I thought this was an interesting perspective.....

>  From "Holistic Management - A New framework For
> Decision Making"
>
> "Gradually I realized that vast differences
> distinguised land where
> wildlife herded naturally, where people herded
> domestic stock and
> where stock was fenced in by people and not herded
> at all. Compared
> to areas without any large animals, the differences
> were startling
> indeed.
> Most obvious was the fact that where animals were
> present, plants
> were green and growing. In areas without animals
> they were gray and
> dying - even in the growing season - unless they had
> been burned, in
> which case the soil between plants was bare and
> eroding and tracking
> was easy.
> When I compared areas heavily disturbed by animals -
> where soil was
> churned up, plants flattened and tracking was
> difficult - it became
> clear that the greater the disturbance the greater
> the impact on the
> health of plants and soils and thus the whole
> community.
> There was no other influence that could
> realistically have created
> both the necessary soil disturbance to produce a
> good seed bed for
> new plants, and protected bare soil by trampling
> down old plant
> material.
> While bunched as a herd, animals stepped recklessly
> and even very
> coarse plants, containing much old material that
> would not not be
> grazed or trampled normally, were trampled down.
> That provided cover
> for the soil surface. In addition, the hooves of
> bunching and milling
> animals left the soil chipped and broken. In effect,
> the animals did
> what any gardener would do in order to get seeds to
> grwo: first
> loosen the sealed soil surface, then bury the seed
> slightly, compact
> the soil around the seed, then cover the surface
> with a mulch.
> I was not by any means the first to make connection
> between the
> hooves of animals and the health of land. Many
> centuries ago
> shepherds in the less brittle environment of
> Scotland referred to the
> "golden hooves" of sheep. In southern Africa the
> old-timers of my
> childhood had a saying, "Hammer veld to sweeten it."
> They meant literally hammer the land with herds of
> livestock to
> improve forage quality.
> Unfortunately none of these earlier observations
> were fully
> understood because too many of us believed that
> plants and soils
> needed protection from the damaging effects of
> animals. My own early
> observation of the vital relationship between herds
> of animals, soils
> and plants met violent rejection and ridicule and
> still does from an
> ever dwindling few.
> What's more important however, is that the discovery
> of this
> relationship led to the realization that herding
> animals - in most
> cases today, it's livestock that stimulate the wild
> herd behavior -
> are the only realistic tool that can halt the
> advance of deserts over
> billions of acres of rough country. Here and there
> other tools can
> help, but what other way exists to treat millions of
> square miles of
> often rugged country each year without consuming
> fossil fuel, without
> pollution and by a means millions of people can
> employ even while it
> feeds them?"
>
> Only 5.8 million square miles of the earth's 57.8
> million square
> miles of topsoil is agriculturally capable.
>
> Allison
>
>
> > Message: 3
>    Date: Fri, 19 May 2000 14:56:58 -0400 (EDT)
>    From: Chris Fincham <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Plant Rights
>
> Right on, Alison!  I'm a sheep farmer...and our
> pastures are always green &
> healthy, even in drought periods when the veggie
> gardens are withering.  The
> wee sheep enjoy the shade of the trees in pastures
> without harming them, as
> do our cows (tho' I'll admit that we've had to
> protect the trees from our
> wood-munching donkeys... :-)   And our domestic
> animals share their fields
> with deer, mice, rabbits, fox, moles, voles,
> raccoons, porcupines and other
> wild animals.
>
> On our 80 Ontario acres, we can raise livestock
> indefinitely on the wide
> variety of grasses in the pastures & hayfields, and
> the animals provide the
> fertilizer the fields need.  All their water needs
> are met by a 18-foot
> bored well which they share with us.
>
> To grow crops on the same land, we would have to
> first plow (destroying the
> microecology of the soil), then cultivate (further
> destruction) then plant
> monoculture crops, then fertilize those crops with
> minerals stolen (mined)
> from other environment.  For the plowing,
> cultivating, seeding, fertilizing
> and harvesting of the crops, we would have to use
> heavy equipment which
> would compact the soil (and I don't know how the
> heck we'd be able to do
> this with any efficiency without cutting down the
> existing trees so that
> they didn't get in the way of the machinery).  We'd
> also have to steal water
> from other evironments to irrgate crops during dry
> seasons.
>
> Chris



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