Fighting the growing deserts, with livestock: Allan Savory at TED2013 (*STUNNING RESULTS*)

[Permanut]

1. Skeptic checking in here..

After seeing numerous attempts to manipulate the ecosystem here and there on the planet, I'm wary that this could be done carefully enough. Humans have caused a lot of damage by trying to correct or manage nature, to wit:

The Indian mongoose was introduced in Hawaii in the 1880's to "control" rats. Turns out rats are active at night, the mongoose more so during the day. Oops.

Denzel and Nancy Ferguson described in a book called Sacred Cows at the Public Trough (1984), how when ranchers turn their herds loose in open country, the first thing the cows do is head for the nearest stream and trample it and poop in it.

Maybe I'm just an old skeptic, and I'm delighted to see efforts being made to mitigate the effects of human population, but Murphy's law may apply here.