Allan Savory
(Clifford) Allan Redin Savory (born 15 September 1935) is a Zimbabwean ecologist, farmer, soldier, exile, environmentalist, international consultant, and president and co-founder of The Savory Institute. He originated holistic management, a systems thinking approach to managing resources. Once a staunch opponent of livestock, Savory would come to favor using properly managed livestock, bunched and moving to mimic nature, as a means to heal the environment, stating "only livestock can reverse desertification. There is no other known tool available to humans with which to address desertification that is contributing not only to climate change but also to much of the poverty, emigration, violence, etc. in the seriously affected regions of the world." "Only livestock can save us." He believes grasslands hold the potential to sequester enough atmospheric carbon dioxide to reverse climate change. Praised by supporters as genius, prophet and visionary, his controversial ideas have sparked fierce opposition from academics, environmentalists, and vegans. Yet his radical approach is gaining ground, with new converts and investors, and total grassland under holistic management topping 40 million acres worldwide. Savory received the 2003 Banksia International Award and won the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge. Prince Charles called him "a remarkable man" and Joel Salatin, dubbed by the New York Times as "Virginia's most multifaceted agrarian since Thomas Jefferson," wrote, “History will vindicate Allan Savory as one of the greatest ecologists of all time.”