Grass and ground dwelling beetle community responses to holistic and wildlife grazing management using a cross-fence comparison in Western Kalahari rangeland, Namibia
Researchers compared the impact of Holistic Management to wildlife grazing on grass and ground-dwelling beetle species diversity on neighboring farms in Namibian rangeland, finding the holistically managed livestock operation demonstrated greater species richness and biodiversity for both vegetation and beetle populations.
Whole-System Approach Managing Grazing to Restore Soil Health and Farm Livelihoods
This paper is a literature review on the ecological impacts of grazing, and finds that where managed properly (employing a “whole-systems approach” and “adaptive, goal-directed grazing methods”) livestock are essential to ecosystem service sustainability and improvement. Soil organic matter increases were sufficient to yield a net sink of 2 tons of carbon per hectare per year.
A half-century of Holistic Management: what does the evidence reveal?
This comprehensive literature review describes the main tenets of HM and addresses the longstanding and unresolved controversy over its legitimacy. It additionally provides a meta-analysis that not only provides an up-to-date review of the multidisciplinary evidence and ongoing arguments about HM, but also provides a novel explanation for the controversy.
Biodiversity as an organizing principle in agroecosystem management: Case studies of holistic resource management practitioners in the USA
Twenty-five farmers and ranchers using Holistic Resource Management (HRM) were interviewed on the role of biodiversity in the sustainability of their operations. Since HRM began influencing their decisions, all of the interviewees reported positive changes in some of the ecosystem processes on their farms or ranches, 95% perceived increases in biodiversity (particularly with respect to plants), 80% perceived increase in profits from their land, and 91% reported improvements in their quality of life because of changes in their time budgets.
Improved Grazing Management Increases Terrestrial Invertebrate Inputs That Feed Trout in Wyoming Rangeland Streams
This paper shows that proper grazing management in riparian areas can have a beneficial impact on trout populations. The biomass of trout in areas under a type of grazing called “high-density short-duration” (HDSD) were twice that of those in similar areas under “season-long (SL)” grazing. The hypothesis is that increased riparian vegetation observed via HDSD grazing leads to greater insect populations (“terrestrial invertebrates”) that fall or crawl into the rivers and become a protein source (“input”) for trout consumption. Measurements are made of the riparian vegetation and trout biomass.
Steps toward Sustainable Ranching: An Emergy Evaluation of Conventional and Holistic Management in Chiapas, Mexico
Members of a holistic ranching ‘‘club” in the Frailesca region of Chiapas, Mexico have moved away from decades of conventional management by eliminating the use of burns and agrochemicals believed to decrease the biodiversity and forest cover of ranch lands, and by implementing sophisticated systems of rotational grazing and diversifying the use of trees. Holistic ranches were found to have double the “emergy” (embodied-energy or “energy memory”) sustainability index values of conventional ranches. The results from this study show that productivity can be maintained as the sustainability of rural dairy ranches is increased, and that local knowledge and understanding of the surrounding ecosystem can drive positive environmental change in production systems.
The Effect of Grazing Regime on Grassland Bird Abundance in New York State
This paper quantified and compared bird abundances on pastures that were subject to continuous grazing, minimal rotation, or Holistic Management. Holistic resource managed pastures had 1.5 and 4.5 times higher average abundances of obligate grassland birds than minimally rotated or continuously grazed pastures, respectively.
The role of ruminants in reducing agriculture’s carbon footprint in North America
This paper determined that properly-managed grazing, if applied on 25% of our crop and grasslands, would mitigate the entire carbon footprint of North American agriculture. Better management of cropping and grazing practices in North America could draw down and sequester in soil 1.2 gigatons of carbon annually, equivalent to about 10% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
