Grasslands to Gold: Discover Our Journey of Land Restoration!
"Regenerating Our Future: Stories from Dimbangombe – Newsletter 2"
Dear Friends of ACHM,
Welcome back to "Regenerating Our Future: Stories from Dimbangombe." In the first of the series, we introduced you to the transformative power of managing your community and environment Holistically. Today, we are excited to dive deeper into one of our most significant achievements: the restoration of our degraded grasslands.
In this issue, we’ll explore three key land management processes: two that we actively embrace and one that we generally do not recommend.
Holistic Planned Grazing (HPG)
At Dimbangombe Conservancy, Holistic Planned Grazing (HPG) is at the heart of our land restoration efforts. Planning our grazing involves managing livestock movements to mimic the natural grazing patterns of wild herbivores. By using the Holistic Planned Grazing Process we can plan to have the herd in the right places at the right time, crucially with the right behaviours to regenerate our land
Planning the grazing using this process enhances soil health, promotes biodiversity, and ensures that the land remains productive and resilient. This process allows us to restore degraded areas effectively and sustainably.
Herding as Opposed to Fences
The word holistic in the planning process involves ensuring all management actions are socially, economically and environmentally sound both short and long term. In our case because the overall biodiversity is crucial and we are managing giraffe, elephants, lions, buffalo, sable, kudu, impala and many other species fencing would be destructive. In addition, we need a behavioural change in the cattle that fencing to concentrate them does not produce, we use skilled herders to handle the habitat management cattle herd. This method ensures critical outcomes … the soil remains covered, reducing erosion and enhancing water infiltration. It also helps us to keep the animals fit and healthy, allowing us to control the pace and resultant physical stresses on the animals
Our herders are trained to observe the land and livestock closely, adjusting their techniques to maintain balance and health in the ecosystem. This approach not only improves land health but also provides valuable employment and skill development opportunities for local communities.
The subject of fences is a hot topic in this part of the world, and on the subject we’d love to introduce you to the upcoming work of one of our strong supporters, Sanjay Soekhoe, from the Netherlands who is developing a documentary on the subject called ‘Beyond the Fence’, a dive into the horrid destruction of the natural environments which fences cause
Fire as a Management Tool
For over fifty thousand years humans have only had one tool with which to manage our environment at large and that is fire, once we learned to make it. Naturally now using fire is ingrained in our culture. Like much of the world we receive rainfall only over a few months and tragically two things lead in our seasonal rainfall environment to a high percentage of bare soil between plants and thus less effective rainfall, man-made droughts and floods. Those two things are fire and too few large herding grazing animals. Deliberate use of fire always produces the desired immediate effect, but so too does it do long term damage reducing the productivity of the land.
Grasslands in our region have become fire-dependent rather than grazing-dependent, which is contrary to their natural evolution with grazing herbivores. Historically, natural fires were rare, occurring primarily during the first electric storm of the season, followed by rain.
The critical aspect to consider is soil biology. The most life in the soil profile exists in the top 5 cm, which is also the part most affected by fire. Instead of using fire, we focus on restoring the natural relationship between grazers and grasslands through Holistic Planned Grazing. This approach enhances soil health, increases biodiversity, and reduces the need for fire as a management tool. However, we acknowledge that fire may have limited use in certain specific contexts.
Below are some photos, and commentary on what we are seeing by Etienne Oosthuizen recently when we had a fire through the conservancy:
An unplanned Fire is a major ecological event, that would need to be part of out Grazing planning as we move forward. After our unplanned fires from the last few months the short term effects has been an influx of wildlife (image 2) with this being positive from the conventional view point. However once we start monitoring the ripple effects (image 3 and 4), the grass is being subjected to increased animal impact and over grazing. In areas where there is currently no soil moisture, there has been no growth of grass (image 5&6). If our first rains is a heavy downpour we may loose some valuable topsoil. Image 7 highlights how effective trampled grass (mulch) would be to protecting against individual raindrops making contact with the soil, while still allowing new growth to grow. This often being the motivational reason to burn. Fire as a landscape tool really needs to be understood and well managed to be regenerative, in our holistic context the applications would be very few, these recent unplanned fires have highlighted this even more. #holisticmanagement, #holisticplannedgrazing (images @etienne_oosthuizen)
Visual Transformations and Success Stories
The impact of the Holistic Planned Grazing process HPG and strategic herding on our land has been nothing short of remarkable. Areas that were once dusty and lifeless are now lush and green.
We've included a video to showcase these dramatic transformations. The visual evidence of our success is inspiring and a testament to the power of Holistic Planned Grazing and herding techniques.
One local herder shared, "By herding from the front so the cattle graze to water and don’t walk to water, and planning the grazing using the grazing chart, we can see the land coming back to life. The soil is richer, the grass is healthier, and our livestock thrive."
Community Impact
Restored grasslands do more than just improve the environment; they enhance livelihoods. Healthy grasslands support more productive farming, leading to increased food security and income for local families. Through our education and training programs, we empower more farmers to adopt these regenerative practices, spreading the benefits across the region.
Looking Ahead
In our next newsletter, we will explore the crucial topic of water management and how our efforts are building resilience in the face of climate change. Stay tuned to learn more about our projects and the broader impact of our work.
Support Our Mission
Your support is vital to our continued success. By donating to ACHM, you help us restore degraded lands, improve livelihoods, and create a more sustainable future. Together, we can turn grasslands into gold.
Thank you for being part of our journey.
Warm regards,
Lao Watson-Smith
General Manager
Africa Centre for Holistic Management (ACHM)