About

The Savory Institute promotes large-scale restoration of the world’s grasslands through holistic management. We use properly managed livestock to heal the land and empower others to do the same. We also remove barriers on the path to large-scale success through activities such as conducting research, creating market incentives and raising public awareness.

We work to accomplish this by providing consulting and training services that teach people around the world how to use properly managed livestock to heal the land.

Holistic Management is a decision-making and strategic planning framework that helps people understand and manage the complexity of natural and human systems, resulting in better, more informed decisions that balance key social, environmental and financial con-siderations.

Holistic Management incorporates key principles and strategic planning procedures to manage domestic livestock in ways that mimic the behavior of wild herds, recreating the natural cycle of biological decay and healing the land.   It gives land managers, farmers, ranchers, environmentalists, policymakers and others the insights, methodologies, and tools needed to address the root cause of land degradation, and to harness the power of the photosynthetic process, thereby increasing productivity and resilience, and mitigating climate change.

It was first developed over 40 years ago by Allan Savory, a Zimbabwean biologist, game ranger, politician, farmer, and rancher, who was searching for ways to save the savanna in southern Africa.

Holistic Management is successful because it is cost-effective, highly scalable and nature-based.  It is sustainable because it increases land health and productivity, and profits for landowners, simultaneously enhancing the long term viability of the resource base.  

Today, there are successful Holistic Management practitioners around the world, from Canada to Patagonia to Zimbabwe to Australia to Scandinavia.  More than 10,000 people have been trained in Holistic Management and over 15 million hectares are managed holistically worldwide.  

Demand for Holistic Management training and consulting is growing dramatically as gov-ernments, international organizations, NGOs, land managers, academia, and local commu-nities look to find ways for humans to learn to live in harmony with Nature and one another.