Way to be Green, a five-minute silent slideshow with text and stunning before and after photographs of “rested” and damaged bare land, returned to life using Holistic Planned Grazing. 

*Peter Byck, Soil Carbon Cowboys, a wonderful 12-minute video interviewing three farmers who discovered the profound difference that holistic planned grazing makes for their land, their lives, and the health of the planet. 

Congressional hearing, June 25, 2014, by the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation, Increasing Soil Carbon on Public Lands (testimony actually starts at 30:07).   Biodiversity for a Livable Climate and our paper, Restoring Carbon Dioxide to Pre-Industrial Levels: Re-Establishing the Evolutionary Grassland-Grazer Relationship, are mentioned by name.  Written testimony is also available: Ms. Tommie Martin, Supervisor, Gila County, AZ; Mr. Steven H. Rich, Salt Lake City, UT; Dr. Richard Teague, Texas AgriLife Research, Vernon, TX; Mr. John Wick, Co-Founder, Marin Carbon Project, Palo Alto, CA.