Allan Savory: How to green the world's deserts and reverse climate change

"Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert," begins Allan Savory in this quietly powerful talk. And terrifyingly, it's happening to about two-thirds of the world's grasslands, accelerating climate change and causing traditional grazing societies to descend into social chaos. Savory has devoted his life to stopping it. He now believes -- and his work so far shows -- that a surprising factor can protect grasslands and even reclaim degraded land that was once desert.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.
Find closed captions and translated subtitles in many languages at http://www.ted.com/translate

Follow TED news on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tednews
Like TED on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TED

Subscribe to our channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TEDtalksDirector

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[APPLAUSE]

ALLAN SAVORY: The
most massive tsunami

perfect storm is
bearing down upon us.

This perfect storm is mounting a
grim reality, increasingly grim

reality.

And we are facing that
reality with a full belief

that we can solve our
problems with technology,

and that's very understandable.

Now this perfect storm
that we are facing

is the result of our
rising population, rising

towards 10 billion people,
land that is turning to desert,

and of course, climate change.

Now there's no question
about it at all.

We will only solve the
problem of replacing

fossil fuels with technology.

But fossil fuels-- carbon,
coal, and gas-- are by no means

the only thing that is
causing climate change.

Desertification is a
fancy word for land

that is turning to desert,
and this happens only when

we create too much bare ground.

There's no other cause.

And I intend to focus on
most of the world's land

that is turning to desert.

But I have for you a
very simple message

that offers more hope
than you can imagine.

We have environments
where humidity is

guaranteed throughout the year.

On those, it is
almost impossible

to create vast areas of bare
ground, no matter what you do.

Nature covers it up so quickly.

And we have
environments where we

have months of humidity
followed by months of dryness,

and that is where
desertification is occurring.

Fortunately, with
space technology

now, we can look
at it from space.

And when we do, you can see
the proportions fairly well.

Generally, what you see in
green is not desertifying,

and what you see in brown is.

And these are by far the
greatest areas of the Earth.

About 2/3, I would guess, of
the world is desertifying.

I took this picture
in the Tihamah Desert

while 25 millimeters-- that's
an inch of rain-- was falling.

Think of it in terms
of drums of water,

each containing 200 liters.

Over 1,000 drums of water
fell on every hectare

of that land that day.

The next day, the
land looked like this.

Where had that water gone?

Some of it ran off as flooding.

But most of the water
that soaked into the soil

simply evaporated
out again, exactly

as it does in your garden if
you leave the soil uncovered.

Now because the fate
of water and carbon

are tied to soil organic
matter, when we damage soils,

you give off carbon.

Carbon goes back
to the atmosphere.

Now you are told over
and over, repeatedly,

that desertification
is only occurring

in arid and semi-arid
areas of the world,

and that tall grasslands like
this one, in high rainfall,

are of no consequence.

But if you do not
look at grasslands

but look down into
them, you find

that most of the soil in that
grassland that you've just seen

is bare and covered
with a crust of algae,

leading to increased
runoff and evaporation.

That is the cancer
of desertification

that we do not recognize
till its terminal form.

Now we know that desertification
is caused by livestock, mostly

cattle, sheep, and goats
over-grazing the plants,

leaving the soil bare,
and giving off methane.

Almost everybody knows
this from Nobel laureates

to golf caddies, or was
taught it, as I was.

Now the environments like you
see here, dusty environments

in Africa where I grew
up-- and I loved wildlife.

And so I grew up hating
livestock because of the damage

they were doing.

And then my university
education as an ecologist

reinforced my beliefs.

Well, I have news for you.

We were once just as certain
that the world was flat.

We were wrong then,
and we are wrong again.

And I want to invite
you now to come along

on my journey of
re-education and discovery.

When I was a young man, a
young biologist in Africa,

I was involved in setting
aside marvelous areas

as future national parks.

Now no sooner--
this was the 1950s--

and no sooner did we
remove the hunting,

drum beating people to protect
the animals than the land began

to deteriorate, as you see
in this part that we formed.

Now no livestock were involved.

But suspecting that we
had too many elephants

now, I did the research, and
I proved we had too many.

And I recommended that we would
have to reduce their numbers

and bring them down to a level
that the land could sustain.

Now that was a terrible
decision for me to have to make,

and it was political
dynamite, frankly.

So our government
formed a team of experts

to evaluate my research.

They did.

They agreed with me.

And over the following years,
we shot 40,000 elephants

to try to stop the damage.

And it got worse, not better.

Loving elephants as I do, that
was the saddest and greatest

blunder of my life, and I
will carry that to my grave.

One good thing did
come out of it.

It made me absolutely
determined to devote

my life to finding solutions.

When I came to
the United States,

I got a shock to find
national parks like this one

desertifying as badly
as anything in Africa.

And there'd been no livestock
on this land for over 70 years.

And I found that
American scientists

had no explanation for
this except that it

is arid and natural.

So I then began looking
at all the research

plots I could over the whole
of the western United States

where cattle had been
removed to prove that it

would stop desertification.

But I found the opposite.

As we see on this
research station

where this grassland that
was green in 1961, by 2002

had changed to that situation.

And the authors of the
position paper on climate

change from which I obtained
these pictures attribute

this change to
unknown processes.

Clearly, we have
never understood

what is causing
desertification, which

has destroyed many civilizations
and now threatens us globally.

We have never understood it.

Take one square meter
of soil and make it bare

like this is down here,
and I promise you,

you will find it much colder at
dawn and much hotter at midday

than that same piece of
ground, if it's just covered

with litter, plant litter.

You have changed
the microclimate.

Now by the time you are doing
that and increasing greatly

the percentage of bare ground
on more than half the world's

land, you are
changing macroclimate.

But we have just
simply not understood,

why was it beginning to
happen 10,000 years ago?

Why has it accelerated lately?

We had no understanding of that.

What we had failed
to understand was

that the seasonal
humidity environments

of the world, the soil
and the vegetation,

developed with very large
numbers of grazing animals,

and that these grazing
animals developed

with ferocious
pack-hunting predators.

Now their main defense
against pack-hunting predators

is to get into herds.

And the larger the herd,
the safer the individuals.

Now large herds dung and
urinate all over their own food,

and they have to keep moving.

And it was that movement that
prevented the overgrazing

of plants, while the
periodic trampling ensured

good cover of the soil, as we
see where a herd has passed.

This picture is a typical
seasonal grassland.

It has just come through
four months of rain,

and it's now going into
eight months of dry season.

And watch the change as it
goes into this long dry season.

Now all of that grass
you see above ground

has to decay biologically
before the next growing season.

And if it doesn't, the grassland
and the soil begin to die.

Now if it does not
decay biologically,

it shifts to oxidation,
which is a very slow process,

and this smothers and kills
grasses, leading to a shift

to woody vegetation and
bare soil releasing carbon.

To prevent that, we have
traditionally used fire.

But fire also leaves the
soil bare, releasing carbon.

And worse than that, burning
one hectare of grassland

gives off more and more damaging
pollutants than 6,000 cars.

And we are burning in
Africa, every single year,

more than one billion
hectares of grasslands,

and almost nobody
is talking about it.

We justify the
burning as scientists

because it does remove
the dead material,

and it allows the
plants to grow.

Now looking at this grassland
of ours that has gone dry,

what can we do to
keep that healthy?

And bear in mind, I'm talking
of most of the world's land now?

We cannot reduce animal numbers
to rest it more without causing

desertification
and climate change.

We cannot burn it without
causing desertification

and climate change.

What are we going to do?

There is only one option.

I repeat to you, only one
option left to climatologists

and scientists, and that
is to do the unthinkable,

and to use livestock,
bunched and moving,

as a proxy for former herds
and predators and mimic nature.

There is no other
alternative left to mankind.

So let's do that.

So on this bit of
grassland, we'll

do it, but just
in the foreground.

We'll impact it very heavily
with cattle to mimic nature,

and we've done so,
and look at that.

All of that grass is
now covering the soil

as dung, urine, and
litter or mulch,

as every one of the gardeners
amongst you would understand,

and that soil is ready to
absorb and hold the rain,

to store carbon, and
to break down methane.

And we did that without using
fire to damage the soil,

and the plants are free to grow.

When I first realized that we
had no option as scientists

but to use much vilified
livestock to address climate

change and desertification, I
was faced with a real dilemma.

How were we to do it?

We'd had 10,000 years of
extremely knowledgeable

pastoralists, bunching
and moving their animals.

But they had created the great
man-made deserts of the world.

Then we'd had 100 years
of modern range science,

and that had accelerated
desertification

as we first discovered in
Africa and then confirmed

in the United States,
and as you see

in this picture of land managed
by the federal government.

Clearly, more was needed
than bunching and moving

the animals.

And humans, over
thousands of years,

had never been able to deal
with nature's complexity.

But we biologists and
ecologists had never

tackled anything
as complex as this.

So rather than
reinvent the wheel,

I began studying
other professions

to see if anybody had.

And I found they we're
planning techniques

that I could take and adapt
to our biological need.

And from those, I
developed what we

call holistic management and
planned grazing, a planning

process.

And that does address all
of nature's complexity

and our social, environmental,
economic complexity.

Today, we have a young woman
like this one teaching villages

in Africa how to put
their animals together

into larger herds, plan their
grazing, to mimic nature.

And where we have them hold
their animals overnight--

we run them in a
predator-friendly manner,

because we have a lot
of lands, and so on--

and where they do this
and hold them overnight

to prepare the
crop fields, we're

getting very great increases
in crop yield as well.

Let's look at some results.

This is land close to land
that we manage in Zimbabwe.

It has just come
through four months

of very good rains
it got that year,

and it's going into
the long dry season.

But as you can see, all of
that rain, almost all of it,

has evaporated from
the soil surface.

The river is dry, despite
the rain just having ended,

and we have 150,000 people
on almost permanent food aid.

Now let's go to our land
nearby on the same day

with the s rainfall
and look at that.

Our river is flowing
and healthy and clean.

It's fine.

The production of grass, shrubs,
trees, wildlife, everything

is now more productive.

And we have virtually
no fear of dry years.

And we did that by increasing
the cattle and goats 400%,

planning the grazing to mimic
nature and integrate them

with all the elephants, buffalo,
giraffe, and other animals

that we have.

But before we began, our
land looked like that.

This site was bare and eroding
for over 30 years, regardless

of what rain we got.

Watch the marked tree and see
the change as we used livestock

to mimic nature.

This was another site where
it had been bare and eroding,

and at the base of
the marked small tree,

we had lost over 30
centimeters of soil.

And again, watch the
change just using livestock

to mimic nature.

And there are
fallen trees in that

now, because the better
land is now attracting

elephants, et cetera.

This land in Mexico was
in terrible condition.

And I've had to mark the
hill because the change

is so profound.

[APPLAUSE]

I began helping a family in
the Karoo desert in the 1970s

turn the desert that
you see on the right

there back to grassland.

And thankfully, now
their grandchildren

are on the land with
hope for the future.

And look at the amazing
change in this one

where that gully has
completely healed using nothing

but livestock mimicking nature.

And once more, we have
the third generation

of that family on that land
with their flag still flying.

The vast grasslands of
Patagonia are turning to desert,

as you see here.

The man in the middle is
an Argentinean researcher,

and he has documented
the steady decline

of that land over the
years as they kept

reducing the sheep numbers.

They put 25,000
sheep in one flock,

really mimicking nature
now with planned grazing.

And they have documented
a 50% increase

in the production of the
land in the first year.

We now have in the violent
Horn of Africa pastoralists

planning their grazing
to mimic nature,

and openly saying it
is the only hope they

have of saving their families
and saving their culture.

95% of that land can only
feed people from animals.

I remind you that I am talking
about most of the world's land

here that controls
our fate, including

the most violent region of the
world where only animals can

feed people from
about 95% of the land.

What we are doing globally
is causing climate change

as much as, I believe,
fossil fuels, and maybe

more than fossil fuels.

But worse than that, it is
causing hunger, poverty,

violence, social
breakdown, and war.

And as I am talking
to you, millions

of men, women, and children
are suffering and dying.

And if this continues,
we are unlikely to be

able to stop the
climate changing,

even after we have eliminated
the use of fossil fuels.

I believe I've shown you how
we can work with nature at very

low cost to reverse all this.

We are already doing so on
about 15 million hectares

on five continents.

And people who understand far
more about carbon than I do

calculate that for
illustrative purposes,

if we do what I'm
showing you here,

we can take enough carbon
out of the atmosphere

and safely store it in the
grassland soils for thousands

of years.

And if we just do that on about
half the world's grasslands

that I've shown
you, we can take us

back to pre-industrial
levels while feeding people.

I can think of
almost nothing that

offers more hope for our
planet, for your children

and their children,
and all of humanity.

Thank you.

[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]

Thank you, Chris.

Thank you.

CHRIS: Thank you.

I have-- and I'm sure everyone
here has, A, 100 questions, B,

wants to hug you.

[LAUGHTER]

I'm just going to ask
you one quick question.

When you first start this, you
bring in a flock of animals.

It's desert.

What do they eat?

How does that part work?

How do you start?

ALLAN SAVORY: Well, we've
done this for a long time,

and the only time we have
ever had to provide any food

is doing mine reclamation
where it's 100% bare.

But many years ago, we took
the worst land in Zimbabwe

where I offered a five-pound
note in a 100-mile drive

if somebody could find one
grass in a 100-mile drive.

And on that, we'd trebled
the stocking rate, the number

of animals, in the first
year with no feeding,

just by the movement
mimicking nature and using

a sigmoid curve, that principle.

It's a little bit
technical to explain here.

CHRIS: Well, I would
love t-- I mean,

this is such an interesting
and important idea.

The best people s our blog are
going to come and talk to you,

and I want to get more on
this that we can share, along

with the talk.

That is an astonishing talk.

Truly an astonishing talk.

And I think you
heard that we all

are cheering you on your way.

Thank you so much.

ALLAN SAVORY: Well, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chris.

[APPLAUSE]

[MUSIC PLAYING]