Clifford Allan Redin Savory (born 15 September 1935) is a Zimbabwean ecologist, livestock farmer, environmentalist, and president and co-founder of the Savory Institute. He originated Holistic management (agriculture), a systems thinking approach to managing resources. Savory advocates using bunched and moving livestock to what he claims mimics nature, as a means to heal the environment, stating "only livestock can reverse desertification. There is no other known tool available to humans with which to address desertification that is contributing not only to climate change but also to much of the poverty, emigration, violence, etc. in the seriously affected regions of the world." "Only livestock can save us." He believes grasslands hold the potential to sequester enough atmospheric carbon dioxide to reverse climate change. Praised by cattle farmers, his controversial ideas have sparked opposition from other academics; ranging from debate on evidence for treatment effects to the scope of the potential impact for carbon sequestration.
