Describe the critical need your solution addresses.

Viewed holistically biodiversity loss/desertification/climate change are one issue not three. Without reversing desertification, climate change cannot be adequately addressed. This project has demonstrated that livestock can reverse desertification, even during droughts, over the largest areas of the Earth’s land – the grasslands and savannas.

Explain your initiative in more depth and its stage of development.

Our work established a previously unsuspected cause of desertification – that humans of all ages and cultures make decisions using the same core decision framework. Flaws in this universal framework made world-wide desertification inevitable. Modifications, explained in "Holistic Management" A New Framework for Decision Making" Savory & Butterfield Second Edition 1999, Island Press, make reversing desertification possible.
This work, begun in the early 60s gave erratic results. Since 1984 when the decision-making piece of the puzzle fell into place, as long as the process is followed results in restored grasslands have been consistent and can be guaranteed.
In this particular project ACHM has demonstrated on 6500 acres of grasslands in Zimbabwe the process of reversing desertification. Livestock have increased 400% using holistic planned grazing and we now enjoy open water, water lilies and fish a kilometer above where water has been known before in the dry season. The livestock are integrated with Africa’s big game avoiding competition and wildlife are on the increase. Currently, we can barely keep pace with grass growth even in dry years. This is greatly influencing scientists, NGO’s and pastoralists from all over Africa.

How does your strategy and approach respond creatively and comprehensively to key issues?

Many of Africa’s gravest problems stem directly from environmental degradation – soil erosion, decreased land productivity, increased droughts, floods, food insecurity, social breakdown and violence rising. Holistic Management addresses the root cause of environmental degradation – how humans (at the level of individual to NGO projects to government policies) make the decisions that produce such results.
Reductionist science and management fails to deal with complexity and has long held that desertification in Africa is due to overstocking, communal land tenure, overpopulation and poverty. Billions of dollars have, thus, been spent forcing people to destock, settle, and move away from livestock-based livelihoods. The environmental deterioration has not gotten better but worse. By looking at desertification through the new holistic framework, our project has changed the human management of the livestock to mimic the behavior of the once vast herds of grazing animals and predators that produced Africa’s extensive, abundant savannah’s. The result has been increased land productivity, increased water availability, increased wildlife and improved livelihoods for those who depend on the land.