The Memoir of Allan Savory
Now Available to Purchase
An extraordinary tale from a truly extraordinary human being. I daresay, you may discover and learn more about the Earth (and the earth) than you could ever have imagined.
Paul Hawken
Author, Drawdown and Carbon: The Book of Life
A courageous and incisive account of Allan’s early days and his deep thinking about land, life and animals, which has totally changed the way we think about living and co-inhabiting the earth.
Gretel Ehrlich
Author, The Solace of Open Spaces
UnSavory:
African Stories of Wildlife, War, and the
Birth of Holistic Management
In the wild heart of Africa, one man’s fight to save the land nearly cost him everything.
In the late 1950s, Allan Savory was a young biologist in a corner of Southern Africa where the bush reverberated with trumpeting elephants, bellowing hippos, and the politics were as dangerous as the wildlife. Over the next three decades, he would become a soldier and tracker in a brutal civil war, a member of Parliament fighting to end it, and an exiled ecologist challenging the world’s most sacred environmental beliefs.
Savory’s insistence that livestock—not their removal—could heal degraded land sparked both breakthroughs and outrage. Branded a heretic, pursued by political enemies, and scarred by personal loss, he pressed on, convinced the future of humanity depended on restoring our life-supporting habitat.
UnSavory is the untold story behind Holistic Management—woven through encounters with man-eating lions, political betrayal, and a lifelong battle with the “common sense” that destroys the natural world. It is a front-row seat to Southern Africa’s turbulent history and one man’s stubborn, improbable quest to change the fate of the earth.
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His work transformed agriculture.
Now, learn the backstory.
His work transformed agriculture.
Now, learn the backstory.
What People Are Saying
Extraordinary, exciting, courageous, incisive, instructive. Allan’s sudden Exodus from Rhodesia is the stuff of a John Le Carre novel; his deep thinking about land, life, and animals has totally changed the way we think about living and co-inhabiting the land, its grasses and trees, and waterways. Allan instilled a reverence for the land, and the truth it will tell you if you listen. And he listened.
Gretel Ehrlich,
author of The Solace of Open Spaces
Thousands of us around the world attribute much of our soil-building and profitability success to Holistic Management. Here is the prequel to all that discovery. Allan lets us “track” with him through his formative early life—where character, conviction, commitment, and consequences converge to make the man so many of us admire.
Joel Salatin,
farmer, Food Freedom advocate, and author of Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal
Savory freely admits his life has been a mistake-ridden journey—as is generally the case with outstanding contributors. Yet those mistakes have led to the regeneration of vast swathes of denuded landscapes across the world. In time, Allan Savory—ecologist, warrior, and visionary—will be properly recognized as one of The Greats.
Dr. Charles Massy,
farmer, scientist, and author of Call of the Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture, A New Earth
I love the title UnSavory, as Allan has been condemned by academics, much as Galileo was labelled a heretic for proving Earth rotates around the Sun, and the Wright brothers initially ignored because academics insisted powered flight was impossible. As a result of Allan’s influence, millions of acres worldwide have been regenerated. History will favor Allan, and his proven, practice-based management will be regarded with the same significance as Galileo’s and the Wright brothers’ achievements.
Dr. Andre Leu,
international director, Regeneration International
It was always strange to me how so many of us on call ups spoke about Allan!
Sort of hushed respect for his bravery and intellect tinged with a fear of being branded a traitor if we overly supported him!
Damn! If only!
My admiration for him only increases with age.
John Davies,
Territorial Force soldier during the Rhodesian Civil War
Since my childhood days in Zimbabwe I have heard the name Allan Savory, always in the same context: the place where conflict on and about the land has intersected with uncompromising truth. Through the decades, the nature of this place has varied, whether it be military, political, or environmental. But the constant has been this man’s courage—spoken, written, and lived—to bring into being his hard-fought solutions for the loss of human and wildlife habitat. What an inspiration UnSavory is for those who follow.
Larry Norton,
internationally recognized wildlife artist
Historical figures who have truly original insights typically have enthralling back stories, and Allan Savory is no exception. Service comes from the hearts of too few and leadership in service means holding true no matter what. That is the lesson for me of UnSavory.
Darren Doherty,
founder, Regrarians (Australia)
UnSavory is filled with terrifying and joyous encounters with elephants, lions, leopards, hippos, rhinos, crocodiles, buffaloes, and mambas, and cobras. There are also human moments of love, generosity, greed, and stupidity. More than most, Allan has worked to craft actual solutions to our very real dilemmas. And now in this book he tries to pass on that learned wisdom, like sharing a flickering torch that might light our way. He preaches a revolution of the heart.
Dave Chapman,
co-director, Real Organic Project
May we all be inspired by this extraordinary journey of discovery; not a discovery of a new planet or mathematical truth, but a discovery of a new way to see. Savory’s life is one of genuine meaning and experiences woven together by the all-too-rare thread of integrity, courage, and grit—softened by a mischievous wit.
John Fullerton,
founder and president, Capital Institute, and author of Regenerative Economics
UnSavory offers a rare insight into the remarkable life of one of mankind’s great adventurers. There is much in this book to be learned. There is even more to be admired.
Will Harris,
owner and (4th generation) manager, White Oak Pastures
Allan Savory was, and is, ahead of his time politically, militarily and environmentally. His life and insights are powerful, heartbreaking, thought-provoking and honest.
John Padbury,
former Rhodesian Special Branch detective inspector and author of Battle for Hurungwe
A fascinating memoir of a man whom history may well regard as one of the most influential of his generation. This is a must read for anyone who cares about our environment and its ability to sustain us.
Jamie Blackett,
author of the monthly column, “Farming Life” for Country Life (U.K.)
Get Your Copy of Allan Savory's Memoir
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More About the Book
Allan Savory is a man with a mission – to save humanity by saving our habitat – a maverick in multiple realms, who has an astonishing story to tell.
Allan is praised and condemned for his work as a wildlife biologist in some of Africa’s most rich and diverse future national parks, which leads to the development of game ranching in the late 1950s, a precursor to the current “rewilding” movement. He is strongly condemned as a soldier for his attempts to convince superiors in the midst of a civil war that it can only be won politically, and condemned as leader of the opposition in parliament to the racist regime of Ian Smith, who ends up doing exactly what Allan says he would have to do to end the war. As an ecologist he is condemned for proposing that livestock, the very thing blamed for so much environmental and human habitat destruction, is in fact the only tool we have left to regenerate what has been lost. His method for managing them makes money for farmers and they flock to him in the hundreds to learn how to do it.
When he flees into exile in 1979 to escape death in detention in a Rhodesian jail, an editorial writer in the Bulawayo Chronicle notes that Allan Savory was inclined to be right, but at the wrong time, and his enemies wrong, but at the right time. There have been few times in his life where this wasn’t the case.
Those of us most interested in this memoir had a hard time convincing Allan to write it. He was finally won over when young people pressured him for the story behind the story of what has come to be known as Holistic Management – his solution for saving ourselves and our habitat, including our climate. These young people are who he most wants to reach. Yet the historians who have reviewed the manuscript have said it will be essential reading for anyone hoping to understand the history of the Southern Africa region and its lessons for today. Had Allan not written this book, a critical voice would be missing from the literature of human discovery, in this case a quest that, while eventually successful, was blocked at every turn by institutional outrage, the politics of race and the heartbreak of an unnecessary and unwinnable civil war.
About Allan Savory
Allan Savory, born in Zimbabwe and educated in South Africa, began his career as a research biologist and game ranger before making a significant breakthrough in understanding the causes of grassland degradation.
His work as a resource management consultant took him across four continents, where he developed sustainable solutions.
During Zimbabwe’s civil war, he served as a Member of Parliament and led the opposition against Ian Smith’s ruling party, ultimately leading to his exile in 1979. In the U.S., he continued his consulting work, eventually founding the Africa Centre for Holistic Management in Zimbabwe and the Savory Institute in Colorado.
Savory’s pioneering book, Holistic Management, outlines practical solutions for environmental restoration. He has received numerous awards, including Australia’s International Banksia Award and the Buckminster Fuller Institute’s Challenge award. His TED talk on Holistic Management has garnered over 9 million views.
Get Your Copy of Allan Savory's Memoir
An extraordinary tale from a truly extraordinary human being. I daresay, you may discover and learn more about the Earth (and the earth) than you could ever have imagined.
Paul Hawken
Author, Drawdown and Carbon: The Book of Life
A courageous and incisive account of Allan’s early days and his deep thinking about land, life and animals, which has totally changed the way we think about living and co-inhabiting the earth.
Gretel Ehrlich
Author, The Solace of Open Spaces
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