How can cattle help us fight back desertification?

In this informative TED talk, biologist and environmentalist Allan Savory talks about the need to mimic nature – by using livestock. Challenging the belief that cattle grazing causes desertification, he claims we can even reduce atmospheric carbon levels to that of pre-industrialization era by the means of Holistic management.

Allan begins with ‘perfect storm’ bearing down upon us in the form of climate change and rejects the notion that technology alone will help eradicate it. He points out that it can only solve problem of fossil fuels, whereas burning fossils is not the only cause of climate change. Furthering to desertification, he reminds us that about 2/3 of world’s area is desertifying and how accelerating desertification can be stopped, and how degraded lands can be reclaimed by adopting holistic management.

On TED.com

Featured image: Cattle concentrated around a waterhole near Bamako, Mali, Africa. (Credit: Manfred Schweda)