Tracking Wildlife and the Origins of Holistic Management

Bobby: Welcome to Ruminations. I am your host, Bobby Gill, and today's guest for episode number one is none other than Allan Savory. Before Allan was known globally as the founder of holistic management and the Savory Institute, before the famous TED talk, before the academic debates and the global movement of farmers and ranchers and pastoralists that have now regenerated tens of millions of hectares using his work, Allan was a young game ranger navigating the rugged African bush, facing down charging elephants, hunting man eating lions, and wrestling with questions that would haunt him for decades.

Allan's early life reads like an adventure novel. But beneath the surface lies the story of a man driven not just by adventure, but by a profound sense of responsibility. That's a responsibility to people, to the land, and to where his true love lies, the animals, the wildlife. Born in southern Rhodesia, Allan overcame childhood polio, rising to become a game ranger, a provincial game officer, an ecologist, the leader of an anti terrorist guerrilla tracking unit, a member of parliament, a consultant, and so much more.

In today's conversation, we'll delve into the defining moments of Allan's early career, the near fatal encounters with wildlife, the difficult decisions that led to regret, maybe some growth, and the unexpected lessons he learned from Indigenous trackers. Poachers and his colleagues in the field. This isn't just a story about what happened back then.

It's about how those experiences, both triumphant and painful shaped the insights that eventually led to the creation of holistic management, a framework that's gone on to change how. Everyone in the agricultural space, whether they like to admit it or not, how they manage their landscapes and how they think about regeneration.

So whether you're an adventurer at heart, a conservationist or someone seeking deeper wisdom about resilience and learning from failure, I think you're in for a special treat today. I think it's also important to note that a lot of the stories we're diving into today are coming directly from Allan's new memoir, which he announces the title for in this episode.

So, you know, I'll, uh, I'll leave that to Allan to give you the name of the new memoir. I think you're going to like it, but let's get into it without further ado. Here's my conversation with Allan Savory.

Bobby: Allan Savory, welcome to the Ruminations podcast.

Allan Savory: Thank you.

Bobby: Where are you today? Tell, tell the viewers and listeners where we find you.

Allan Savory: in my study in Florida, so. It's almost like a little historical museum, my study.

Bobby: What sort of, um, you know, I see a lot of photos in the background and I think I see a skull up on the wall back there.

Allan Savory: Yeah, that's what I said, it's like a museum almost. On one side of me, I've got, plaques, uh, you know, of Special Forces Club, SAS, Selous Scouts, uh, the, uh, honors that my father had, uh, my member of, as a Parliamentary Association, a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, of which I'm a member. And then you come across and here I've got pair of over eight foot elephant tusks.

Yes, up there there's the Rhodesian record buffalo head, the only trophy I ever shot I never believed in trophy shooting. And then behind me are pictures of Parliament, Army, Uh, et cetera, and, uh, game ranching days, and my life with my horses, and, and family. And right behind me is a famous French painting, The Finding of the Colors, after the first battle in Southern Africa, where the army was defeated in a pitch battle with the native, uh, army. And I've always honored that. Uh, so I've got the famous French painting of it, called The Finding of the Colors. So it just wreaks my life. Silence.

Bobby: you at your home in Florida and at your home in Zimbabwe. Um, but your office right there is a particularly special place, you know, given the history of everything, um, that we found there. And You know, I think that's probably a good place for us to start with this interview is the, the relics that are surrounding you in your office right there are each have a story embedded in them, um, of the early days, because you've had this wide and storied career.

Where you've been a game ranger, a provincial game officer, you've trained guerrilla units in the military. You've been in parliament and independent scientists and ecologists. Like it runs the gamut and it's a fascinating life that you've had. And what we're here to talk about today, I think is a little different from what folks are used to hearing from you.

People normally come to you and you hear interviews about holistic management and managing herds of livestock and, you know, soil health and carbon sequestration and climate change. But today we're going to talk about the early days and you've written a memoir. So why don't you tell us about that?

Allan Savory: Well, it is a good place to start. I've had many people, because of my varied life, want me to write a memoir of my life. I always declined it and refused to do it, because to me, I saw memoirs as a bit egotistical, and that's just not my culture, not my way. And finally, I quit. agreed to rewrite one because I realized in a young period in my life when I was a university student, I read all the early philosophers.

I read all the biographies of people that achieved great things in their lives. It, it absorbed me. and when I thought back on that, it influenced me greatly. And I thought, you know, yes I can write a memoir about a unique time and what resulted from it. And that's what I've done. Not a memoir about my life, but a series of careers all happening simultaneously and a unique time that led the ability to manage complexity that we have today. Uh, so

Bobby: Um,

Allan Savory: yes, that hopefully will come out early this next year. We've been over a year on just fact checking. I, as an independent scientist, I've only survived this long, all the pressures I have. By being accurate, honest, admitting error, and I've tried to keep that through the book, so a lot of time has been spent checking in political angle, historians, everything, who are still alive who participated. Uh, are my facts correct? And now I'm happy that they are. so we've, we're finalizing now.

Bobby: Yeah, yeah. I, uh,

Allan Savory: it, it'll describe a unique period of time, uh, relative to our work. If I could try to give you an indication of that, the American constitution was totally unique. There'd never been anything like that. It arose from the founding fathers. It couldn't have arisen, I believe, any other way. And it arose of your very small population the time. So a person, George Washington, Lincoln, any of the people involved in those days, their life, in a very active life, could be a farmer, a general in the army, uh, you know, several things successfully. Um, when you get to a larger population, All right. It's all somebody can do to be a doctor today, but you can't just be a doctor.

You're a doctor about some organization of the body, you know, some organ. You're a specialist or you're a lawyer and you're a specialist in a branch of, so it goes on. And in a small, Uh, I used to say sometimes when I was leading the opposition and president of a political party, if 1 percent of our active population rang me, They could ring me personally on the phone, and it wouldn't occupy much of my time. Imagine the President of the United States, if 1 percent of the population rang him on a given day. would just swamp the damn telephones. So, so, in a certain period in history, those unique circumstances occurred, and I happened to be born into it. And so I describe that, and the roles that I played led to where we are today. So how could somebody like me be a government researcher, a researcher, a biologist, administrator administering the wildlife management on an area greater than the whole of Britain as a 21 year old, okay, working with the world's one of the world's top ecologists, spending six weeks with me in the field, etc. How could I be commanding a unit in the army, through 20 years of war training our army as the first army ever to have army trained, uh, trackers, etc. Uh, how could I be leading the opposition in parliament? How could I be conducting my own consulting business on five countries? Flying my own plane took up time, so I had to be a pilot as well. Uh, you know, how could I be running my own ranches, my own game ranches, my own farm at the same time? You just can't do it in a big population. I was doing it all at the same time.

Bobby: Yeah, there's a, there's a,

Allan Savory: used to say, whether I'm dealing with politics in Parliament and leading the opposition, or whether I'm dealing with, as I was with Andrew Young and the Carter administration, I'm trying to bring our war to the end, or whether I was in Botswana or in South Africa consulting or in Namibia consulting and flying back by plane, whatever I was doing, or the next week if I was in the army, leading a tracker combat unit. I was just changing caps. All of it to me was the same problem. Poor land leads to poor people, social breakdown, violence, war, climate change. I was never off the same problem, whatever hat I was wearing.

Bobby: there's, there's something that's coming up for me where I'm thinking in ecological terms of the edge effect, you know, where a pasture meets a forest, that, that edge area is where you're going to find the, the greatest amount of biodiversity and activity because there are more ecological niches that are being filled where you have the crossover, um, of, you know, two distinct, um, Landscapes in this instance.

You know, same thing with the riparian area. And so taking that ecological concept and then applying it to careers and specialties or, you know, areas of expertise. It's essentially creating a lot of edge effect with different careers that, you know, You've had throughout your life and that edge effect allowed, you know, knowledge from one domain to then be applied and bring insights to another domain and look at things differently where, um, you know, someone who only specialized in that one thing their entire life might not see it.

Does that resonate at all?

Allan Savory: Yes, but let me take it, uh, back a step, to, to more basics. That's what I describe as a unique time, so I've mentioned small population. Uh, one of the points I make frequently, and have made for many years, is the way to solve the problems and to unite humans, which is what we have in the holistic framework. All right, could never have been developed by one person history of the world, could never have been developed in any university, any environmental organization, any one country, other time in history. It was a unique set of circumstances that provided that If you like to call it edge effect or complexity. So if you look at what I've tried to portray in it, was born into a country that was only 13 years old. I was born into a country where people still, the grandchildren and the children were alive who had released thousands of slaves as a small group of unique situation a country developed by a company and not by Britain. Uh, I was, uh, in, in that situation and a small thing, but I was also there at a period when the biggest empire in the world was dying. And we were an outpost of that empire. I was also participating in all this war, politics, farming, At a time when colonialism was dying. of change sweeps of Macmillan sweeping Africa, etc. So all of this was going on at the same time. And we never could have solved this in one country. Thank God, due to me clashing, With so many people, generals, politicians, academics, et cetera, ultimately, politically, I was forced into exile. So I went to a Caribbean island, and farsighted people in the USDA, who had been watching my work, knew I was developing. a new framework to manage complexity, essentially. We couldn't express it that clearly. They engaged me as a non American. And they commissioned me over two years to work with 2, 000 American scientists, resource managers, etc. And between us, we got the final part of it. And finally, as I like to put it, like the Wright brothers, finally we could fly in 1983. Now, that couldn't have happened if I hadn't been forced into exile, and the Ameri some far sighted bureaucrats. the USDA hadn't seen the need to commission me over two years to put 2, 000 people through training. See, all that just coinciding had in history. And every piece of that was critical to finding a way that we could unite humans, get beyond conflict and struggle, and actually address the cause. Of why we're in such trouble with global biodiversity loss, desertification, megafires, fueling climate change.

Bobby: You mentioned butting heads with the folks at USDA. Um, that's, uh, somewhat of a common theme that you read in these, uh, stories throughout the book is throughout your entire career, you've, you've butted heads or, you know, been the, the adversary standing up to the conventional wisdom or challenging things.

Um, where does that come from? You say, like, where does that, that aspect of your personality or why do you think you find yourself in that position? So often

Allan Savory: I'll answer the question, but just let me correct one thing. I didn't butt heads with the USDA. They engaged me, uh, I worked with, uh, 2, 000 people. Hundreds, hundreds, majority of them good people, bright, really caring, uh, for the country. Uh, but what happened was they were there as scientists, as resource managers, etc. The institution then banned all further training. So, so that is one of the things, big learnings. We got out of it. The interagency committee of all the branches of USDA, et cetera, and the land grant colleges, that sort of thing, but there was, they became friends. Um, so where I did butt heads, was in those early stages in, in Africa that we're talking about. Yes, I butted heads when I was a researcher in the colonial office. Uh, and, and then in the federal government, and then in the Southern Rhodesian government, where I was chief research officer for wildlife all over the country. And yes, I butted heads to the point that I realized it, that to be a scientist was almost impossible for me in an institution, uh, and so I realized I have to become an independent scientist. I had no idea how I'd support my family or anything, but I resigned and determined to become an independent scientist, and I've been one ever since, because for me, honest science within an institution was very difficult, if not impossible.

Bobby: you, the book opens with you in a hospital bed dealing with polio. Um, and you go on to talk about how you felt like an underdog. At a lot of times, you know, because of polio, you have, um, you know, that limp, which then, you know, led to, um, you know, certain conflicts with schoolmates. Um, and I guess what I'm wondering is this.

Allan Savory: Silence.

Bobby: or of being the opposition and challenging convention. Does that come from the aspect of feeling like an underdog and needing to prove yourself?

Allan Savory: no, no, I think it's quite a common thing that many victims of polio, by the way, I knew a lot because a lot of kids had polio in my days, and even the ones I disliked intensely, I saw that there was something came out of it. They were all strong personalities. Now, why? I do not know. But not one of them did I know became a whiner. a complainer, or a weak personality, even the ones I didn't like. I could see that in kids around me with polio, and I didn't just, uh, start life like that as a, as a polio, uh, victim. I, I'm, they warned me I'd have curvature of the spine, and if I stripped naked, now you'd see my body is like that. So it's, yes, it's happening, but it wasn't just that.

I, as I talk about in Uh, I, I had an alcoholic mother, so, and I was growing up in World War II with my, both my parents in the army, um, etc. So, yes, I, I, I became very, very reliant, independent, and began to, To, and then I talked about going to a small boarding school in the English tradition of public schools, where I've made the comment to Jodie several times in my life. I couldn't see it at the time, but when I look back years later, oh my God, we were in the dying days of empire, and we were being groomed to be leaders. of a team that the team mattered more than your ego or anything else. So I describe how that those lessons came to me as a young boy, thank goodness. et cetera. So, so it's a combination of things, uh, that, that led to yes, a determination try to solve a problem that accidentally through no wisdom 19, uh, fifties, I realized was management leading by professional people leading to biodiversity loss. As we talk today, Biodiversity is in free fall. Almost everybody's acknowledging that today. I, my home in Africa is surrounded by over 30 national parks. I took them to you today, to those, they are some of our worst examples of biodiversity loss that is leading to climate change, megafires, etc. I spotted that problem in 1957 and decided to switch my life to try to solve that problem. And if you look at those national parks today, and anybody listening to us, can you blame livestock? There are none. How can you blame fossil fuels? There aren't any, they're not using it. How can you blame corruption? Isn't it? It's national parks. How can you blame poaching? No, poaching doesn't create biodiversity loss and habitat disruption like that. you can go through every single thing. Corporate greed. No, there's no corporate greed involved. Every single thing has to fit and only one thing fits. The way we professional people manage resources.

Bobby: You mentioned the, the insight that you developed in 1957. Why don't you tell us the story? Like, give us, give us a taste of, of some of what people can expect in this new book.

Allan Savory: Well, when I talk of getting an insight there, my passion was elephants. I wanted to be. In the game department, uh, and elephants, I'd become the world's expert on elephants. Because I was doing elephant control, I was managing elephants, I was in charge of research in my province and everything, that's where my heart lay. Then I had Sir Frank Fraser Darling sent out by the colonial office, and he spent six weeks with me. On a camp bed next to me, at my campfire, in the Land Rover with me, walking with me for six weeks. And I kept pointing out the biodiversity loss occurring in areas we hadn't even formed national parks yet. We were just setting them aside as future national parks. And I kept saying to the world's top expert at that time, What do we do about this? What is causing this? night after night. He had no solution. And one night, he said to me, because we became firm friends, one night he said to me, for God's sake, Allan, why don't you shut up? You're becoming a bore. And I said, F. D., which is what I called him, praise the Lord, I said, I have no intention of shutting up. This is my country. This is my life. is everything I believe in. That is being destroyed. I'm the professional officer and the researcher, where this is happening over a size greater than England. Britain. I need answers. he had no answers. And his actual words to me, and I think I mentioned them in the, in the memoir, was, Allan, you only have two options before you. And I said, what are they? He said, you'll go back to academia, become a researcher, and Write research papers, get acclaim, get fame, and you'll never worry about what happens. have pursued your career for your life. Or, he said, you will go into politics. I, night by the campfire, swore blind I would never go into politics. I thought it was totally dishonest. Had all the usual. views of an immature young man. And years later, I visited him while, uh, hawking in Scotland, I said to him, he was an old man by then, and knighted by then, and I said, F.

D., do you remember that night at Memorial on Teeper? And he said, yeah, he did. And I said, you were right. I'm now leader of the opposition in parliament.

Bobby: Did,

Allan Savory: I didn't have answers, but I became determined to give up my passion to be a researcher, writing making a career for myself. I was prepared to give up all of that to try to solve this problem.

Bobby: when, when FD had that prediction about you'll either become an academic or a politician, did you have any, I mean, did you feel a resistance to that? Like, did that, did that, um, prediction sit with you over time? Uh, like, I guess I'm wondering, like, was that something that you carried with you?

Allan Savory: No, no, no, it didn't go right with me at all. I just, we just, that's the discussion we had, and I said, I won't do either of those. I will never go back to being an academic. I, I want to solve this problem, and I don't intend to go into politics. Well, I had, from there on, I got more and more into military, army, warfare, politics, but always wearing the same hat and trying to solve this problem. So no, I didn't, I just remembered it as a pleasant memory with a wonderful man and a good friend. And, and in fact, I still have in my library his book. personal copy of Sir John Russell's Soil Conditions and Plant Growth, uh, which he gave me and said to Ellen for a happy you, you Lendo, sign for, you know, Fraser Darling, et cetera, that day. And I've always been grateful for that. That was our parting, the parting gift he gave me, because he pointed my nose at the soil, at ecosystem processes, as it became, than peripheral things. And so he gave me a pointer in the right direction for a major part of solving the problem. And throughout the book I've tried to credit every single person who gave us any clue to solving this problem in the long run. I believe I've credited every single one of them.

Bobby: Well, I think two of the most well known that you often credit are Jan Smuts and his book, Holism and Evolution, and André Voisin, the French agronomist who, who did his work, um, on, on dairy, uh, Tell us, I guess, give folks who maybe haven't heard that before, what were the contributions of Smuts and Voisin, um, that led to, uh, the formation of holistic management and who else, uh, is, uh, a prominent contributor that you would say, uh, you know, and has been mentioned in the book.

Allan Savory: Let me start with smuts. I have never had a theory, a hypothesis. I've been working on practical management. Because at the end of the day, that's what humans will survive by, civilization will survive by, is how we manage resources on which we're dependent for everything. So I've focused on that. But, so the theory, I didn't have to get into theory and so on. When I read smuts. and Einstein had worked with, or was a friend of Smuts's, et cetera. When I read Smuts, I realized, oh my goodness, I get it. I don't need to get involved in the theory. So I just accepted his theory of holism, and I believe increasingly he will be proven right that everything in nature functions in wholes. Uh, and I use the example, you know, you're a whole person, but you're a collection of millions of cells, microorganisms, everything that constitute you, and, and, the next whole, but beyond you and every person listening to us, they immediately say it's their family. No, it's not. In nature, it is not, you cannot even breathe oxygen. Unless you have biodiversity from which oxygen is coming. Okay, so, so, and then you look at a tree or anything else, so I got it. And so I credit him and I made the name of the work, Holistic Management, the framework, Holistic Management, a way to begin to solve these problems. So, yes, I credit him totally. I would, I saw him when I was a little boy, when he came to Rhodesia at the end of the war with the king and queen, and the Queen Elizabeth, who was then a teenager, and I was of the little boys waving to her. But I wish I could sit around the campfire and talk to him today, because he believed his theory would go towards ethical beings, and today, I could show him how that can happen. So what he believed, and never wrote back, lived to write, but what we can pick up from his writings to the Quakers and so on through two world wars, what he believed his theory would lead towards, it actually does, if we manage holistically our lives.

So I'd love to be able to talk to him today. So that

Bobby: If,

Allan Savory: Now,

Bobby: if you were to sit around the fire with Smuts today. What would you ask him? Like, what about his work or what insights do you think he might have that you could still glean something from?

Allan Savory: um, I don't know the answer to that. I would sit around the fire with him and just talk as I always have. But let me

Bobby: Can I get you to answer that again? You, you cut out and then came right back. So, yeah, I don't know what happened, but let's just start that answer.

Allan Savory: just saw you cut out.

Bobby: Yeah, okay.

Allan Savory: so answer it again.

Bobby: Mm hmm. So if you, if you could have that campfire discussion with Smuts, what would you ask him? Like what, what more is there to learn from his perspective that perhaps you aren't able to get just from his writings?

Allan Savory: Um, I don't know the answer to that. I wouldn't approach it that way. I would just be discussing it with him and saying your theory,

Bobby: The one thing that's important to know is that we have a fairly large number of students in the WSU community here. So we're getting a lot of good feedback from them. We're getting a lot of good feedback from the students. And, um, we're trying to get the students to engage and to experiment. That's what we're doing here.

So we're starting to see a lot of students starting to engage.

Allan Savory: and so on. And so, interestingly, we've discovered how people could do that. um, so on. So I would have a discussion at that level with him. I had dinner one night with a very close friend. of the Dalai Lama. I've never met the Dalai Lama, but I had a dinner with a very close friend who's actually written books with him and so on.

And I posed a question to him, and I said, is the Dalai Lama ethical? And he said, absolutely, because that's what Smuts was leaning towards, what he thought we would become ethical beings. So I just asked, is the Dalai Lama ethical? And he assured me it was. And I said, no, no human has ever been able to be ethical. Ethical, ethical means ethical to another human being, but you're indivisible from your environment. So if you're being ethical to other human beings, but you're destroying the environment and the habitat without which they cannot live, are you being ethical? No, you can only be ethical to all of it together, humans and nature indivisible. And we didn't have the ability to do that 1993.

Bobby: so that's smuts.

Allan Savory: that's the sort of level I would be discussing it with Smuts and saying, for your interest, this is what has happened. Uh, because I would be saying to him, uh, religions have tried to reward people for being truly wonderful ethical beings by making them saints, etc. I said, when I think of myself and I think of everybody, we all act in our own self interest all the time. And those people have done so to an extraordinary level, etc. But when people are managing holistically their lives, Because people only manage through things, not thousands, as they believe, and as the world believes. When they're managing their lives tied to the life supporting environment, um, holistically, at that point they suddenly realize, oh my god, it's never in my self interest of me or my family to damage another human. or to damage the environment. And when you get that realization, you realize, yes, we can become ethical beings if we can just stop squabbling, fighting, blaming, the chaos that you're getting at Davos in environmental conferences. It's just chaos.

Bobby: Yeah. So essentially, once people are able to see the interconnectedness of their lives and how they make decisions and how that influences the environment around them, to which we all belong, to quote Aldo Leopold, um, when they have that insight of that common thread and that common ground that we all share and the interconnectedness of everything, that realization allows someone to then be a better steward and representative of that environment and to show up and make better decisions that don't just affect them as an individual, affects everyone else and the environment and everything else around them.

Allan Savory: Uh, in a way, you're right, but it's not, it's more, uh, complex than that. Um, we, we're not connected, we are one in the same. If you breathe, if you defecate, you are the environment. With every other microorganism, we have a biosphere. It's a living planet. a component of it. Every time we say the environment, we imply it's different from us. And when I wrote the first edition of our textbook, I wanted to use the word our ecosystem selves. We are it. We're not connected. We're it. And Jodie, who wrote with me, said, You're not Shakespeare, you can't invent words. Uh, I said, well, why the hell can a poet, why can't a scientist? so we talked about still the environment, but I don't think that way. see us as one and the same. Now, when you say, if we thought connected, Uh, that we Oh, saw that interconnectedness. And this is absolutely right. We need to, let's not play on the word interconnected. Um, I keep saying, and then you say that would help us make better decisions. Well, a point I make in, in our textbook and we'll make, to the dying day of my life is we would be arrogant. If we ever thought, thought we were the first people to think like that. There's so much evidence that Native Americans, Aborigines, Pygmies, Sand Bushmen, sorts of people in the history of the world, saw their connection to nature and the environment, and we lost it. with modern western science. So, so those people had that connection.

They, they tried to think apparently of decisions seven generations hence. In North America, how much did they help? Already civilizations had failed the Spaniards arrived with livestock. Already North America was starting megafires. if you look at Australia where they were superb at that. The pollen record shows that they had changed the whole of Australia from a fire fearing, fire phobic to a fire dependent vegetation 50, 000 years.

So, so it didn't help. And we will never change, I believe, how humans make decisions. That is one of the things we discovered in

Bobby: Okay.

Allan Savory: At any time, if I'm wrong, but think about our lives and think about institutions or political parties or anything, um, we make every conscious decision to meet a need we have, a desire we have, or to meet a problem, address a problem?

Yes, we do. It's hard to think of any conscious decision. And then

Bobby: Okay. all for joining us today, and we'll see you next time.

Allan Savory: civilizations already, so we'll never change that. But what, that's why our organization and our textbook is called, the whole textbook is Holistic Management, not Holistic Decision Making, there's, there's nothing different. We haven't changed decision making at all. What we've made brought it into management. So that when you've made that decision on expert advice, research, and everything, you now weigh it up in the light of a context that is a new concept. if you look what drives my work, then what we discovered, what I discovered with thousands of people's help when I exiled years, if, if you, uh, look at that, uh, I lost my train of thought there.

Bobby: It's all right. It's all right. I think we're veering off. Go ahead. All

Allan Savory: it. And so if you look at everything in my textbook, uh, the holistic framework, it is driven by a new concept called a holistic context. So now we have a context we take a management action see if that is in line with how you're going to unite with our environment and thousands of years for future generations. Now that concept. I believe you will not find in any branch of science, because it doesn't exist, it didn't until we developed it, we being hundreds of people working with me, other professional people, it's not in any branch of science, it's not in any philosophy in the world, no philosopher ever came close to that, and it's not in any religion. in the world. So it is a totally new concept. when you have a new concept like that that drives it, it does lead to difficulties because, uh, what I've learned over years of thousands of people is I've never, seen ignorance block learning. Never. The only two things I've ever seen blocked learning is what we already know as adults and our egos. Now, children don't have those. So, so to, I was, uh, to try and a family or anything into managing that family holistically, love to work with the children and the parents together, and the children would help the parents.

Bobby: All right, let's go back to some of those early influences. So you discussed smuts and his contributions with, you know, his concept of holism, which, you know, is very prominent, given that it's called holistic management. There's Andre of Lausanne and his rational grazing. And that's the main insight. There is that overgrazing is not a function of.

the number of animals, but rather due to the timing at which those animals are exposed to a plant. And so, is that right, that that's the, uh, a significant contribution of, of Wassan?

Allan Savory: Yes, I, I mentioned this in the memoir to make it very clear, uh, what I got from when I realized it was. possible stop global biodiversity loss and desertification with fire and technology. The only two tools that humans have, you know, nobody listening to us can even drink milk unless they go to a cow and suck they use technology. right. So humans only had two tools, fire and technology. And when I realized you could not solve that problem on two thirds of the world and all the national parks around me and everything, it was deteriorating. I got an aha moment from Acox, uh, from following up his work, that led me to an aha moment where I realized, oh my goodness, how wrong I'd been, because I had been one of the strongest opponents, uh, of livestock.

I made George Monbiot look like a bloody angel, okay? I was really a fanatical young man, and, uh, and I realized, oh my god, I'd been wrong. We cannot

Bobby: Silence.

Allan Savory: because I'd bought his book three or four years before. it, it was about pasture management for France. I thought, what the hell's that got to do with elephants and wildlife in Africa?

So I just put it on the shelf. Didn't really study it. now when I realized, oh, we have to, I started looking at, well, what's out there? Faucin's work, etc. And Rainscience had nothing, nothing at all. Uh, and Faucin had something. So when I read him, I immediately said, he solved this problem. And I talked, told about that story in the memoir and how I got two rancher guinea pigs to help work with me. And we, uh, in motion his, um, rational grazing we fell on our faces. And he had given us that clue time was more important than numbers, the way, it's not, not the time that the animals exposed to the plants, as you asked, it's actually the other way around,

Bobby: Right. I missed it.

Allan Savory: to make. Yeah. And he'd given us that clue that it was a, an issue of time of exposure of the plants and re exposure. I got that clear, it solved that problem, um, right, that's part of it. Now, we did that and practiced that on two ranches, and I went out every day on a little motorbike looking, and after rain, and everything, this is not doing it.

It's not doing what we need, and what we, what I'd seen under wildlife and so on, in near natural, uh, conditions. And at that point I said, okay, he's not wrong. Some planning process is needed because he had studied rotational grazing over 200 years in Europe. Am I cut off?

Bobby: Nope, you're good. That was just me. I'm trying to.

Allan Savory: he had studied rotational grazing over 200 years in, in Europe, et cetera, and found that it invariably led to loss of biodiversity, et cetera, but not to desertification in the human environments of the world. So when it crashed with us or we ran into problems, I said, all right, he's given us a second clue.

He is not wrong. process of planning required to replace all grazing systems that humans have ever practiced. so I said, all right, his is not sophisticated enough to handle the wildlife, the crops. The long, dry months in Africa, et cetera. then I talk about it in the book. In the memoir, I said, well, I'm an independent scientist.

I have almost no resources, so I better research what other professions have done. And I looked at Harvard Business School and business libraries and everything. And they hold books on, on, on management. And none of them had ever addressed anything as complicated or as complex as this. And they're tight. took far too much academic training before you were qualified, et cetera. And then, logically, because I was in the army, an officer in the army, and we were trained under Standhurst training as part of the original colonial commonwealth forces, and I looked at our, uh, how we did things, or how the army had done things, developed over the last thousand years. They had fought battle after battle after battle, where you don't know what's going to happen. You're unpredictable. Anything could change any moment. How had they taught rapidly civilians being called into an army as officers come up with the best possible plan at any moment in time? I said, I'm not going to reinvent the wheel.

So in the book, and always I've credited Sandhurst Military Academy. Now, they wouldn't recognize it, but the concept of how to plan a complicated situation came from them, not from me. So it came from, was I'm giving me a clue, looking at who in the world, what profession has come even close to this, and it was the army. So I credit Military Academy. that describe that in the book. Now when I did that and just had to convert it to a longer time because battles are fought for a week, an hour, you know, month, whatever. Whereas farmers and pastoralists have to plan months ahead, months, eight months, 10 months with no rain. You can't just fly by the seat of your pants. You have to have really good planning. So how do you do that? And I worked out how to do it on the chart, the military thing. Now, I put that into practice with my first guinea pig, and then myself with ranches on which I had cattle, running by then, it worked right away. And I, I'm not joking, uh, when I say to you now, we've never ever had a single failure. It's got a thousand years of experience behind that process. We have had thousands of people make derivations of it and not do it, they will all fail in the long run.

Bobby: Yeah, what you're,

Allan Savory: my life on.

Bobby: yeah, what, so what you're saying is those that have stuck to the framework have seen success, but if you try to take shortcuts or modify and, you know, the, the iterations, uh, all the, the grazing gurus that are out there now, and all the different grazing systems that you hear about that are, you know, Kind of, you know, taking components of what you initially developed with holistic planned grazing and they've turned it into this other thing that has a new term with it.

Now, those are where the failures have have come up.

Allan Savory: Yes, Bobby, this is well described by Everett Rogers, who wrote the book, Diffusion of Innovation, and how when new, truly new thinking comes into society, people take the idea, give it a name of their own, and a twist of their own because of our egos, and develop a diversion of it. And so, from when I came to America as an exile, as I say, there was continuous grazing, there was Gus Hormé's rest rotation, uh, grazing, and Vermont University were doing some work with Poseyne's rational grazing. That was it. Now, within, uh, six months of me being, uh, to train 10,000 people six months. I think we had 13 derivations of it. today, uh, arising from, my work, uh, we have mob grazing, a MP Adaptive Multi Paddock grazing, high

Bobby: This is the end of this video. I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Allan Savory: perennial humidity because you can around London or in most of Europe or parts of the east and west coasts of America. You can overgraze every single plant.

You can poison

Bobby: Okay. Okay. Okay. That concludes the report. everyone. Good evening. I appreciate the time.

Allan Savory: does. 300 percent more profit, up to five times production per acre with land that is recovering, etc. So, so when our planning process, the word holistic is there, and that holistic means something. is a referral to the holistic framework. So if we were to look at, for example, let's say, uh, you and I, with young families, wanted to go farming and ranching.

We like livestock. We want to go farming and ranching. And we've got three, three

Bobby: No, no, no, no, no. is okay

Allan Savory: us was in Amazon in the Brazil. One of our families, and we've all got this intention. Now, we would all make decisions the same

Bobby: And I'm going to be talking about some of the things that we talked about in the previous session. But before I do that, I want to talk about some of the things that we talked about in our talk today. Um, so, I'm going to go ahead and start by saying that we are going to be talking about some of the things that we talked about today.

So, we are going to be talking about freedom of the press.

Allan Savory: is looking at what does the word holistic mean?

Bobby: I'm going to be doing a video about how to do a clicker. And it's called a clicker. And I'm going to be showing you how to do it. I'll see you back there. You guys have a good one. Bye.

Allan Savory: whatever. So we'd look at And in the case of the Brazil families, and the first thing they would do with holistic plan grazing is not do it because they realize that if they brought livestock in a tool to produce food, be damaging the environment, damaging the economy, damaging their families. They would not do it. So that's holistic plan grazing. And the first step would be look for an alternative. if we were in the Arizona shopper, all of the,

Bobby: Allan, before you get into the, before you get into the chaparral, my computer for some reason is not charging. And so I want to make sure that I fix that before I accidentally get booted. So one second while I try to problem solve over here.

There we go. Okay.

Allan Savory: Okay. So if we were either of the families in the California chaparral where these bigger fires are and so on, or we're in Arizona forests, we're in the same sort of thing. If we're in those, in that first step, looking at our holistic context and the tools available to us to manage our lives and our environment to produce food, we've only got technology far too. And if we're looking at holistic management, we've got livestock. as a tool with the holistic plan grazing process. So when we look at those and the holistic context of any normal family, any human being, the first thing we would see is it cannot, we cannot sustain our lives. We cannot sustain the environment.

or the economy with technology and fire. We have no option. As I said in the TED talk, it is not desirable to use livestock. It's impossible without them. We would realize that. And then we'd say, okay, we have to use livestock. Whereas the other family in Brazil had, had, to get out of it. we would look at how do you run the livestock, and we'd look at all the derivatives, and every one of them would not meet the holistic context, wouldn't be in line with that. Then we'd look at holistic planned grazing, and it meets all the requirements, fills in the box, and then we'd proceed with that. And that means opening our minds to all sounds, Even though, no matter how much research it is, when we've made a decision and now going to take it into management, we're going to assume we're wrong because nature is so complex. And we're going to have a feedback loop and our management is going to be proactive, adaptive.

Bobby: Hmm.

Let's go back a little bit. You mentioned ACOCS. So John Acox, he's a South African gentleman, and he wrote an article that you read one day. What did he say in that article that intrigued you, and what happened from there?

Allan Savory: Okay, I'll tell that story because it's so important and credit John Aikos with it. I was visiting one of the game ranchers. I was totally antagonistic to livestock. You know, that's why I with two American scientists had developed the game ranching concept to replace livestock. I was seeing that We weren't really succeeding. The environment was still deteriorating, even though we were increasing game populations. And I happened to be visiting one of my clients, a game launching client, and on his coffee table he had a South African Farmers Weekly magazine. So it's a magazine in which know, stuff is put out, but for farmers, well known, uh, thing. And the cover said, uh, John A. Cox, uh, says, South Africa is understocked and overgrazed. I thought, and that's a novel thought. Now, the academic world went ballistic. That was like throwing a pork chop in a synagogue, um, that, so when I looked at it, I said, no, that's the first. new idea I've seen.

I'm desperate for solutions. And so I tracked Acocks down, phoned him, said, can I visit you? I didn't want to talk over the phone. And I went down. I'd never been that far south in Africa in the middle of winter. I was broke. I was struggling as an independent scientist with no resources. So I together enough money for my diesel fuel in my, uh, Peugeot station wagon, I went down there. didn't have a jersey. I'd never been in snow. I didn't know that it was that cold a thousand miles south. And I had to tough it out and pretend I did. I had to sleep in my car, I took food in my car. I only had money for fuel there and back. um, anyway, I went and met John A. Cox, old man, listened to him because I'd come to learn, and I listened to his theory of why the Karoo Desert had spread, etc.

And I said, now, is there somebody I can look at on the ground who's practicing what you're saying? And he said, yes, Len and Denise Howell, a launching couple. I said, could you introduce me? And he did. He phoned them. They invited me to come and stay and thank God lent me a jacket. And I didn't have to pretend to be tough and

Bobby: I'm going to show you how to do it.

Allan Savory: I was seeing why it was excited. plant species were coming in. Lots of things were exciting, but I was seeing that the four ecosystem processes, which by the way are pulled together in our textbook, which I'd never seen pulled together by Leopold or anyone, but when I looked at those four processes, weren't healthy. So I was seeing change in species, but not health in the whole, I was observing, just keeping quiet and asking questions, and we got to a fence, and I got out to open the gate, and Len and Denise, his wife, were there, and I looked over to the left, and even though we were in mid winter, there was a healthier piece of

Bobby: Okay. Okay.

Allan Savory: said, what did you do here? This is what I'm looking for. A healthy piece of land. It's almost impossible to find this. And I said, what did, what happened here? They said, well, nothing.

And I said, but it is a corner that when the snow's bad, the sheep crowd into that corner. Oh, livestock, they can solve this problem. So they gave me that tremendous offer. And then I tried Acox's method and Voisin's, and, and I realized that Acox was right for the wrong reasons. Still he was right. Still he gave us a clue. South Africa, like America, is horrifically understocked. There are pathetically few cattle New Mexico, et cetera, and same in South Africa, but it's desertifying. Now, when I say pathetically few, when I was in, uh, living in Texas A& M, uh, at Texas, uh, San Angelo. and working with the universities there, etc. Bob Steger, who is Professor of Range Science at Angelo State University, uh, when he came through training with me, he said, By the way, Allan, you are right. I said, What do you mean? said, If He said, We have the published figures. USDA has them. And he said, If you look at the stocking rate, the official stocking rate around San Angelo in Texas, A century ago, it looks like science fiction today. The stocking rate is so low. That is desertification due to range science.

Bobby: It reminds me of

Allan Savory: evidence here, we did, but, but, uh, ACOCS gave us that clue.

Bobby: What you were saying about the livestock numbers, it was making me think, because you mentioned that, uh, New Mexico, Arizona, those regions, that they're so understocked. It reminds me of the Livestock Reduction Act that was implemented in the 1920s, where the government came in and essentially forced the Navajo to, I mean, through a variety of different policies, essentially decimated the Navajo sheep populations because they were claiming that the Navajo sheep were, um, degrading the landscape.

And so that was their justification for doing so. But what actually happened is with this Livestock Reduction Act and all the measures that they took to reduce them, it only ended up exacerbating the problem and making things worse. And now The people who had depended on those sheep now their lives have been ruined as well and the landscape is worse off.

So

Allan Savory: absolutely. Now we used that when I was commissioned by USDA, uh, to train 2000 people. I used those sites, so you are right. In 1920s, they, they had the belief and that belief had become scientific truth. There's no science to support it. It's a belief, like religion or whatever. And so they had that belief, but they needed the evidence, the scientific evidence, to justify that policy. And I believe they intended to shoot 50, 000 That the number I was given by officials. So they put in research plots and excluded all livestock, in New Mexico, Utah, Southern California. Arizona, they put them in. And they, all of them, the plants grew. They photographed it. There's a whole report on it that I have showing the photographs of the plants growing, grass growing. So they went ahead and I think they shot 20, 000 sheep or whatever it was. And yes, it got worse. And I've always said, and I've said it in the textbook and I said it in the TED talk, God they left the research plots. So, with government agents in the USDA, Forest Service, BLM, BIA, Soil Conservation Service, we visited those We looked at them. Every single plot in the seasonal rainfall environments worse. And that is the point. And I talked about that in the TED Talk, and I talked about it in the textbook. So yeah, now, um, it's not just us. That's been a belief for thousands of years. You can, I believe, I'm not a scholar who can read it, but I believe you can go back in ancient texts.

I was told this when I was working in Yemen and And so on, and see them blaming the shepherds for causing the desert and the sands that were overwhelming the cities in biblical times. And that just became a scientific truth. There is not a scrap of evidence in any of the of papers I've read, peer reviewed papers, that provides any scientific evidence. It was just assumed a truth. fact, I've never read a brain science book or paper that even defines overgrazing. don't define something if you all know what it is. It's too many animals. And it was unproved. That wasn't right.

Bobby: let's, I feel like we jumped ahead and got really into the specifics of holistic management, but I want to backtrack us and take us back to the period of time. within the memoir and, you know, really the earlier portion. I think your, you know, one of, we talked about one common thread throughout your storied career is, you know, kind of the butting of heads, um, with authority figures at times.

Another common thread is, wildlife. I mean, I think that is pervasive throughout your life, is that there has been this keen focus on wildlife and trying to help wildlife and their environment. So I guess my question is, where did this love for wildlife come from originally? What led you to be so hyper focused on wildlife in your career?

And then how did that transpire?

Allan Savory: Well, I, early, and I can describe this in the memo, my earliest inclination was to go into the army. and, because I went to a small boarding school, it was said at the time that the And the whole of the British Empire, uh, the three schools you were most likely to get into Sandhurst from were Eton, Harrow and the school I went to in Africa. small school of 300 boys on the Botswana border. I went there and I had grown up with a family and the army, uh, everything until the Second World War. Um, but I was very, very immature, think. And, but at least somehow I reasoned that there would be another 20 years. before a major war. And I thought, I don't want to spend the most active. of my life being a peacetime soldier. I'm not a peacetime soldier. Um, so I gave up, uh, even though I was, I'd already got CERT A part one and two, uh, Sanders training and so on, could have gone as an officer cadet. So I gave that up and my second passion was just wildlife. so, uh, that was my career. Now, at that time in Africa, there was a minimum joining age, 25 years. You couldn't join a game department if you were under that because of the responsibilities, the dangers, etc. Lions, elephants, all the stuff we had to deal with. uh, I looked at that and I thought, what the hell am I going to do? I'm leaving school now, and I've got five years to wait before I can, I'm 19 or whatever, um, 18 I think it was, and so a godfather of mine who had been in Burma during the war and come back and was a mentor of mine, he's persuaded my father, he said, send him to university to make up that time because we will need biologists and so on. So, I didn't go to university for any other reason than to gain some years so that I could join into the game departments because that was my, my love. And fortunately I was so fanatical and I did so well at university, academically, et cetera, that the colonial office made an exception and I joined at 20

Bobby: And so tell us,

Allan Savory: So,

Bobby: us about that time of, of joining the game department. What was your role when you joined the game department and what sorts of things were you doing there?

Allan Savory: well, it plays a big part in it when I joined, uh, under the director, et cetera. And the senior rangers who had become friends, and I used to go up there for holidays, and they'd mentor me, and I'd with them. And so when I joined, it all changed. The director had left, there were other people there, and at first I became a Gunganin, just a boy that carries the water in the battlefield. My talents were never used, I was just, uh, rearranging stores. You know, they weren't using me it got very, very frustrating. So basically after you, I just said, no, I'm, I'm, I'm going back to Southern Rhodesia, my own country, cause I was in Northern Rhodesia and colonial territory. Uh, or, governed by Britain. and I'm going back cause our people won't be the same. And I just jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. Our own people were worse. So, so, uh, but when I resigned after just a year notified my director, et cetera, while I was doing a military period of three months in the army, which I had to do, I got a message from, from the department appealing to me to come back. Because I think it was so embarrassing that their first professional recruit in one year just says no and leaves. And so they appealed to me to come back. And I couldn't resist it because I was coming back to take charge of what is today the northern Lua Pula province. And in the book I show the scale of that. bigger than the whole United Kingdom. So here's a 20 year old building brought back, uh, to take charge of 200 men, uh, most of the country's game reserves at that age. I mean, I couldn't resist that. So I went back, uh, so that, that story's told, and the passion, and then that's where I met Fraser Darling and, and so on.

And that's when, as I say, no wisdom. I wasn't a wise person. I'm just an ordinary person. But that's when I realized, oh, we've got a problem. Biodiversity is being lost in the wildest parts of Africa, even before we form a national park. There's got to be something causing this. And as I went through earlier, you can't attribute it to anything but the management.

Bobby: Did you, I mean, you studied ecology at university. Is that right?

Allan Savory: Yes, it was just basically, but there I started to butt heads in a very friendly way. We were such a small university, um, and the professors of botany and zoology literally became friends. I mean, so when I said butting heads, it was as science should be. And, uh, under one, I was learning animal ecology, following Elton Etcetera. Under the other, I was learning plant ecology. Now, I, for whatever reason, struggled with maths, with things. I was not a good scholar, for reasons I do not know, like some people. are musicians. I am totally not musical, totally not mathematical. I'm stupid those things. Literally, I'm not exaggerating. When it came to ecology, I just was like a fish in water. I didn't even have to study. listened. I read the books and it resonated. I'd arrived with something. So I began immediately to say in class as a young student to the professor teaching us plant ecology. And I would say, how can you have plant ecology? This doesn't make sense to me. It cannot. There can only be ecology, surely. It's a branch of science. So, so, and he'd say, what do you mean? And I'd say, well, uh, plants can't exist without animals and microorganisms. And it's difficult to see where plants and animals, whether which one, uh, as you go into the microorganisms and so on. And, uh, he would say to me, well, say if you want to be a bloody zoologist, go to the zoology department. and I'd say, no, professor, when I'm there, we're learning animal ecology without the plants. It doesn't make sense to me, and you know, I argued to the time we left university, but they gave me the highest marks, apparently, ever, in ecology, and I didn't even study, I just wrote the exams. so it was like reading music, it just resonated with me, and over time I've proven right. It's only ecology, you cannot possibly have plant ecology. It indicates the subject isn't understood. So, so, so, but it was the early days of ecology. But even today you can Google it in America and you can find textbooks written on fire ecology. Oh my God. Why don't we write a textbook on chainsaw ecology? Fire is a tool. How can you have fire ecology? And then if you read, um, oh, what's it, Monbiot's book, Regenesis, or whatever he calls it, um, which I'm the most criticized scientist, amusingly, when you read that, as I read it, I realize this guy is ecologically illiterate. Because he talks about the, uh, practices being practiced along the river. Why? And he says it's been so good, it's changed the ecology along the river. can you change a branch of science along a river? You see, that, that alone tells me, put the book down. This man doesn't even know what he's talking about. But so, so when you pick up a book on fire ecology, please understand ecology is a branch of science, fire is a tool. So you're gonna write a book about practices with fire and hints and tips, but for God's sake, don't call it fire ecology.

Bobby: So, so you have a background in ecology, and then you enter the game department as a game ranger, where your job is to go about and deal with problematic wildlife, such as man eating lions and elephants that are raiding villages, crops, and things like that. Is that right? Is the combination of those two, you know, the practical experience out on the land, trying to help wildlife combined with that understanding of ecology, is the intersection of the two where some of these insights started to form?

Allan Savory: Uh, they, a lot began to form around tracking. So yes, as a young man, and I tell odd, interesting stories, adventure stories to break the monotony in the memoir. I was at the center of action wanting to be like. You did, I know. You wanted to go parachuting and, and I was the same. So, and most young men, or many young men, are like that.

We, we want to be in the action and I was like that. So, so I loved hunting problem hippos, problem elephants, whatever, because this is dangerous, this is adventure. And then I observed that we always, as whites, had native trackers. But the closer you got to the lion, If it was a man eater, the more inclined to lose the tracks, more fear took over and they somehow lost the tracks. And so I realized I've got to become a tracker and being fanatical young man, as I was, I had to be the best. And I learned from the best trackers, et cetera. I focused on it, and the next time it happened to me, where he said, lost the tracks, I said, no, no, there they are, keep going. And then that talent I took into the army and trained, I believe I'm correct in saying, the first army in history to actually train army trackers. not rely on native trackers who don't have the same motivation as troops in action with wanting to close with the enemy or whatever. And so tracking featured more and more, and then relating it to ecology, tell the story in the book how I would be lying in the bush at night. I'm with four men. We've scattered because we're close to the enemy. We've been tracking for days. we've scattered because we can't afford a sentry. We've got to be alert all day. We can't be sentry all night. So we're hiding in the bush. We're sleeping in the rain. We can't light a fire. Uh, so you're just lying in the mud, waiting, trying to shelter your welcome, waiting for the dawn. You had a lot of time to think, and then I would think, why was it so easy three days ago to track people across that land so much more difficult the next day? So difficult today, we were on the same rainfall, we're on the same soils, granites or basalts or whatever, or Kalahari sands. So it's the same rainfall, same vegetation, same everything, but very hard one day, very easy other days. One day we're tracking. 20, 30, 40 yards ahead, we're picking up the clues. And another day, there are no clues out there. You're picking them up here. Okay, so I'm lying thinking of that as an ecologist. And no scientist I know of in the world had had the advantage of 20 years of war, and training army trackers and commanding a tracker combat unit as an ecologist. it was a tremendous learning for me. And some of the learning came from that. Lying at night and saying, okay, what's the difference? tracking is all about observation, deduction. science. And so when I did that, I started realizing, oh, the difference was management. One day we were tracking through a national park. The next day we were tracking through an African communal area with communal cattle. And, and uh, forestry sort of stuff. Another day we were tracking through commercial white farms or ranches. And the management was making a tremendous difference to the ability to track and how you tracked. And no scientist I know of has ever been given such a wonderful opportunity. I took advantage of it.

Bobby: easy, like give, uh, paint us a picture of what easy tracking looks like versus difficult tracking looks like to, you know, for folks that perhaps don't have experience in tracking and or don't have experience reading the land, like paint the picture of what are the specific things that you're seeing and noticing that allow you to see that, hey, these landscapes are managed differently.

Allan Savory: Yeah, I'll bring it down to utter simplicity as you ask. When the tracking is easy, you can, your eyes can be out and you're looking for lines of clues, broken spider webs, bent leaves, different color in the leaves because they've bent a different way. Uh, but insects, sounds, blah, blah, blah, you're looking at massive clues, you're analyzing this in your mind all the time. now, when you find you can be looking out way ahead of you there and picking up these clues in a line of almost insignificant things, I began to realize, okay, that's associated with what I called aerial sign. You're looking up, the clues are above ground in the vegetation. In the vegetation is where the are. And, um, that's easy tracking, because you're tracking way out there, a long way ahead. If you see the clues to 50 yards ahead of you, uh, and then suddenly only see them to 30 yards ahead of you, you can stop and say, okay, I see the clues to there. Where should I look for the deviation of those and not overshoot it?

And so it's easy. Now, on other days, There's almost no vegetation, but you're on the same soil as the same rainfall. And the day before, when it was easy, you never saw a track. You couldn't see a footprint. There was too much litter on the ground. The plants were too close. You never, for an hour or more, saw a single footprint. But you were still on the track of that animal or that person. or that group of people. Now the next day there's almost no sign out there because there's no vegetation to bend, there's no grass to bend, there's no leaves to bend, there's no leaves to change color as they bent or whatever, or as dew's been wiped off of them, because just line it wiping the dew off if you're close. And you don't even track, you just follow the line. Okay, so suddenly now that's disappeared, and what you're looking for is the footprint, where the foot has broken the soil surface, dented the capping, or some clue. So, and that's, but those are the same soils, same rainfall. Why? Management. I, I can't think of a, a better training for any scientist, but we obviously can't do that

Bobby: Part of, Lewis

Allan Savory: is observation deduction trying to establish what's going on.

Bobby: Liebenberg wrote a book, uh, the art of tracking the origin of science, where he discusses tracking as essentially the, the first science, the first, um, the first time in the history of Homo sapiens, or even prior to Homo sapiens in earlier primates, where, um, the brain needed to think, um, in different ways, uh, mechanically the cause and effect of an animal stepped and broke this branch.

And that means that an animal passed by right here. Um, so using deductive reasoning to be able to assemble a picture, um, But then more of the, and I think that's the systematic tracking he talks about versus simple tracking, which is just following footsteps. And then there's a third form of tracking, um, speculative tracking, I believe, where it's hypothesis formation, where you're seeing things, but it's not enough to put together a clear picture.

So then you have to

Allan Savory: to

Bobby: and try to get in the mindset of that animal to

Allan Savory: Silence.

Bobby: that either confirm or deny your hypothesis. So essentially, tracking being that first form of the scientific method with deductive reasoning and hypothesis formation and, you know, trying to, you know, trying to refute your own hypothesis.

That, I think, Go ahead.

Allan Savory: Bobby, I, I mentioned Lievenberg because he, he up with this idea, concept that tracking was the origin of sensor, I believe is correct. And now, um, So, that, that was in all likelihood where science arose from, was tracking. now, with the types of tracking he talks about in Hypothesis, that is typical of when we take something analytically, or academically, and try and break it out into components. Um, when I was training trackers in the Tracker Combat Unit, in the Gardens, Gridland, Terrorist Units, We were doing all that simultaneously, like a computer doing it all. I write about in the book where the, when you're tracking, uh, uh, the level we're talking about where your life depends on it. If you're wrong, you're going to be dead. That's a hell of an inducement to be right. All right. So when you're doing that, um, you, you are, just following tracks, you're, you're from the clues, the tracks, whether the person bent down, whether they turn on a bunch of grass or put their foot next to it or whatever, you're building from these clues a mental picture of what's in this person's mind, where are they going? What are they doing? What are they going to do next? You're building a picture. that is just tracking. You don't break it out into a theory and blah blah blah. If you're training trackers as I was doing, we were doing all of that simultaneously.

Bobby: Yeah. Boyd Vardy, uh, in his book, a lion trackers guide to life, uh, speaks a lot about, you know, getting into that mindset of, you know, it's essentially entering into a flow state where the tracker is following along and, you know, thinking as if they are the animal and okay, what do I feel as I'm stepping right here?

And, oh, I look over my shoulder and that means that they're pressing down into the ground a little bit more. And that's why you see the track, you know, goes a little bit deeper on this one. know, oh, a bird must have come, flown overhead because then all of a sudden they jump in this direction. And, you know, it's,

Allan Savory: Uh,

Bobby: it's,

Allan Savory: there's a lot of that stuff written. Most of these people, I don't want to be derogatory, most of these people are writing about it. They, uh, it's, uh, in, you know, there's a lot of stuff. One novelist has written many, many bestsellers. And the, he wrote and asked if he could use my name, and I wouldn't allow him to, but the characters, uh, he obviously talked to people I trained. Now he writes this wonderful story of the Courtney family in Africa, et cetera, and these guys could track and run and blah, blah, blah. It's bullshit. We couldn't do that. It was much more difficult than that, but it makes lovely reading. So, so it's, it's a lot of things, but, um,

Bobby: but, but through tracking, ultimately you were spending a lot of time reading the landscape. You know, you were at,

Allan Savory: landscape all the time, but I was reading what's happening on the landscape, because why is it, or thinking at night, why is it easy or difficult? But during the day, yes, you're picking up silences of insects, noises of insects suddenly, uh, bird calls, you're picking up spiderwebs, broken, spore on top of some other spore. Are these nocturnal animals leaving the spore on top of this? You're, you're, you're picking up soil color. Because within hours it's changing color if you just disturb a bit of sand. you're picking up all these clues. when I spent, All the time training trackers, I would just be alongside the tracker with a stick and, uh, and watching what he was picking up and then pointing what he was missing, that's how I sort of trained them. And then when I say, got to get serious about it, uh, if you're tracking at the level you are in a military situation, as I was doing. I, I had a. Uh, having people who are very, very skilled away, give them half an hour an hour, go away and leave no track, do everything they could not to be tracked, and then somewhere play an ambush. And then I would train a team of four men, working in a team, to track them up. One man to control the team, one to be a tracker, two to be way out ahead. ambushes and or deviations and and how it all worked. Now, men start to take that casually. So I started saying, okay, when you lay the ambush, you will have loaded rifles with real ammunition.

You fire. And we would, if we tracked into an ambush, rounds would coming around us and at our feet that they might not have hit us, but we did get one guy shot through the leg. it said I could accept casualties in the training I was doing. And, uh, then I realized the guys were getting complacent.

They know they're not going to be shot at. They're just going to be frightened. So I'd see slackness eight hours of tracking. People are letting their attention go. They're wandering towards mines to water or water sloshing in a water bottle that mines aren't on it. then I started using catapults with the most powerful elastic we could and shooting stones.

Bobby: Mm hmm, mm hmm, mm hmm,

Allan Savory: the trackers. If we walk into an ambush, as we track you down and my God, when the stone comes and it shatters. On the magazine of a rifle, you get your attention. hits you in the chest, it's bloody sore. hits you in the eye, you're blinded for life. Okay, so now they started to pay attention all the damn time. we were almost never ambushed. Because I worked out ways to avoid that. you had to have men terribly alert. So, so we're talking a level of tracking that we won't do in, An environment other than real that. And yes, it's building up clues and making deductions, but in this case, your deductions have to be right or there's a high chance you're dead.

Bobby: There's a, uh,

Allan Savory: a wonderful training ground.

Bobby: yeah, there's a, a picture I think that's starting to form that hopefully people are catching on to that, you know, you've got this background in ecology and this deep love for wildlife and wanting to do what's right for them. You've got these roles of tracking problematic wildlife, you know, that's your early career.

And so you're spending a lot of time reading the land, looking at signs for how these wildlife have interacted. With the landscape, because your job is to find them and deal with the problematic, you know, to, to get the man eating lions and, you know, hunt them down to make sure that they don't kill any other people.

Um, but in doing so, you're developing new insights about how wildlife interact with the land. And then as you were saying. how the management of those landscapes, whether they're a national park or tribal lands or, you know, an established commercial ranch, how those landscapes look differently and make tracking easier or harder.

There's a story that I'm recalling from the book where you're tracking a problematic hippo.

Allan Savory: Hello.

Bobby: Do you recall what story I'm talking about

Allan Savory: Well, I'm not tracking, yes, I'm not tracking the

Bobby: trying to find a problematic and deal with them?

Allan Savory: the hippo who's gone into a swamp. Yeah.

Bobby: Yes. Could you tell us the story of that hippo because I, I just love that story.

Allan Savory: I think it's left in the memoir. You know, I took a lot of stories out, uh, because they, they, they, they, they're like, I don't want to be, this to be about, adventures and

Bobby: Sure.

Allan Savory: guy I am. this one may be an, but on that occasion, it actually involved something I also called my Monkwala that is referred to in the, in the book. Um, this, uh, hippo, had killed three or four people. I got a message from the district commissioner where the hippo was. So I went to deal with that myself. with two African staff, very loyal guys who hunted with me all the time, older men than me, and we broke down in the Land Rover and spent a terrible night

Bobby: Okay. Okay. Okay. that I do, so it's really been a joy and a pride to do my work and it's also a joy in a way to continue to do these things and to keep doing these things and to help provide that kind of support to others.

Allan Savory: vivid.

Bobby: Um,

Allan Savory: stuff. Uh, so anyway, I said, uh, where's the hippo? It's gone into the swamp below the village. Uh, okay, can we take canoes and go and try and flush it out? Uh, I'll take the deep channel and we'll fan canoes once we get to the swamp part, onto the side to try and channel the hippo. so this is all done with the villagers, and I've got somebody paddling in my canoe, and I'm in front, there's only two men, there's not much free board, and the others are going to do. Now, I took off. Almost everything. I only kept, I think, four rounds of ammunition for my rifle. Now, the elephant control guards, the older men on my staff who

Bobby: Okay.

Allan Savory: And I said,

Bobby: So, uh,

Allan Savory: as could be, and the nose of my canoe was ahead of the hippo, which was on the bank in the swampy area, and the reeds were so thick. The nose of the canoe was beyond him, and he woke up, leapt out, and just pushed our canoe under the water. It sank, me and the man pulling it behind. We fortunately were on the edge of the bank in clear water, and I had my foot in the canoe still, and was holding it. the hippo, we could see it go upstream again.

So now it was up in, Upstream of us and uh, we got the other canoes in, we got our canoe up and you've got a water log canoe, you squish it backwards and forwards and shoot the water out of it. did that and with other canoes to help us. We got back in 'cause, ' cause we're in, in water. So now we're going upstream.

And I know I've got the HIPA upstream of us now, and I get the other canoes, fanning the shallows. And I take the deep channel. And so I this hippo is going to attack us. And so I'm watching ahead, watching ahead, watching ahead for slightest clue. as he breaks surface, I'm going to get one shot and sink the canoe, because I'm firing a 470 rifle, 500 grain bullet.

And I've got about this much freeboard the canoe, so I'm going to sink after one shot. So, this is, you're very tense. And I'm focused on it, and there's a reflection on the water. And that damned hippo was clever. He didn't attack from in front. He just stayed below. We went over him, and I couldn't see because of the reflection on the water. he attacked from behind on our right. first I knew was just the sound, and I swung to my right, and his jaw was coming up wide open, and he clashed down. You cannot, if you're right handed, and your backside is wedged in a dugout canoe, you cannot shoot to the right, if you're right handed. So I could not shoot. There wasn't time, and I couldn't shoot right handed to my shoot, to, to that. So all I could do was lean forward as far as I could, trying to avoid his teeth. I mean, saw a flash of happening and held the rifle in my left hand and he crushed the canoe. His teeth went through my jacket, uh, didn't get my flesh. I was firmly in his mouth with a crushed canoe and in his lips and he just took me underwater with him. as we went underwater, I got a breath and I got hold of his right ear. my right hand and under the water. I got out when he opened his mouth. swirled round and round trying to bite me, but the water held me against his neck.

But as he swirled, the pressure held me and I was holding his ear, I had my rifle in my left hand and I was underwater and I was going to let go and fire the rifle and I realized I'd kill myself. I'll just burst the rifle against my gut. I can't fire, so, and I can't, I'm running out of breath. So I let go of the air, and I sank, helped by the weight of a 14 pound rifle. sank to the bottom. The hippo went to the top. I didn't know where he was. I swam under and came up in the reeds, gasping for breath. And then tilted the water out of the barrels so that I wouldn't have water in the barrels if I had to, and I could see the hippo swimming around looking for me. And I could see the man who'd been in the canoe with me up a tree. It wasn't me that got up in the tree and got my leg bitten. He was up a tree, and I just kept quiet, and all the in the canoes were shouting, Bwana Wafa, Bwana Wafa, he's dead, he's dead, they all thought I'd been killed. And the guy up the tree, I had to keep quiet, because the hippo was looking for me, and the guy up the tree shouted to them and said, no, he's not dead, I can see him in the reeds. And I just kept quiet, and then the hippo, disappeared. I couldn't see him. I let a lot of time going and then I risked it and called out to the guy in the tree, where's the hippo? And he said, he's gone down to the swamp again. then they came in with canoes. Mine was crushed and gone. And they came in with canoes, rescued him from the tree. And I put my arms over two canoes and they just took me to shore like that. yeah, tell that story. But, uh, so. But I wasn't tracking the, the

Bobby: You are you were attempting to find the hippo and deal with it. Yeah

Allan Savory: Yeah. And that one, uh, he killed two more people. then I heard he was at another, uh, near another village where it killed two more people. And I thought, no, I'm going to finish this and went out and I finally got him.

Bobby: and there's a component of that story where You mentioned your mongkwala, which, um, you know, so a lot of the, the native Africans that you worked with, um, you know, that were on your team, um, their religious beliefs, uh, had a lot of shamanistic aspects to it, and people often had something called a mongkwala, which was like their, their talisman, their, their thing that, um, you know, has, you know, Special powers, provides insight, and, and things of that nature.

The, uh, Connect the munkwalla that people had to this hippo story. What's the connection between the two?

Allan Savory: Well, um, what I had done is I had observed just what you're saying, uh, this is early days in Africa, the country was very young, et cetera, um, and, um, most people believed in witchcraft and the witch doctors and, and things like that. I mean, these beliefs had Very, very deep and they often called it of, uh, the quala just in the area.

I was that this person had the right medicine as it were qua. So I started to put a quala together and I've actually got it just in my study. Still the same one of just little collection of bones with, uh, no significance, but just put them together and

Bobby: Yeah, can we see it?

Allan Savory: show Yeah, I can show it to you. Yeah. That's the actual one I put together, and it's a little crocodile's jaw, a lion's, uh, claw, an elephant's, uh, hair, uh, and again, another lion's claw, a lion's clavicle, uh, hair from a lion. It's bullets from a charging animal that was killed and I just kept the bullets. It's just a collection of junk. But, uh, when, for example, um, that my staff said, why are you stripping down? And I said, I think this, uh, thing is going to get me, afterwards when that's nearly what happened. And, and so on.

But they said, how did you know? And I just said, my monk father, you see. And, uh, And so it developed a power there, and then I tell the story in the book, there was another time where we'd seen no lions, no sign of lions, I was sending some men back, I was on a deceptive trip, I'd recruited carriers for Banguela swamps, But I was going into the Langva Valley, because I suspected people on my staff might have been forming pouches.

So I was doing the switch at night, and then I worked for the men's camp who were coming on with me, while the rest were going back. They'd been at Dukhoi, the men coming on with me. I don't know why, but as I started to walk away from that fire, I just got an intuitive feeling. And I said, you guys coming on with me, be very alert.

And they said, why? I said, we've just got a feeling we're going to have trouble with Lyon. Now, it so happened that not the next day, but the day after, we were unexpectedly charged by Lyon from less than 10 yards. way behind us on my right, left, sorry. um, you know, we, we survived it. And again, they said, how the hell did you know this?

And I said, I didn't, Mancuala. So I just used it like that. And after that, I never had to lock my home or, or, or, uh, worry about my camp. I just hung that Mancuala on the door or anywhere and everything was totally safe. then I did have an occasion where over the weekend, uh, a lot of money was stolen from the safe. And my secretary asked if she should check it. And I said, no, the safe she had, she found this money is missing. I said, okay, uh, let me see what I can do. And, um, so I, um, called all the, went and got the mancuala, put it on my desk, called all the staff in, drivers, vermin control officers, elf control, men, uh, game scouts, game guards, and, uh, I called them in and had them crowded around, uh, and I made sure I got eye contact with everybody. And I just said to them, uh, we left the safe open over the weekend. money is missing, so, so many, 500 pounds, whatever it was. Um, and I said, uh, You, uh, I said, uh, I've consulted my Mancuala, it was there on the desk in front of me. I said, I know which one of you did it. I don't want to shame you anything. I'm going to have lunch now, but if the money is not on my desk when I come back from lunch, the one of you that took it will be dead tonight. And I just hit dismiss and I went and had lunch. When I came back and had lunch, there was the money on my desk with a stone on top to stop it blowing away. No,

Bobby: Has that Manuala provided you any other good luck or, um, you know, good fortune over the years.

Allan Savory: no, it's, it's just been an amusement to me, but I've kept it and I look at it and I remember those days.

Bobby: Yeah, it's, it's a fascinating relic of history. I'm surprised that you got it through customs when you came to the US given all the different animal parts that are on it. Yeah, let's, um, You know, I think we've covered, I mean, we've, we've barely scratched the surface on, on so much of, you know, what's in the memoir and, you know, these stories that are, are included.

Um, you know, we touched a little bit of your time as a game ranger and tracking both wildlife and people. So that, you know, kind of started to get a little bit into some of the military experience and, you know, that led to guerrilla warfare. Set the stage a little bit for folks about the What was happening in Rhodesia at that time?

You know, for people that aren't, um, you know, read up on Rhodesian history, what was happening at that time? Who was Ian Smith? And what was your role in all of that? And who were the different players? And what were the different parties? And who stood for what? Um, all for joining us and we'll see you next time.

Allan Savory: my army days, my whatever, it's, it's a memoir snippets of these. And how they connect, through that history of dying empire, dying colonialism, uh, Rhodesia going from being, uh, a very advanced colony with people outcompeting you in America on some things maize breeding Tobacco, you know, some things. So to that, to the basket case, we became, all that was happening and I was participating in every facet of it nobody else in the whole country was. They were either generals or they were politicians or they were farmers or whatever. I was in the whole damn lot. So I've just tried to say, okay, now if you look at these a whole lot, what came out of it, including exile, None of them went into. What came out of it was our ability to manage complexities.

So that's what I'm trying to convey, telling the memoir of that unique time

Bobby: Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Hi! Hello! How are you? You

Allan Savory: So that's the attempt, is to connect all of those. So in it, people will learn who Ian Smith was, um,

Bobby: Okay.

Allan Savory: there's, there's a statement I think

Bobby: I'm going to go ahead and show it to you. So, uh, So, uh, So, uh, So, uh, So, uh, So, uh, So, uh, So, uh, So, uh,

Allan Savory: So that's what the story I'm trying to tell, how it all pulled together.

Bobby: Mm hmm. I actually have that quote from McNally. So here, let me read it. So this is Nick McNally. He's the president of the National Unifying Force Party, and this is in 79. He's sending a letter to the party announcing your resignation. Um, and he says, I would like to pay warm tribute to Allan Savory's courageous, albeit controversial political stand over the years.

He's made his mark on the history of this country. I believe he will be seen in the years to come as the man who stood out consistently against the popular tide, and who proved right time and time again. Yet no sooner were people grudgingly admitting that perhaps he was right last time, than he was off again uttering fresh heresies, and shocking them all over again.

My own political approach is a great deal more mundane and a great deal less controversial.

Allan Savory: Hello. Hello.

Bobby: the title of this memoir, which up until this point has not been announced. Would you like to tell the world what the name of the memoir is going to be?

Allan Savory: Yes, it's sufficiently firm now. The, uh, title, uh, will, um, really just be Un-Savory.

Bobby: Unsavory.

Allan Savory: A play on my name. And, uh, then it'll be a subtitle, you know, connecting war politics, et cetera, blah, blah, blah. Um, but I've got it now. Chosen that because, yes, I, I was treated unsavory in every field and, but, but, make that the title of the book.

Bobby: Yeah, I'm, I think that that is definitely gonna. intrigue people when they see that. I, I think maybe some of the folks who have, you know, tried to rally against you over the years. Um, I don't know how they're going to respond to it, but, uh, it's exciting. Uh, I really love the title of the book. I think that's gonna work really well for it.

Um, are there any other pieces of the book that stand out to you? Any other stories that are included in there that You'd like to tell.

Allan Savory: Well, there are a number there of, of my, overcoming, um, my prejudices, uh, things like racism. A, a thing that's been very difficult to deal with the book is, is racism because it, many of the readers will be Americans and it's a new woke world. It's not our world of those days. So I've had to battle with language. Do I sanitize it? And it becomes meaningless, or do I tell it in the language of the time? And I've chosen to tell it in the language of the time. so I've had to deal with racism. Now, many, what, what a person who's called black in America, in Rhodesia, we would have called white, would have had to vote. Even in Smith's government. Okay, so American concepts are very different from the reality of Africa that we're living with. And some, and I got shocks, uh, that were good for me. When I tell the story, when I gave an instruction to two older men, who were black, working under me, and they disobeyed it. And I never had that. And I realized they were right. And I my mouth uh, you know, we performed what we had to do. All that day and night, I was thinking, Oh my God, these guys are as proud as I am. They're no different from me. And racism virtually just went out of the window for me. So, you know, I tell those stories where these things happened. And then I tell another one where, where, again, I got a shock. There was a problem elephant. I met a ganger that Americans would have called black. We would have called colored or white, for votes, etc. And he saw my Land Rover with a badge on it, came up to me and said, look, I've got a problem elephant.

Problem, elephant. It's disrupting us. It's disrupting work on the railways, etc. I've called on your department They've sent three people out to shoot the elephant, but they shoot the wrong one And I said well, hang on. I'm passing through I'm just fueling my vehicle, but I'll come camp next to you that night. To cut a long story short I, I went out in the dark and got the actual elephant to charge me in the dark, so that I got the right elephant and shot it and fell on the edge of the railway line, virtually. Now, the next morning I was arranging for the tusks to be sent to the game department, the meat to be distributed to the railway's people, I was just arranging all that, a present arrived of a tray with a cloth on it and tea and some scones.

Very nice. from his wife, thanking me. And this arrived at my camp, which was just me sitting under a tree. I was grateful for it and thanked the guy that brought it. Now, when I loaded the vehicle with my games cards, were sullen. And I couldn't understand. I said, what's wrong? No, nothing's wrong. And we traveled that day. And these two men with me were sullen. And finally, I just stopped the vehicle said, look, you guys, Sort this out. Tell me what's wrong, or you damn well walk from here. And then it poured out. They were angry with me. these are two black guys now, with me. And they said, what right did I have to accept food and tea from a colored guy? And I realized, oh my god, it's, this whole issue is more complicated than people realize. And I said, it's got nothing to do that. I said, accept and change gifts with chiefs, headmen, anybody. if the ganger happens to be, colored, uh, what Americans would call black, but what you don't call black. His wife sends me tea and scones in my camp knowing I have nothing. I'm grateful for it. And, and so anyway, I had it out with them and their attitude changed and we went on, but it was a big learning for me that, hey, this is more complicated than we realize.

Bobby: Yeah, and I think that really comes through in the book, I think you, I think you do it justice to, to accurately portray the racial tensions that existed at the time in what was Rhodesia and you know, I don't think we have time to get into all the political nuances, but essentially Ian Smith, who was the, the prime minister and he led the white racist party, which you ultimately led the opposition to trying to be inclusionist for all of Rhodesia, um, whether they be white or black.

Um, you know, the language that you use is accurate of the time. Like you said, there were differences, you know, Between

Allan Savory: and

Bobby: was called white, someone who was called black, someone who was called colored. I think for, you know, like an American in 2025, that language could offend someone. But I think it's really important to contextualize it.

Knowing that it's the language of the time and of the place, um, Trevor Noah, the, the comedian who used to host the Daily Show, he has a book called Born a Crime, where he talks about his, um, you know, his upbringing, um, in South Africa, and, you know, I recall in his book where he really laid it out very plainly, you know, that there were, there were the whites, There were, you know, the, the native tribal Africans, which were considered the blacks, and then those of mixed race were called colored.

And so those are the terms that were used and accepted. And so I, you know, that's the one thing I think that as we've been working on the memoir over the past year or two is trying to have sensitivity to the language that's while also trying to convey the accuracy of it because the racial tensions in Rhodesia were such

Allan Savory: okay.

Bobby: um,

Allan Savory: it's

Bobby: in everything that was happening.

Um, either in the stories of your life or in what was happening with Ian Smith and what ultimately led to the civil war and the split into Zimbabwe in Zambia, and then ultimately led to tribal rule by Mugabe, which we know ultimately failed and led to the highest inflation in Zimbabwe. ever and now Mnangagwa is in charge and all of the history that is behind that goes to the racial tensions that have existed.

So, you know, I think for those that are going to pick up this book, this is just a, a fair warning that this language exists, but it is hopefully you read it with, um, An open mind in terms of knowing that this is the language of the time and the place and that, you know, when you read the book, I think you get an accurate description of your perspective on this and the, the love that you have for the, um, you know, your fellow Rhodesians that you grew up with, spent time in the bush with, that you worked with alongside that many of your colleagues, your white colleagues would have had problems with.

But you had much respect for because of the, the shared humanity and, and everything that you all went through together. Okay.

Allan Savory: it where, uh, know, I was requested permission as a senior officer. at a booby trap, booby trap camp we'd captured in Mozambique. Uh, and I said to the, uh, sergeant who was requesting permission, I said, can you guarantee me that your booby trap will not kill a child or a woman? He said, no sir. I said, then don't sit and bring me a notepad. And I tell the story how I just left the commander of the camp a congratulating note cleanliness of his camp.

The organization, uh, waited for him, but he didn't return, but I enjoyed the success. in his absence, and I signed it and stuck it on a reed door with a bayonet and left. And I tell the story how a couple of months later, they, the other side, my opponents delivered a pumpkin to me as thanks. It was a human side and I tell the story of being. Having a prisoner tied to me, sharing my water, sharing everything with him, far from home in enemy territory. And he's pleading with me to come and work with me after the war, etc. We had less racism in the army than I see in the American South today. In racialistic. And so, yes, there's a lot of unreality so I've just stuck with the language and the talk of the day, and there'll be another difficult area, and that's the term humane. There's such a movement with most of the population being urban, that we have to be humane, you mustn't kill animals, and there's a vegan movement, and everything. problem is that Cruelty, I have seen to animals, 30, 000 die, cruel deaths, because people were trying to be humane, Humane is a human concept. It doesn't exist in nature. Nature is cruel. So

Bobby: What's it called?

Allan Savory: They become so weak, they stick in the mud, or they're preyed on, or the parasites get them. It's, it's a cruel death. And so when you are anti hunting, which is an instant death that I'd want for myself, an instant death, you were said to be inhumane.

No, it can be humane. And farmers and ranchers love their animals. want a humane life and a humane death. the people on the vegan side are, you know, they don't realize, accidentally, because they're good people, um, some of the most, well, the kindest death in nature. Is to die in the gentle jaws of a lion or a crocodile.

It's relatively quick.

Bobby: Yeah, so it's not long and drawn out and and painful. And so I guess what I'm hearing you.

Allan Savory: people would say that's a brutal death. No, it's uh, and, and then, so anyway, I've tried to cover that as well,

Bobby: Yeah, and I think that's really worthwhile because that's a very, very relevant topic. I mean, we hear a lot of it from people. Um, you know, there's the rewilding community that is advocating for a hands off approach to land management. And then there's the vegans that, you know, try to take, uh, you know, the hands off approach and let Mother Nature do its thing.

And, you know, what I'm hearing you say is taking a hands off approach and letting Mother Nature do its thing can often be the most crucial. can often be sentencing an animal to the cruelest outcome, which is it dying a long, slow and painful death, or taking a hands off approach to management may seem, uh, well intentioned, but in reality may lead to additional land degradation, which causes more animals to starve.

And so these hands off approaches are often not accomplishing what Individuals are wanting them to accomplish and proactive intervention is the more humane intervention that is going to have the better outcomes for the land and for the animals

Allan Savory: Well, Bobby, uh, yes, I've covered that in our textbook and I'll try to cover it again. The hands off approach to rewilding, it's wonderful. It's the most powerful thing we can do to restore biodiversity around London, in oceans, in marine environments. in swamps, Washington. a wonderful thing.

Bobby: in humid locations.

Allan Savory: you, well, I don't know how you sustain people, because we only manage three things. Our lives, our institutions, our organizations, our families. First thing we have to do is finance them, because if you go broke you commit suicide because you can't support your family, or the organization or the political party collapses, and then you're managing nature to produce food, wine. Music, art, literature, bombs, computers, everything is being produced from those only three things we manage. So if you take a hands off approach, that's wonderful in marine environments, et cetera, as long as you can sustain the economy and people with it. And then look at that. So, uh, if you take that hands off approach, Around the national parks surrounding my home, uh, end up with desertifications and biodiversity loss. And starving dying animals. So we need to just address the cause of it. And that's what the whole memo is about. How we discovered, how we can unite, stop arguing and address the cause of it. To produce biodiversity, thriving economies, thriving societies. Instead of today's chaos and division and blaming.

Bobby: So we've talked about the controversial nature of, you know, that some folks might see in terms of the, the racial tensions, um, and everything that was happening in Rhodesia that led to the Civil War. Let's. You know, we're coming up towards the end of the podcast, and I think it's worth discussing the other big controversial topic, um, that seems to come up time and time again, anytime I look in the comments on YouTube, uh, Let's talk about the 40, 000 elephants in the room, if you will.

Would you like to give a little more detail into what your research was surrounding elephants and land degradation? What was your role and what were the events that transpired there? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Allan Savory: uh, we, we were thinking if there's damage, there's too many animals. That's, that's a human belief that's become a scientific validity. That's what Fossin helped us break. Okay. So all of us believe that. Now, when I went from Northern religion game department to Southern religion one and became research officer, no longer administrator, no longer running a big, uh, and all its game reserves, but now chief in charge of research for the whole country, wildlife. Okay. When I became that, I said, all right, going to solve this problem. If I can have this deterioration of a national park. So I picked the worst areas and I did the research to try and see what, what is causing this damage. I like every scientist in the world, we tend to gather the data that fits our belief.

We can't see that our belief with the data. That's, that's human nature. It's every scientist. And I was typical. So I easily gathered the data that proved that we had too many elephants, too many buffalo, too many igloos, too many impala. We would have to start reducing their numbers to a level that the environment could sustain. That's the belief of science today. I held that belief, so I produced the data, and when I said, in my report, we are going to have to reduce the animal populations to a level the environment can sustain, it was like throwing, uh, Porkchop into a synagogue. Uh, it was so political that we were gonna have to kill animals in game reserves. um, I lost my job over it. But before I did, um, we, because I would not back down. And so the government formed a committee, a peer review committee, Dr. Oliver West, uh, Ray Smiths, uh, Fidel Phelps, I remember them. Uh, guys with PhDs, some of them I'd been to university with. They looked at all my data, all my evidence.

We went in the field inspecting how I'd gathered the data. They approved it. They agreed. And I was forced out of the department, became an independent scientist. The government then went ahead and over the succeeding years, they, not me, shot 40, 000 elephants. Now, nobody of those hundreds of people to this day has admitted they were wrong. One person. Me, I said, I was wrong, there weren't too many, were too few, we didn't understand it.

Bobby: Yeah.

Allan Savory: And I'm the one most condemned, and I see, I read it on the social media, how can you trust this man? He shot 40, 000 elephants. You can never trust this man. So the one man who's honest, you can't trust. The hundreds kept silent because of egos and professionals don't want to be wrong. They're honourable scientists. It's a crazy world.

Bobby: Yeah, yeah, the humility is is admirable. And ultimately, it's what led to dedicating your life to this work to figuring out what went wrong in your thinking. Why was the conventional thinking that too many animals is what is leading to land degradation? What is wrong with that assumption and how do we correct that?

And how can we do better by the animals and by the land? And you've been working tirelessly your whole life for this. And, you know, I think

Allan Savory: to

Bobby: in the regenerative space, everyone involved with holistic management, anyone who,

Allan Savory: you

Bobby: and is, you know, wanting clean air to breathe and clean water, I think, um, you know, owes you a debt of gratitude for

Allan Savory: not

Bobby: holistic management and bringing about, you know, such such hope for the future, knowing that there is a better way forward in how we manage our lands and produce food.

So, you know, just from me personally, thank you for committing to that. And, you know, not getting the, not allowing the guilt of getting that wrong, dissuade you from continuing to, to get to the root cause.

Allan Savory: Thank you, Bobbybutt, um, appreciate that, but in the book, I've tried to make it plain. I use the word I. associated with discovery. up to the time I left Rhodesia as an exile, we had only part of the solution, that it is impossible to solve this problem with technology and fire, as all the world's Nobel laureates believe. And I say impossible, I mean it, I would, a friendly interviewer, I wish the US National Academy of Science, the Royal Society, US Congress, was absolutely trying to destroy me today, because I don't claim I'm right, I'm just saying this is what I've discovered. scientist in now over 50 years shown where I'm wrong, I've been totally condemned. So that part I use I. But when we come to the second component in what is involved in managing holistically, the holistic context has said, notice I never use I. I use we. Because 2000. Bureaucrats, researchers, academics in their individual capacities, not in, but although sent by their institutions, helped me to solve that problem.

So I say we solved it in 1983, the second part of the problem. So I not, hope I never take credit for anything because I'm not, that's not what my life's about. I just want to solve problems. I don't give a damn who gets that credit.

Bobby: Fair enough. Well, there's so many more stories from the book that. We would never have enough time to cover even if we did 10 podcast episodes. So I think we'll just leave it here and say, if folks want to hear more this spring, 20, 25, Allan savory's new memoir titled unsavory African stories of war, wildlife, and the birth of holistic management will be coming out.

And so go check out the memoir if you want to. If you want to read more, um, it's a fascinating read. I was lucky enough to read a very early version of it and, and helped, um, in various capacities in, in the process. Um, is there anything else that you'd like to leave our audience with before we close Allen?

Allan Savory: But I think you've covered things pretty well, Moby, thank you. Yeah, and, uh, people will listen to it, and, and if anything I've said is, uh, lacks logic or can be faulted logically, or is not backed by solid science, and I hope this goes to millions of people, I hope if any scientist, Spots anything that I've said that's not backed by solid science or logic that they'll let us know I don't even defend managing holistically. said that many times. I don't even defend it. If somebody tomorrow shows us a better way to unite humans, get beyond argument and the complexity of managing. Our families, our economy, and nature together to produce everything we produce. I will drop holistic management framework tomorrow and adopt what they say. I don't even defend my life's work. want people to show us where it's wrong, or let's get moving. Bobby.

Bobby: out there. If you've got something better, please bring it forward. Um, until then, I guess we'll just leave folks. With what we've discussed here, um, there is a link if people want to preorder the book or get on the presale list, I should say we don't have pre orders open yet.[02:18:00]

Uh, there's a, you can go to savory. global slash memoir dash presale. That's where you can get on the presale list. We will put that link in the show notes to this episode. So check that out. If you're interested in the memoir. Again, it's called Unsavory African Stories of War, Wildlife, and the Birth of Holistic Management.

And Allan, just want to thank you so much for taking the time today. All right. Cheers. Indeed.

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