What Could the Massacre of 40,000 Elephants Possibly Teach Us?
March 30, 2013
Story at-a-glance
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The conversion of large amounts of fertile land to desert
has long been thought to be caused by livestock, such as
sheep and cattle overgrazing and giving off methane. This
has now been shown to be incorrect, as removing animals to
protect land speeds up desertification
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Rising population, land turning into desert at a steady
clip, and climate change, converge to create a “perfect
storm” that threatens life on earth. According to an African
ecologist, dramatically increasing the number of grazing
livestock is the only thing that can reverse both
desertification and climate change
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Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), play a key role
in this impending disaster, as large-scale factory farms
also directly contribute to environmental pollution
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According to estimates, grazing large herds of livestock on
half of the world’s barren or semi-barren grasslands could
take enough carbon from the atmosphere to bring us back to
preindustrial levels
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A holistic management and planned grazing system has already
been implemented in select areas on five continents, with
dramatically positive results
By Dr. Mercola
In the TED Talk above, ecologist Allan Savory explains how
we’re currently encouraging desertification, and how to not only
stop it, but reverse it, by dramatically increasing the
number of grazing livestock.
According to Savory, rising population, land turning into
desert at a steady clip (known as desertification), converge to
create a “perfect storm” that threatens life on earth. Most
people think technology is required to solve the problem.
Not so, he says. While we do need novel technology to replace
fossil fuels, desertification cannot be reversed with
technology. For that, we need to revert backward, and start
mimicking nature and the way things were in the past.
How Grazing Livestock Impacts Our Land and Water
According to Savory, we not only can, but indeed MUST, use
grazing livestock to address desertification. In his talk, he
explains how we can work with nature, at very low cost,
to reverse both of these problems.
By some estimates, grazing large herds of livestock on half
of the world’s barren or semi-barren grasslands could take
enough carbon from the atmosphere to bring us back to
preindustrial levels.
“Nothing offers more hope,” he says.
Desertification happens when we create too much bare ground.
In areas where a high level of humidity is guaranteed,
desertification cannot occur. Ground cover allows for trapping
of water, preventing the water from evaporating. At present, a
staggering two-thirds of the landmass on earth is
desertifying. As explained by Savory, water and carbon
are tied to organic matter.
When you damage the soil, allowing it to turn into desert, it
gives off carbon. We’ve been repeatedly told that
desertification occurs only in arid or semi-arid areas, and that
tall grasslands in areas of high rain fall are of no
consequence. But this is not true, Savory says, because if you
inspect the ground in tall grasslands, it is bare and encrusted
with algae, which leads to runoff and evaporation.
“That is the cancer of desertification that we do not
recognize ‘til its terminal form,” he says.
Desertification has long been thought to be caused by
livestock, such as sheep and cattle overgrazing and giving off
methane. However, to quote Savory on the veracity of these
claims:
“We were once just as certain world was flat. We were
wrong then, and we’re wrong again.”
Lessons Learned from the Unnecessary Massacre of 40,000
Elephants
As a young biologist, Savory was involved in setting aside
large swaths of African land as future national parks. This
involved removing native tribes from the land to protect
animals. Interestingly, as soon as the natives were removed, the
land began to deteriorate.
At that point, he became convinced that there were too many
elephants, and a team of experts agreed with his theory, which
required the removal of elephants to a number they thought the
land could sustain. As a result, 40,000 elephants were
slaughtered in an effort to stop the damage to the national
parks.
Yet the land destruction got worse rather than
better... Savory calls the decision “the greatest blunder” of
his life. Fortunately, the utter failure cemented his
determination to dedicate his life to finding solutions. And
that, he has.
Areas of US national parks are now desertifying as badly as
areas in Africa, and studies have shown that whenever cattle are
removed from an area to protect it from desertification, the
opposite results — it gets worse. According to Savory, we
have completely misunderstood the causes of desertification.
We’ve also failed to understand how it affects our global
climate. He explains that barren earth is much cooler at dawn
and much hotter at midday. When land is left barren, it changes
the microclimate on that swath of land.
“Once you’ve done that to more than half of land mass
on planet, you’re changing macroclimate,”
he says.
We’ve failed to realize that in seasonal humidity
environments, the soil and vegetation developed with very large
numbers of grazing animals meandering through. Along with these
herds came ferocious pack hunting predators. The primary defense
against these predators was the herd size. The larger the herd,
the safer the individual animal within the herd. These large
herds deposited dung and urine all over the grasses (their
food), and so they would keep moving from one area to the next.
This constant movement of large herds naturally prevented
overgrazing of plants, while periodic trampling ensured
protective covering of the soil. As explained by Savory, grasses
must degrade biologically before the next growing season. This
easily occurs if the grass is trampled into the ground. If it
does not decay biologically, it shifts into oxidation — a very
slow process that results in bare soil, which then ends up
releasing carbon. To prevent this scenario, we’ve traditionally
used fire. But burning the ground also leaves soil bare
to release carbon. I
What Can Be Done to Keep Grasslands Healthy?
At present, we’re doing everything wrong: Reducing animal
numbers to rest the land actually causes
desertification — the very things we’re trying to combat. Ditto
for using fire. According to Savory, there is ONLY ONE OPTION.
We must use livestock, bunched in very large moving herds,
mimicking the way they used to roam when wild, or as they were
herded in our agricultural past.
He offers several before and after scenes in his lecture,
showing how allowing large herds to trample the area, covering
the soil with left-over vegetation, manure and urine, makes it
absorb and hold the seasonal rains. As a result, the soil stores
carbon and breaks down methane.
So, what we need is MORE moving, grazing animals, not less!
Savory has developed a holistic management and planned
grazing system which is now being implemented in select areas on
five continents. In one area, increasing grazing cattle numbers
by 400 percent, planning the grazing to mimic nature, and
integrating the cattle with local elephants, buffalo and
giraffes, has achieved remarkable results. I encourage you to
view the video, because seeing is believing. This technique is
literally turning desert into lush, highly productive
environments. In Patagonia, 25,000 sheep were put into a desert
area, and with planned grazing they increased production of the
land by 50 percent in one year.
How Federal Policy Contributes to the Problem
In the US, federal policy is presently worsening the
environmental concerns addressed by Savory in his talk. Corn and
soy — much of which are genetically engineered — are rapidly
overtaking native grasslands in a number of US states. A
consequence of this is that we also lose our ability to secure
our food supply long-term... As discussed in a recent Mother
Jones article,1
this conversion of grasslands to crop fields is the exact
opposite of what might be in our best interest.
“...to get ready for climate change, we should push
Midwestern farmers to switch a chunk of their corn land into
pasture for cows,” the featured article states.
“The idea came from a paper2
by University of Tennessee and Bard College researchers, who
calculated that such a move could suck up massive amounts of
carbon in soil — enough to reduce annual greenhouse gas
emissions from agriculture by 36 percent. In addition to the
CO2 reductions, you'd also get a bunch of high-quality,
grass-fed beef...Turns out the Midwest are doing just the
opposite.”
According to another recently published paper3
by South Dakota State University researchers, grasslands in the
Western corn belt, which includes North Dakota, South Dakota,
Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska, are being lost at a rate
"comparable to deforestation rates in Brazil, Malaysia, and
Indonesia." Between 2006 and 2011, nearly 2 million acres of
friendly native grasses have been lost to corn and soy — two of
the staples in processed foods that are driving chronic disease
rates in an ever steepening upward incline. The same thing is
happening in South America, where native forests are leveled in
order to plant soy.
The researchers claim the land being converted into corn and
soy fields is actually much better suited for grazing than crop
agriculture, as it is “characterized by high erosion risk and
vulnerability to drought." So why would farmers opt to use such
risky land for their crops? According to the featured article:
“Simple: Federal policy has made it a high-reward,
tiny-risk proposition. Prices for corn and soy doubled in
real terms between 2006 and 2011, the authors note, driven
up by
federal corn-ethanol mandates and relentless
Wall Street speculation.
Then there's federally subsidized crop insurance...
When farmers manage to tease a decent crop out of their
marginal land, they're rewarded with high prices for their
crop. But if the crop fails, subsidized insurance guarantees
a decent return. Essentially, federal farm policy, through
the ethanol mandate and the insurance program, is
underwriting the expansion of corn and soy agriculture at
precisely the time it should be shrinking.”
Current Agricultural System is Unsustainable, According to the
USDA
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) also recently
released a
report titled: "Climate Change and Agriculture in the United
States." According to the report, our current agricultural
system, which is dominated by corn and soy, is
unsustainable in the long term. Should temperatures
rise as predicted, the US could expect to see significant
declines in yields by the middle of this century.
Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) also play a key
role in this impending disaster. Gone are the days of large
grazing cattle herds.
Today, food animals are typically reared in cages and tightly
cramped quarters, and their feed consists of grains, primarily
genetically engineered corn and soy instead of grasses. These
animals are literally imprisoned and often tortured by
unhealthy, unsanitary and unconscionably cruel conditions. To
prevent the inevitable spread of disease from stress,
overcrowding and lack of vitamin D, animals are fed antibiotics
and other veterinary drugs. Those antibiotics pose a direct
threat to the environment when they run off into our lakes,
rivers, aquifers and drinking water, and drive the rise in
antibiotic-resistant disease in humans and animals.
According to Ronnie Cummins:
“CAFOs contribute directly to global warming4
by releasing vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere - more than the entire global transportation
industry. The air at some factory farm test sites in the US
is dirtier than in America’s most polluted cities, according
to the Environmental Integrity Project. According to a 2006
report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations (FAO), animal agriculture is responsible for
18 percent of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions,
including 37 percent of methane emissions and 65 percent of
nitrous oxide emissions. The methane releases from billions
of imprisoned animals on factory farms are 70 times more
damaging per ton to the earth’s atmosphere than CO2.
Indirectly, factory farms contribute to climate
disruption by their impact on deforestation and draining of
wetlands, and because of the nitrous oxide emissions from
huge amounts of pesticides used to grow the genetically
engineered corn and soy fed to animals raised in CAFOs.
Nitrous oxide pollution is even worse than methane – 200
times more damaging per ton than CO2. And just as animal
waste leaches antibiotics and hormones into ground and
water, pesticides and fertilizers also eventually find their
way into our waterways, further damaging the environment.”
What’s the alternative? Just as Savory discusses above, the
alternative to CAFO’s is a smaller-scale system created by
independent producers and processors focused on local and
regional markets. Following Savory’s strategy, large herds could
be moved across areas in planned grazing patterns, which would
be beneficial for the environment, the health of the animals,
and subsequently the health of humans consuming those animals.
Should We Label Factory-Farmed Food?
Some organic proponents are now proposing yet another label,
aside from labeling genetically engineered foods, and that is to
label foods produced by CAFO’s. A new alliance of organic and
natural health consumers, animal welfare advocates, anti-GMO and
climate-change activists has been created for this purpose. This
Truth-in-Labeling campaign5
will begin with a program to educate consumers about the
negative impacts of factory farming, and then move forward to
organize and mobilize millions of consumers to demand labels on
CAFO-produced animal products.
Opponents and skeptics will ask, “What about feeding
the world?” Contrary to popular arguments, factory farming
is not a cheap, efficient solution to world hunger,”
Cummins says. “Feeding huge numbers of confined animals
actually uses more food, in the form of grains that could
feed humans, than it produces. For every 100 food calories
of edible crops fed to livestock, we get back just 30
calories in the form of meat and dairy. That’s a 70-percent
loss. With the earth’s population predicted to reach nine
billion by mid-century, the planet can no longer afford this
reckless, unhealthy and environmentally disastrous farming
system.
We believe that once people know the whole truth
about CAFOs they will want to make healthier, more
sustainable food choices. And to do that, we’ll have to
fight for the consumer’s right to know not only what is in
our food, but where our food comes from.”
There’s no denying that rising population, rapid conversion
of fertile land to deserts is a serious threat to us all. And
technology in the form of ever larger-scale, industrial farming
methods simply isn’t the answer. It’s making it WORSE... I
believe Savory is correct when he says we have only ONE option,
and that is to revert back to what worked before. For now, you
can help move our agricultural system in the right direction by
purchasing your food from local farmers who are already doing
this on a small scale.
Keep Fighting for Labeling of Genetically Engineered Foods
While California Prop. 37 failed to pass last November, by a
very narrow margin, the fight for GMO labeling is far from over.
The field-of-play has now moved to the state of Washington,
where the people's initiative 522, "The People's Right to Know
Genetically Engineered Food Act," will require food sold in
retail outlets to be labeled if it contains genetically
engineered ingredients. As stated on LabelitWA.org:
"Calorie and nutritional information were not always
required on food labels. But since 1990 it has been required
and most consumers use this information every day.
Country-of-origin labeling wasn't required until 2002. The
trans fat content of foods didn't have to be labeled until
2006. Now, all of these labeling requirements are accepted
as important for consumers. The Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) also says we must know with labeling if our orange
juice is from fresh oranges or frozen concentrate.
Doesn't it make sense that genetically engineered
foods containing experimental viral, bacterial, insect,
plant or animal genes should be labeled, too? Genetically
engineered foods do not have to be tested for safety before
entering the market. No long-term human feeding studies have
been done. The research we have is raising serious questions
about the impact to human health and the environment.
I-522 provides the transparency people deserve. I-522
will not raise costs to consumers or food producers. It
simply would add more information to food labels, which
manufacturers change routinely anyway, all the time. I-522
does not impose any significant cost on our state. It does
not require the state to conduct label surveillance, or to
initiate or pursue enforcement. The state may choose to do
so, as a policy choice, but I-522 was written to avoid
raising costs to the state or consumers."
Remember, as with CA Prop. 37, they need support of people
like YOU to succeed. Prop. 37 failed with a very narrow margin
simply because we didn't have the funds to counter the massive
ad campaigns created by the No on 37 camp, led by Monsanto and
other major food companies. Let's not allow Monsanto and its
allies to confuse and mislead the people of Washington and
Vermont as they did in California. So please, I urge you to get
involved and help in any way you can, regardless of what state
you live in.
- No matter where you live in the United States, please
donate money to these labeling efforts through the
Organic
Consumers Fund.
- If you live in Washington State, please
sign
the I-522 petition. You can also
volunteer
to help gather signatures across the state.
- For timely updates on issues relating to these and other
labeling initiatives, please join the Organic Consumers
Association on
Facebook, or follow them on
Twitter.
- Talk to organic producers and stores and ask them to
actively support the Washington initiative.
© Copyright 1997-2013 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.
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