032 Allan Savory – The Fate of Civilisations

Allan Savory joins me to talk about the fate of civilisations. The concept of holism, how every action we take is to ultimately try and improve our lives and the importance of management for climate change and desertification. Allan Savory is an absolute hero of mine and empowers us all to make the change because as Allan says organisations are slow to change and often lack common sense and humanity.

Selected Links from the Episode

Allan Savory, The Savory Institute

Unstress Podcast episode with Charles Massy

Unstress Podcast episode with Joel Salatin

Holistic Management by Allan Savory

Recent talk by Allan Savory 

The Future Eaters by Tim Flannery

Allan Savoury TED talk

Unstress Podcast episode with Lyn McLean

Sydney Holistic Dental Centre

Mission Statement of Unstress Podcast

Download the PDF transcription
Dr. Ron Ehrlich:                   Hello, and welcome to Unstress, my name is Dr. Ron Ehrlich. Now today's subject is a big one, but in all honesty, I don't believe I'm overstating the case. The fate of civilization, and even more specifically, the fate of our own individual health. It all depends on a word we all need to become a lot more familiar with, it's largely what this program is all about, it certainly what my book is about. It's the way our bodies work, it's the way the world works, and you already know the two are inseparable. That word is holistic.

Now my guest today is Allan Savory. Allan is an ecologist, a livestock farmer, an environmentalist. He's president and confounder of the Savory Institute, which facilitates education programs and supports the realization that we all depend on the enduring returns from the land; from the very soil we grow our food in, and on. Hence, the title of this podcast; the fate of civilizations, because you and I and all the generations that follow us, will depend on those enduring returns of the land. That is, the nutrient dense food we need to be healthy. Allan has developed and championed holistic management, with a particular focus on agriculture.

His is a way of thinking when managing resources, and as he points out, it's not a resource like animals or fossil fuels that of themselves cause the problem, it's the way resources are managed. That is the real problem. The thing I have found so interesting in the ten or twelve years I've been aware of Allan Savory's message, is the similarity and the relevance of what he talks about; a holistic way to manage resources, to the issues facing us as individuals as we try to manage our own health, arguably our biggest resource. Also, the difference between the holistic, or a holistic view of the world, and health, and a reductionist view.

Allan refers to the importance of holistic context, the importance of a mission statement, and I want to share an example of one of those mission statements with you at the end of the interview. Also, listen out for the shocking statistic, in what is actually the biggest exploit. Not just in the USA, but globally, and it's a resource that isn't even factored into any management system. Yet, it's the very resource we, and future generations, need to survive. The topic of what goes on, on the land, is a recurring theme on this podcast series.

In the first season, in our second episode, I spoke to the worlds most famous regenerative farmer Joel Salatin, in an episode called, This Ain't Normal But It Could Be, or rather it should be. In episode eight with Charles Massey, inviting you to join the revolution, the issue of managing our land, a regenerative agriculture, it's inseparable from the other topics we cover. As we explore health, wellness, and disease from a nutritional and environmental perspective, and importantly looking at food from soil to plate. At the risk of stating the obvious, we need healthy soils for healthy food. Look, there's so much in this episode. Allan is certainly a hero of mine, and an inspiration,