Eric Schwennesen is an internationally recognized range management expert and consultant who has worked for several decades with international development agencies and the governments of developing nations to improve the lives of rural people by improving the productivity of their grazing lands through holistically planned grazing (HPG) and land management. He is also a member of Win/Win CO2 Solutions Group Advisory Board.
We think this article is illuminating and instructive in a number of ways including:
- It shows how quickly dramatic improvements were made by the villagers selected to pilot this HPG approach, such as increasing forage by 1000% in one year and transforming 90% of bare ground to 96% vegetative cover in just two years.
- The clear ability of these rural people to successfully implement the concepts on their own and achieve these kinds of results.
- The eagerness of those neighboring “camps” (villages) that had not been selected for the demonstration projects to also be trained to achieve the same kinds of results on their lands. As the successes became more widely known, neighboring countries were asking for similar demonstration programs in their countries.
- The significant socio-economic improvements that rapidly occurred for the camps as food security increased and they had surplus commodities to sell. These included replacing their simple huts with adobe brick houses and such things as the consensus in the area that the women of these demonstration camps “were more beautiful” as a result than the women in other camps.
- The examples of the common phenomenon of the “experts” being proven wrong by undeniable results on the ground as a result of implementing this management approach, such as the massive increase in biomass produced in these demonstrations and the spontaneous return of perennial species and trees that had been absent for several generations or more and which the “experts” claimed would never come back.
- In light of this “ground truthing” consistently refuting their projections and pronouncements, even though they had witnessed the transformation themselves, the increasing hostility of many of these scientists to the projects and the approaches being used. Unfortunately this is still happening too often today.
- There is valuable insight into the obstacles that international aid organizations threw up to the successful expansion of these programs to help more people in these countries.
- The implications of these demonstrations to mitigate impacts of climate change, including improved drought resistance and enhancing food security. While carbon sequestration was not directly measured, there can be no question that the degraded land in this area that was undoubtedly a contributor to CO2 emissions before the demonstrations began were quickly transformed into highly effective carbon sinks.
- Finally, it is striking that this case study took place over twenty years ago. One can only speculate on how much could have been done to help millions of people had it been expanded to meet the clear demand and also how much more efficient implementing these programs could be today in the age of the Internet and online and distance training
(Eric has written a fascinating and revealing account of his 20 plus years of experiences like this one working on improving conditions for rural people and the environment in developing countries around the world, “The Field Journals: Adventures in Pastoralism,” available from Amazon.)
The Story of the Great World Bank Trial of Applied Holistic Management in West Africa
Eric Schwennesen
In 1992 at the Society for Range Management international conference in Washington, D.C., I was approached by a specialist from World Bank. He informed me that, being aware of the considerable controversy being generated by Holistic Management and interested to learn more, he was seeking someone fluent in French and HRM that might consider a trial field run of the concepts in West Africa. Qualifying on both counts and after some further discussion, I agreed to introduce the subject at World Bank’s choosing.
So, in May of 1993, a weeklong session was held in Bamako, Mali, with additional invitations to teams from Mauritania and Chad, to introduce the concepts of holism. It was agreed that the teams themselves would signal, at the end of the week, whether they were interested in pursuing it with ground experimentation. As it turned out, all three country teams were quite positive, and so they were invited to return to their countries, debate and discuss, and designate some potential areas upon which to apply what they had learned. I was asked to provide followup counseling to help them get started, and schedule field visits as needed.
Later that year the teams had established some locations and my field visits helped them to scale up to a significant area to designate, roughly 2,000 Ha in each case, with facilities to access the areas as well as matching control areas from which to collect data and make comparisons. From the outset, the Chad team showed exceptional grasp of the concepts, mastery of monitoring techniques, and discipline. (From this point on the narrative is referring to Chad’s experience only.) Therefore by the end of 1993 there were several trial zones with baseline monitoring complete both inside and outside the demonstration areas, a cooperative agreement with the land users of the area, and a detailed management plan with guidance and supervision.
1994 was the first full year of applied holistic management, focusing on the twin camps of Fadjé and Djékiné, in a region mainly known for poverty and degraded land. Using the herders’ livestock as the principal management tool and the holistic decision model to identify water cycle as the weak link in the successional chain, the Chad team divided the demonstration area into conceptual time zones designed to assure adequate recovery time for vegetation, (primarily annual grasses due to degradation), concentrating all the livestock in one zone at a time to facilitate rainfall infiltration through the baked soil surface.
The moisture season proved to be exceptionally good and the land’s response was almost overwhelming. Excited fax and phone messages reached World Bank’s coordinator for the program, and quickly proved the inestimable value of control comparison plots, as from the outset many experts were ascribing the dramatic changes to good rainfall only. The control plots revealed no changes in the surrounding landscapes. Detailed monitoring was carried out and photos taken as well, revealing an increase of over 1,000 % in vegetation on the demonstration area.
On the strength of this remarkable transformation, World Bank’s coordinator suggested a regional conference in which to present methods and results, and to invite a broader range of projects and programs to participate. This conference was held in N’Djaména in early 1995. In the meantime the Chad teams continued with their management and documentation, among other things revealing the reappearance of perennial grass species which other experts had told them would never again be possible.
1995 proved to be a poor rainfall season overall, but Fadjé-Djékiné’s results had already provoked a furious level of interest regionally and worldwide. The communities involved were only too willing to invite the conference participants to see for themselves, and played a major role in the conference to present their results. Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinée and Niger volunteered to join the program on the basis of this, despite naysaying by a number of established institutional range experts who refused to accept the proof of change, insisting it wasn’t possible. Despite the poor rainfall, the positive changes on the demonstration landscape were beyond the herders’ ability to use.
Enough controversy was generated that the program coordinator was persuaded to invite a sociologist to conduct an independent assessment of Fadjé-Djékiné. This individual was given a free hand to conduct the assessment any way she chose. In her formal report in which she detailed her methods and results, she revealed that the people of the camps were invited to give their own thoughts about the program. One concept that she encountered frequently among the women, aside from the great enthusiasm for the work done, was their standard of proof for its success: they universally agreed that now, the women of Fadjé-Djékiné “were more beautiful” than the women of other camps. When asked to explain this remarkable claim, they said that thanks to the dramatic change in their landscape, the livestock had more than enough forage; because of more forage, more milk was produced; more milk was therefore available for sale; this meant more money to the women, who now had more time and means to buy better clothes, and they were better fed. Interviews with women from surrounding areas proved their claim to be accurate.
By Fall of 1995, the Chad areas’ results had continued to pile up to the extent that the camps at Fadjé and Djékiné had decided to commit some of their new-found wealth to building real, permanent adobe-brick houses. In a region of desperate pastoralist poverty, this was literally unheard of. People began to make the trek on foot from distant regions to see for themselves. Inquiries with the men and boys charged with keeping the livestock herded in the correct zones, also offered up some unheard-of perspective: the dense vegetation on the area was literally hampering their efforts to herd, and there was a growing dread of hidden snakes, even within the camp, where dense grass and forbs, hip-deep, had overtaken the bare ground.
My following visit in November of 1996, another year of scattered, uneven rainfall, showed that both villages had become permanent towns. Both bush camps were transformed by dozens of new adobe brick houses. The herders had become used to almost daily visits from other projects; seasonal variability had required them all to be very conversant with the management plan, and questioning showed that they knew what they were doing. I tested them often with trick questions, straightfaced, seeking weaknesses or uncertainty in their reasoning, but aside from innate politeness which prevented them from dismissing me, there was no evidence of either guidance from outside, or doubt of their management.
Then, to Dourbali, the newest designated area, first to be established using the written guidelines (the Chad Protocol) developed by the experiences of the previous areas. After numerous meetings and training sessions in 1995, they started the actual management of the perimeter with a total of two thousand cattle, sheep, goats and donkeys. Two weeks after the start of management in 1996, the area’s coordinator emerged from his hut one early morning, to find thirty thousand (!) transhumant cattle on the perimeter. As he described it, this was his first true conceptual test of his grasp of the scientific definition of “overgrazing”. To his credit, he thought it through, recalled that animal numbers are not directly linked to overgrazing, and on the strength of his understanding, approached the leaders of the transhumants. Finding that they were occupying seven out of the twelve zones established for the management plan, he told them they were welcome as long as they followed the plan. In the end, they remained on the perimeter (in proper zones) for seven weeks before moving on. Thanks to baseline data collection and monitoring, some dramatic end-of-season results were then documented: each of the zones occupied by the Thirty Thousand, showed dramatically improved vegetative growth and recovery, even over the other perimeter zones.
1997 was another poor rainfall year and the people of the whole region wore long faces because of the drought…except on the perimeters, where crazy things were continuing to happen: a shift to low-growing forbs was replacing the annual grasses; twelve supposedly lost species of grasses had reappeared; seedlings of several tree species considered lost, had reappeared and were already included in the management plan; new adobe houses were everywhere — and the wildlife was coming back. It had been twenty years since the antelope had entirely disappeared; but during an official World Bank visit, an entire herd had suddenly reappeared (and were immediately included in the management plan also).
Some jealousy had emerged among surrounding camps; not surprising in its way. The Chad country coordinator had spent a great deal of time among these people discussing, explaining and replying to many questions. There was universal urgency by these camps to join the program or have similar help for themselves, but in short, Nadif said no. A vital part of the holistic approach which they had developed, underlined the importance of self-guidance and self-motivation; he had seen the effects of patronizing programs on the erosion of self-respect and self-sufficiency, and was determined that the holistic approach could resolve that. This also included a vast and influential international community of agencies and projects who fully expected special status and, of course, immediate inclusion in this holistic effort.
The coordinator’s approach was exemplary: to all queries, he refused anything except cooperation to explain the approach. Everything else depended on the motivation of the individual, camp or group, to discuss, debate and formulate a holistic plan of their own. As every situation is different, there is no set formula, hence his refusal to offer one. This led to considerable angst among projects.
An impasse soon developed. Many additional camps across the region and also in the adjacent nations of Cameroon and Central African Republic had sent representatives to learn what they could and plead for guidance. At this point it truly became clear that decades of resistance and opposition to holism on the part of virtually all of the established expert agencies, had prevented the sort of growth and expansion necessary to meet such a need. Despite the documented facts and unbridled success of the camps, which the experts had visited, officialdom had opposed every tentative to support any expansion except under the auspices of their own acronyms. Chad’s entire field team of trained personnel amounted to five, with full commitments of their time. By themselves they simply could not answer the greater demands from outside. It is also worth noting that there was no reason why they would have to anticipate obstruction and resistance from the very agencies who existed precisely to facilitate the sort of results Chad was showing at that moment.
Another visit to N’Goura brought more raised eyebrows. After the locally sensational Thirty Thousand Cattle experience, the following season brought an additional twenty thousand cattle because “a drought” had wiped out the forage everywhere else. This time the team had a great deal of confidence in agreeing to accept them according to the management rules. Result: one hell of an animal impact opportunity, well-exploited. According to the transect data, they went from 90% bare ground, to 92% vegetative cover between the first season and the second.
1998 proved to be an exceptional rainfall season, 480 mm compared to a 200 mm average, and brought back a focus on the analytical model and need to revisit the weak link in the successional chain. I don’t think anybody ever expected to see a landscape change so far, so fast, but the level of management on the Chad perimeters had by this point cleared away the “weak moisture” link and the new relevant weak link needed to be identified.
A rough first look at the new weak link took us to the social side of the situation: the fact that such a dramatic change in the landscape, carefully documented for causes and effects, had provoked a major groundswell in the pattern of life for people who had always (barely) survived by making do, or doing without. The possibility of deliberate, conscious management to bring out productivity undreamed of, opened a window into what had generally been a tenuous existence. Suddenly, results were there to see, of what was possible with a clear understanding of life forces and ways to manage them. The words “stability” and “free time” came up a lot, and we heard many descriptions of how the herds, herders, the neighboring camps, the children, were behaving as the management process evolved. The president of the grazing association told with some delight how the herds were figuring out the program; so I asked them if they had cattle yet try to tell them when it was time for a move? With much chuckling they said yes; that it was a delight to watch their animals behave this way.
They also said that relations with the authorities at all levels had improved; and that neighboring camps had begun to throw their herds in with “ours” when the management plan brought them close together: a way to get some “on-job training.” Gradually, naturally, the holistic management plan was accommodating social evolution.
Further talking with the herders: they said that there was little conflict with neighbor camps any more. They found that they were able to stay in the area longer, and neighbors were surprised at how well the animals looked even after staying longer than before. Before the program started they used to have to leave their home country for three months of every year; at the end of the first season of holistic management they only needed to move elsewhere for fifteen days. In the current season, some Kréda nomads from the far north came to them and after discussion asked to stay; they ended up staying all season to plant, then harvest crops as well as feed stock; and at the end of the season they asked if a similar program could be available in their own home region?
And then, an off-key note: at a night session to discuss the advancing management planning process with the herders and their advisors, it became clear that they had not actually followed up their seasonal plan from the previous year, or even followed any plan at all the current year. The reason reluctantly given, was that with the exceptional rains, everybody got busy with planting, When the tsetse flies forced night grazing, they gave the herds over to hired herders, who, due to fear of “things” out in the dark, had stayed as close to the camps as possible. I pointed out that they had pissed away all of their growing – and managing for improvement – season, a third of an entire year, because they hadn’t bothered to assemble and devise a plan.
In October of 1999: What changes! I stayed awake quite a while recalling how it was five years earlier: a sad, discouraged and desperately poor transhumant camp. Now, they couldn’t wait to go out in the morning to show off their long-lost forage plants: five more annuals, another perennial, and many tree seedlings. People were coming from as far as fifty kilometers away, on foot, to see the perennial grass; quite a sensation, apparently equivalent to finding a live unicorn: everyone had heard old stories, but nobody living had ever seen one. We went out to find it, the driver finding it by aiming at a distant tree…which turned out not to be a tree! It was like finding a live Christmas tree on an ice floe; the “Nhal” was nine feet tall, glossy dark green, and dense with seed. The team recalled the flat statement of a range specialist in 1995, that the recovery of perennials was “impossible; the climate had changed too much.”
From this point on, I was pulled increasingly away from field contact with the Chad field teams, as the holistic model expanded into Guinée and the other Sahelian countries, then Somalia, as well as Ethiopia, Pakistan, Kashmir, and Mexico. The original World Bank project director retired, leaving a void in the peculiar administration of that organization which his replacement was too junior to manage effectively, though he tried. More significantly, the early defensiveness of established academic range management “authorities” soon turned to hostility and deliberate action, as every one of the academic pronouncements made regarding the viability of African rangelands was demolished. It became increasingly clear that the powers within the Bank and other institutions had chosen to attack the documented results in every way they could, especially through financial and political pressure at national levels where field results could be ignored.
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