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Award-winning biologist Allan Savory says he grew up believing – as many others do – that grazing animals are the primary cause of desertification, a view that was only reinforced when he studied at university.

“We know that desertification is caused by livestock, mostly cattle sheep and goats, overgrazing the plants, leaving the soil bare and giving off methane. Almost everybody knows this, from Nobel Laureates to golf caddies, or were taught it, like I was,” he states.

“Well I have news for you. We were once just as certain that the world was flat. We were wrong then and we are wrong again.”

When he began looking at research plots and national parks in his native Zimbabwe and in the United States where cattle had been removed to prevent desertification, he found that the opposite was happening.

In this video, he explains how he independently arrived at the conclusion that not only are livestock not responsible for desertification and climate change, but that they are also an integral part of the solution.

“We can work with nature at very low cost to reverse all of this,” he explains. “We can take enough carbon out of the atmosphere and safely store it in the grassland soils for thousands of years, and if we just do that on about half of the world’s grasslands, we can take us back to pre-industrial levels while feeding people.”

“I can think of almost nothing that offers more hope for our planet, for your children and their children and all of humanity.”

Click on the image above the story to view the full video of Allan Savory's presentation