Holistic Grazing (split from Cliven Bundy thread)

[rwguinn]

That's not necessarily true.... The issue is, a lot of things we CAN'T calculate, either because we don't know how to put it into an equation yet or because the equations are not solveable (Darcy's Law, to reference hydrology once again). And then you have scales that are descriptive but not calculatable. The one about sexuality comes to mind--you can't calculate how homo/heterosexual a person is, but that doesn't stop the scale from being usful.

The most fundamental aspect of science RBF has forgotten is that a one must examine the whole of the relevant dataset. This includes things like hydrology, which RBF dismissed as woo. Until that concept is accepted, holistic grazing is never going to rise above voodoo in terms of scientific rigor.

You may think you can talk to me, but I've no interest in talking to you. I consider you nothing more than a pseudo-science peddler, and you've demonstrated a refusal to actually learn relevant information.

The biggest indicator of science is REPEATABILITY. Nothing else matters. If you amd/or someone else cannot repeat the results it ain't science.
Otherwise, I agree with your entire post

 

[Red Baron Farms]

That's not necessarily true.... The issue is, a lot of things we CAN'T calculate, either because we don't know how to put it into an equation yet or because the equations are not solveable (Darcy's Law, to reference hydrology once again). And then you have scales that are descriptive but not calculatable. The one about sexuality comes to mind--you can't calculate how homo/heterosexual a person is, but that doesn't stop the scale from being usful.

The most fundamental aspect of science RBF has forgotten is that a one must examine the whole of the relevant dataset. This includes things like hydrology, which RBF dismissed as woo. Until that concept is accepted, holistic grazing is never going to rise above voodoo in terms of scientific rigor.

You may think you can talk to me, but I've no interest in talking to you. I consider you nothing more than a pseudo-science peddler, and you've demonstrated a refusal to actually learn relevant information.

Actually Dinwar I did not say hydrology was woo. You applied my comment to the wrong part of your post. You said, "So holistic grazing in your mind does in fact generate more water. That's the only thing it can possibly mean." That is so embarrassingly wrong and full of woo, I simply ignored it. I kinda figured you would see how full of woo that statement was and even be embarrassed yourself later. You of all people should know how wrong it was to say that, even in a heated debate. The one and only really stupid thing I have ever seen you say ever. 99.9999999% of everything else I ever read from you was quite intelligent, even if I happened to disagree, you always commented with thoughtfulness. So rather than berate you for a really really really stupid comment that even a grade school child would know as woo, I tried to just ignore it. Then you keep trying to continue with comments. So apparently ignoring it didn't work. It is undignified coming from you Dinwar. Seriously.

HM doesn't create water, nor does it magically cause more rain. What it does is make the available rain more effective. Instead of flash floods followed by bone dry, it creates an environment in the soil and vegetation that holds onto more of the available water. Less runoff and less evaporation means more available to plants and soil biology. Over a period of years, a % of that increased water in soil eventually makes its way to aquifers streams and/or springs, that previously only had water during the wet season and were dust dry the rest of the year, start flowing more and more months of the year. Sometimes if conditions are right, year round. Not one part of that observed phenomenon speculates it "generate(s) more water" out of thin air, and you know it very well.

ETA So rather than just claim the hydrological effects, here is an actual scientific study that measured the hydrological effects.

Grazing management impacts on vegetation, soil biota and soil chemical, physical and hydrological properties in tall grass prairie

And here is another dreaded Youtube vid proving the effects studied above, given enough time can actually create riparian environments for those Missouri "show me" types that have to see it to believe it.

River Restoration in Zimbabwe - Countering the Savory Deniers

 

[Reality Check]

Grazing management impacts on vegetation, soil biota and soil chemical, physical and hydrological properties in tall grass prairie

Wow - some actual science, Red Baron Farms !
A pity that you follow it up with YouTube propaganda .

The paper is good: grazing management programs can do what is expected, e.g. change the hydrological properties in tall grass prairie so that more water is held.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

That is so embarrassingly wrong and full of woo, I simply ignored it. I kinda figured you would see how full of woo that statement was and even be embarrassed yourself later.

[...]

So rather than berate you for a really really really stupid comment that even a grade school child would know as woo, I tried to just ignore it.

Now this is interesting. It might help you to know that "woo" has a meaning beyond a simple pejorative. When people call HLM "woo," they are comparing it to a specific type of belief system, one which uses specific types of arguments to distract the believer from the missing evidence underlying their beliefs. Right or wrong, HLM shares many of these same types of arguments.

Consider: everything that "brittleness" claims to represent is easily expressible in terms of aridity index, an established and agreed-upon scientific metric which already takes into account things like rainfall times and patterns. Yet the use of AI is rejected in favor of a jargon-loaded, subjective term that adds nothing new to the picture... why? Well, when real woo does this, they do it to insert an element of circular reasoning, where the measurement that predicts if the technique will work is mostly defined by whether the technique works. Aand... that's pretty much what we're seeing with brittleness. Can you see why, even if we assume HLM is right, it's right for the wrong (woo) reasons?

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Now this is interesting. It might help you to know that "woo" has a meaning beyond a simple pejorative. When people call HLM "woo," they are comparing it to a specific type of belief system, one which uses specific types of arguments to distract the believer from the missing evidence underlying their beliefs. Right or wrong, HLM shares many of these same types of arguments.

Consider: everything that "brittleness" claims to represent is easily expressible in terms of aridity index, an established and agreed-upon scientific metric which already takes into account things like rainfall times and patterns. Yet the use of AI is rejected in favor of a jargon-loaded, subjective term that adds nothing new to the picture... why? Well, when real woo does this, they do it to insert an element of circular reasoning, where the measurement that predicts if the technique will work is mostly defined by whether the technique works. Aand... that's pretty much what we're seeing with brittleness. Can you see why, even if we assume HLM is right, it's right for the wrong (woo) reasons?

Brittleness is mainly dependent on relative humidity, not rainfall. The reason it is important is that humidity (along with certain other factors) has everything to do with whether dead vegetation will oxidize or be subject to biological decay. (Biological decay being important to the nutrient cycle) I think that is a good reason to use it as opposed to the aridity index in the context of HM. Not saying the aridity index is a bad thing, it just isn't as useful in the context of HM. The reason why is that HM planning stages require monitoring of the land and determining relative oxidation vs biological decay to make decisions. Those decisions are made in the context of increasing biological decay and reducing oxidation with animal impact. It isn't the only factor in the decision making framework, but it is an important part.

Thus it isn't some ideology. It is a biophysical property important to recognise in any land restoration attempt.

Personally I see far more "ideology" and/or "belief systems" in people attempting to deny the positive effect herbivore impact can have on plants and ecosystems. Not too many people try to deny the negative effects of over grazing, but lots of denial on the negative effects of over rest (large increase of oxidation and decrease in biological decay in brittle environments). Not based on science, evidence or even simple observation, but simply "scientific" dogma.

 

[Reality Check]

Can you cite an official definition of the Savory brittleness scale

Brittleness is mainly dependent on relative humidity, not rainfall. ....

Sorry, Red Baron Farms, but you cannot say anything about the Savory brittleness scale until you cite a definition including this assertion about "relative humidity".
Savory brittleness scale does not contain "relative humidity". It points out that the scale does not include the total rainfall but does not exclude any inclusion of rainfall distribution.
And using that vague word "mainly" is not good - do you mean 51%, 75% or 99.9% or make a guess whether "relative humidity" predominates enough so that rainfall can be ignored?

I wonder what these guesses actually mean about the brittleness scale:

Brittleness is derived, not so much from total rainfall as from the distribution of moisture over the year. Brittle environments are typically characterized by erratic precipitation and humidity during the year. For example, a 30 to 50 inch rainfall area that has a very dry period in the middle of the growing season is likely to be very brittle. On the other hand, a 20 inch rainfall zone where the moisture reliably comes during the growing season would be non-brittle. In a completely non-brittle environment, precipitation and humidity would be constant and high.

P.S. Red Baron Farms: no "relative humidity", two usages of "humidity" and seven uses of "rain".

So far the descriptions of the scale seems to of the order of "oh look the area is wet and so desert cannot form, the area is dry so a desert can form, in between I will guess". Nothing like "This area has rainfall R(t), humidity H(t), other factors A(t), B(t), C(t) and so the brittleness scale = Z", even with estimates for the factors.

ETA: Those "descriptions of the scale" reminded me that we still have not seen an official definition of the scale, just Wikipedia, a blog article or two and a PDF or two. Nothing from Savory actually defining the scale !
Red Baron Farms: Can you cite an official definition of the Savory brittleness scale that is complete enough so that anyone (for example you or me) can use it to calculate/estimate/guess a value?

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

You guys don't have to do anything. I approached this with the incorrect assumption that you actually wanted to learn about a new scientific breakthrough. My bad. HM is all about predictions. Predictions that actually happen. Things like changes of biological diversity, changes in hydrodynamics etc... That's what started this whole argument, a prediction that I made that you laughed at. Predicted results that I have seen first hand. Land I have actually walked on and seen for myself. So go back to your Dilbert cubicles and find some one else to argue the point. I am exhausted trying to talk to you. Dinwar I can talk to. We may have disagreements, but at least his arguments are intelligent.

But your personal anecdotes do not make a scientific breakthrough. Just like anecdotes about Chiropractors, Reiki, etc.

In order for your argument to have ANY validity at all, you would first have to find cases where HM didn't work to restore the land. That my friend is a VERY VERY VERY difficult thing to find. It is simply too effective to find failures. Not saying it is impossible. I am sure it is possible somewhere. But you need to be like a pig on a truffle to find it. If the land experienced or is still experiencing desertification after man killed off or changed the behavior of the large herbivore herds and megafauna and/or their predators (which is most the planet), then HM works consistently, even in seemingly impossible circumstances.

Curiously, this is the opposite of the picture Savory's life work expresses. He seems to have spent much of his time figuring out what his absolutely correct model actually was.

It is also important to note that for all Savory’s insistence that his methods work, it has been associated with a number of failures. For instance, Hadley mentions a test farm in Zimbabwe, which collapsed as soon as Savory fled that country. Whereas those on the farm blamed the collapse on drought, Savory blamed on their lack of proper planning in his absence.

This is typical of Savory’s response to failure. The fault never lies in his methods but in people’s implementations of them. For instance, in a 1990 paper in the journal Ecological Economics6, Savory explains away “15 years of frustrating and eratic [sic] results” with the admission that “we had confused the integrated approach with the holistic approach, thinking that the terms were synonymous,” emphasizing that “the breakdowns we were experiencing were not attributable to the basic concept being wrong but were always due to management–of the people and the finances.” 7 Even after Savory realized that “the integrated approach and the holistic approach were opposites,”8 he had to struggle with “understanding not only what ‘holistic’ meant, but even more difficult, how to apply such an approach in day-to-day management.” Even when his own implementation of his own ideas leads to failure, he believes that the problem isn’t that the methods were flawed but that he didn’t fully understand them.9 It is this kind of convoluted reasoning that allows him to claim that his methods work.

In a review of Savory’s 1988 book Holistic Resource Management, M.T. Hoffman wrote “The apparent inconsistencies and lack of definitions (eg. for concepts such as complexity, stability, resilience, diversity and production which have a number of different meanings in the ecological literature), render it frustratingly difficult to compare his [Holistic Resource Management] approach with the broader literature.” Imprecise language doesn’t just make it hard to compare Savory’s methods with the existing literature. It also makes it nearly impossible to evaluate his approach scientifically because it allows Savory to blame any failures on a misunderstanding of the method. So long as nobody can understand Savory’s ideas, those ideas can’t be tested or disproven. In this framework, problems are solved not by trying different methods but by developing a “better” understanding of the existing one. It is therefore little wonder that after members of the Department of Range and Forage Resources at the University of Natal - Pietermaritzburg–Savory’s alma mater–met with Savory, they reported that it would be “extremely difficult” to test Savory’s ideas because “it would be difficult to evaluate even a short-term research endeavour (of 5 to 10 years), as the approach taken by Holistic Management proponents would surely have changed by then, as it has in the past.”

Linky.

And it is not just about finding "cases", but properly done studies.

Well, not so fast. For all the intuitive appeal of “holistic management,” Savory’s hypothesis is beset with caveats. The most systematic research trial supporting Savory’s claims, the Charter Grazing Trials, was undertaken in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe today) between 1969 and 1975. Given the ecological vagaries of deserts worldwide, one could certainly question whether Savory’s research on a 6,200-acre spot of semiarid African land holds any relevance for the rest of the world’s 12 billion acres of desert. Extrapolation seems even more dubious when you consider that a comprehensive review of Savory’s trial and other similar trials, published in 2002, found that Savory’s signature high-stocking density and rapid-fire rotation plan did not lead to a perfectly choreographed symbiosis between grass and beast.

Instead, there were problems during the Charter Grazing Trials, ones not mentioned in Savory’s dramatic talk. Cattle that grazed according to Savory’s method needed expensive supplemental feed, became stressed and fatigued, and lost enough weight to compromise the profitability of their meat. And even though Savory’s Grazing Trials took place during a period of freakishly high rainfall, with rates exceeding the average by 24 percent overall, the authors contend that Savory’s method “failed to produce the marked improvement in grass cover claimed from its application.” The authors of the overview concluded exactly what mainstream ecologists have been concluding for 40 years: “No grazing system has yet shown the capacity to overcome the long-term effects of overstocking and/or drought on vegetation productivity.”

Linky.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

So far brittleness has defied calculation in the way you request, including the aridity index which also falls short. (2 pieces of land may have the same aridity index but very different brittleness) One day maybe someone will be able to quantify and calculate it, but so far I have not seen it. This is why at this point it is subjective, based on observations in the field. I can give you the types of observations that help the manager determine brittleness, but not a mathematical formula.

@Tsukasa Buddha You quoted a link that said this, " It also makes it nearly impossible to evaluate his approach scientifically because it allows Savory to blame any failures on a misunderstanding of the method." Biggest problem with that is actually finding the so called "failures". Because even the "failures" you mentioned have indeed restored desertified land. You can go there today and see for yourself. Don't confuse a temporary set back or a mistake to mean it failed to restore desertified land. In the real world, nothing is perfect. HM is a management system that plans for the inevitable "failures", monitors preemptively and adapts.

 

[Reality Check]

So far brittleness has defied calculation in the way you request,

Are you stating that the Savory brittleness scale is so badly defined that neither you nor I could get a value from it, Red Baron Farms?
What about a random farmer?
For that matter what about Savory - is he also just guessing?
Or that it is not defined at all except as "make a guess"?

Ignorance about the aridity indexes which can be calculated just makes your opinions about the Savory brittleness scale look worse.

And read the question:

ETA: Those "descriptions of the scale" reminded me that we still have not seen an official definition of the scale, just Wikipedia, a blog article or two and a PDF or two. Nothing from Savory actually defining the scale !
Red Baron Farms: Can you cite an official definition of the Savory brittleness scale that is complete enough so that anyone (for example you or me) can use it to calculate/estimate/guess a value?

No mathematics needed - just a link to the official definition that allows anyone to make calculate or estimate or guess the value.

So far you are hinting that it is a deep, dark secret only known to Savory and his chosen few !

 

[Reality Check]

Linky.

That link does emphasis what we have been finding out about the Savory brittleness scale. If someone tests HM using this scale and the test fails, the vagueness of the definition allows Savory to dismiss the trial by stating that the scale was used wrongly.

The moving goalposts also provide an excuse - a trial that started now and lasted 10 years could be dismissed because Savory decided to change his definitions, add things to HM, subtract things from HM or just change the name!
A land management program that claims to work now as Savory claims must of course work now. Any changes in that program will be to improve the results. This the old program will work for the future as well (just not as well).

 

[Red Baron Farms]

And read the question:

No mathematics needed - just a link to the official definition that allows anyone to make calculate or estimate or guess the value.

So far you are hinting that it is a deep, dark secret only known to Savory and his chosen few !

No secret. It is free to anyone. If you want something "official" I can give you this from the training manual.

The Brittleness Scale
Not all environments are the same nor do they react the same way to the same influences. This might seem obvious. Of course, all environments are different. What might be less obvious is the idea that taking exactly the same action in one type of environment will have dramatically different results in another type of environment.
Environments exist on different ends of a scale depending on how well humidity is distributed throughout the year and how quickly dead vegetation breaks down. At one end of this scale are brittle environments—where rainfall and humidity are scattered erratically throughout the year.
Dead vegetation breaks down very slowly in brittle environments unless adequately disturbed as the next insight explains. At the other end of the scale non-brittle environments exist. In these environments rain-fall and humidity are perennial and dead vegetation breaks down rapidly, whether or not it is disturbed. Brittleness is measured on a scale from 1 to 10, with a 1 being non-brittle and a 10 being very brittle.
Why is this important? Land responds to various practices differently in brittle and non-brittle environments. For those who manage land for enhanced biodiversity and increased production, it is very important to understand how that land will react to the various practices (or tools) used on it. For example, resting land in non-brittle environments restores it to a higher level of succession, but in brittle environments, resting land tends to damage and degrade it.
Something to Ask Yourself
Think about where you live—the amount of rainfall you get, the level of humidity in the air, and how it is distributed throughout the year. Think about how long it takes vegetation to break down. For example, when you look around, do you see moss growing on brick buildings, recently fallen logs already partially decayed, or living organisms moving about on the soil surface? All of these are signs of a non-brittle environment.
On the other hand, perhaps you see tall stands of dead gray-colored grass, logs that have been lying in the same place for years but have not changed significantly in appearance, only two or three types of plants with large areas of bare ground, etc. These observations indicate a brittle environment.
Based on the brittleness scale, would you say you live in a non-brittle(2-3), moderately brittle (4-6) or very brittle (7-9) environment?

Brittleness Scale: All terrestrial environments, regardless of total rainfall, lie somewhere along a continuum from non-brittle to very brittle. For simplicity, this continuum is on a ten-point scale, with 1 being non-brittle and 10 being very brittle. Brittleness is measured by: (1) reliability of precipitation, (2) distribution of humidity throughout the year as a whole, (3) breakdown of dead plant material:decay, or chemical (oxidation) and physical (weathering) , (4) speed of development of new biological communities on bare soil surfaces, and (5) the development of more complex and stable communities (succession) depending on whether or not the soil surface is disturbed. For more detailed information on brittleness, refer to the Resources section of this guide.

That is from the intro handbook. There are actually pages and pages of charts comparing brittle to non brittle. By the time even a novice went through even the intro manual, they should have a pretty good idea on how to make an estimate, and how to adjust that estimate based on how the land reacts to impact (which is also monitored closely).

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Now this is interesting. It might help you to know that "woo" has a meaning beyond a simple pejorative. When people call HLM "woo," they are comparing it to a specific type of belief system, one which uses specific types of arguments to distract the believer from the missing evidence underlying their beliefs. Right or wrong, HLM shares many of these same types of arguments.

Consider: everything that "brittleness" claims to represent is easily expressible in terms of aridity index, an established and agreed-upon scientific metric which already takes into account things like rainfall times and patterns. Yet the use of AI is rejected in favor of a jargon-loaded, subjective term that adds nothing new to the picture... why? Well, when real woo does this, they do it to insert an element of circular reasoning, where the measurement that predicts if the technique will work is mostly defined by whether the technique works. Aand... that's pretty much what we're seeing with brittleness. Can you see why, even if we assume HLM is right, it's right for the wrong (woo) reasons?

But...but....but....but...what about the YouTube videos?

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Brittleness is mainly dependent on relative humidity, not rainfall.

A property which can be easily expressed in terms of aridity index, which already concerns itself with things like evapotranspiration, which modulates relative humidity. If the current incarnation of AI is insufficient, propose a variant formulation - it's not like there aren't several already. What you don't do is discard all previous work in favor of a wooish replacement and expect people not to call BS on it.

Personally I see far more "ideology" and/or "belief systems" in people attempting to deny the positive effect herbivore impact can have on plants and ecosystems.

I don't think anyone objects to the concept in principle, it's just that you've given no evidence for this effect. You can link to a bunch of people who say it worked for them, but so can the "migraine-treating" LED headband out of the SkyMall catalog. What's missing is an actual study, with things like falsifiable hypotheses and control data. Not just if it works, but how well it works, and where it won't work, all of these things need to be detailed in an objective manner.

This is why at this point it is subjective, based on observations in the field. I can give you the types of observations that help the manager determine brittleness, but not a mathematical formula.

"Observations in the field" are not necessarily subjective. All of geology, and much of traditional biology is based on observations in the field. If you can list all of the required observations in a comprehensive manner, we can apply them objectively.

What makes brittleness subjective is it's applied post-hoc. If HLM works, great, it wasn't brittle! If it doesn't, shoot, must have been brittle somehow, let's alter the definition slightly as Tsukasa describes. Arguments that "prove" faith healing often rely on similarly wriggly hypotheses.

That is from the intro handbook. There are actually pages and pages of charts comparing brittle to non brittle. By the time even a novice went through even the intro manual, they should have a pretty good idea on how to make an estimate, and how to adjust that estimate based on how the land reacts to impact (which is also monitored closely).

This is what people object to. Everything that comes before doesn't matter, because you can always start with "HLM will work" and later adjust to "this isn't working," and HLM advocates can find some way to weasel out of it being a failing of HLM, rather than the land. And in practice, in this very thread, that's exactly what we see happening.

 

[Dinwar]

I don't think anyone objects to the concept in principle, it's just that you've given no evidence for this effect.

My objection is more fundamental than that.

1) RBF is presenting a very specific type of biome as ideal, and is assessing the quality of an ecosystem by how closely it approximates that biome. This is a denial of ecology.

2) RBF's model is based off an incomplete understanding of the interactions between the biosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere.

I haven't gotten to the point where I'm willing to criticize his results yet. Even blind pigs find truffles, after all--this whole concept may be deeply flawed but touch on important concepts and appear to work. Without understanding the conceptual architecture of the hypothesis, we have no way of determining what works, what doesn't, and what we still need to test. I have a strong feeling that this is precisely why we don't see a strong conceptual framework for HLM; not providing one allows them to make endless "adjustments" to demonstrate, as you say, that the failure isn't REALLY a failure of HLM! The land was just brittle! Or the person didn't have enough faith! (Yes, that last was tongue-in-cheek.)

 

[Beelzebuddy]

My objection is more fundamental than that.

1) RBF is presenting a very specific type of biome as ideal, and is assessing the quality of an ecosystem by how closely it approximates that biome. This is a denial of ecology.

2) RBF's model is based off an incomplete understanding of the interactions between the biosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere.

I haven't gotten to the point where I'm willing to criticize his results yet. Even blind pigs find truffles, after all--this whole concept may be deeply flawed but touch on important concepts and appear to work. Without understanding the conceptual architecture of the hypothesis, we have no way of determining what works, what doesn't, and what we still need to test. I have a strong feeling that this is precisely why we don't see a strong conceptual framework for HLM; not providing one allows them to make endless "adjustments" to demonstrate, as you say, that the failure isn't REALLY a failure of HLM! The land was just brittle! Or the person didn't have enough faith! (Yes, that last was tongue-in-cheek.)

1) This is a technique for grazing livestock, for whom grassland is pretty much the ideal biome.

2) I'm assuming only a scaled-down version of RBF's claims as "positive effect," limiting it to only the current falsifiables. It needn't cure cancer or make the deserts bloom, but might aid water retention and plant growth in already-established grasslands, and we can test that. Once we establish that it actually works in the manner in which it is claimed to work best, then we can examine if or how well it works in extending grassland biomes into inhospitable areas.

 

[Dinwar]

1) This is a technique for grazing livestock, for whom grassland is pretty much the ideal biome.

I'd accept that if RBF hadn't brought up deserts. Much of the grazing land in the USA is effectively desert (I once had to do a field survey in the middle of a herd fo cattle; that was...weird).

It needn't cure cancer or make the deserts bloom, but might aid water retention and plant growth in already-established grasslands, and we can test that.

RBF specifically said it would. If he hadn't made that specific claim, I'd be okay with this--but in as much as he has, I must disagree with you here. For HLM to work as RBF says it does, in fact, need to make deserts bloom.

I'm also not sure why any of this is a response to my point. I acknowledge that my perspective is only one potential perspective on this type of problem, but it's a valid one--without a deep understanding of the theoretical foundations of this sort of thing, creating a new concept for grazing is basically playing a game of chance.

Will altering grazing habits impact established grasslands? Probably. Then again, so does introducing predators. It's likely that a wide variety of alterations would be beneficial to environmental health of established grasslands--which speaks more to historic and current land use than any benefits from any particular new land management stratigy.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

I'd accept that if RBF hadn't brought up deserts. Much of the grazing land in the USA is effectively desert (I once had to do a field survey in the middle of a herd fo cattle; that was...weird).

RBF specifically said it would. If he hadn't made that specific claim, I'd be okay with this--but in as much as he has, I must disagree with you here. For HLM to work as RBF says it does, in fact, need to make deserts bloom.

I'm also not sure why any of this is a response to my point. I acknowledge that my perspective is only one potential perspective on this type of problem, but it's a valid one--without a deep understanding of the theoretical foundations of this sort of thing, creating a new concept for grazing is basically playing a game of chance.

Will altering grazing habits impact established grasslands? Probably. Then again, so does introducing predators. It's likely that a wide variety of alterations would be beneficial to environmental health of established grasslands--which speaks more to historic and current land use than any benefits from any particular new land management stratigy.

1,2) Right, that's why I specifically mentioned that I'm dismissing RBF's more outlandish claims for now. He's made a number of naive claims that aren't shared by the HLM stuff he's linked to, so when he said "deny the positive effect of herbivore impact," I'm choosing to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume we're talking about the existence of the effect itself, not the full extent of its applications.

If he'd like to insist that he was, in fact, lamenting our unwillingness to drink as deeply of the Kool-Aid as he has and ascribe to HLM all kinds of fantastical powers, I will of course agree with you.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

I already acknowledged that in my frustration I used simplified language and that was a mistake. The same mistake I have criticized others of doing. So the personal criticism of me for doing that is both valid and well taken. I should have never been sucked into ever using the word desert ever. Effectively desert, or desertified, is more proper. So instead of "make the desert bloom" and things like that, I should have said restore land that used to bloom with an abundance of plants and animals and has deteriorated into desert like conditions due to over rest and/or over grazing.

ETA Also I would like to say. I need not lament that certain people here at JREF refuse to accept HM. It is growing at an astounding rate, partly because it is so effective, and partly because the USDA NRCS and SARE are actively educating HM. Even partly due the the controversial Ted Talk, because ranchers will go visit their neighbors that have used it for years to see for themselves. In the end, the only thing that matters is results and the results are consistent. That's why I get so angry at propaganda blogs attacking HM's supposed "failures". Show me. Where has it failed to be effective? There are millions of acres throughout the world that it has been shown to be effective, please show me these supposed "failures". I would love to actually find one so I can study why it failed and make sure I don't make the same mistake.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Also I would like to say. I need not lament that certain people here at JREF refuse to accept HM. It is growing at an astounding rate, partly because it is so effective, and partly because the USDA NRCS and SARE are actively educating HM.

Also I would like to say. I need not lament that certain people here at JREF refuse to accept <homeopathy/reiki/psychic readings/dowsing>. It is growing at an astounding rate, partly because it is so effective, and partly because <Dr Oz/Oprah/Psychic Sally/Natural News> are actively educating <homeopathy/reiki/psychic readings/dowsing>.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

So instead of "make the desert bloom" and things like that, I should have said restore land that used to bloom with an abundance of plants and animals and has deteriorated into desert like conditions due to over rest and/or over grazing.

It's the last bit you need to stress, not "desert" or lack thereof. Dinwar's point was that deserts in formerly grazable land can form from shifts in rainfall patterns and hydrology too, and no amount of grazing will be able to magic enough water back.

That's why I get so angry at propaganda blogs attacking HM's supposed "failures". Show me. Where has it failed to be effective? There are millions of acres throughout the world that it has been shown to be effective, please show me these supposed "failures". I would love to actually find one so I can study why it failed and make sure I don't make the same mistake.

Tsukasa gave you a few.

BTW, HM has not been shown to work. Not in any way that counts. Your "millions of acres" don't mean squat if you don't have proper controls in place.