Turning Desert into Grasslands

I stumbled upon a TED talk by Allan Savory regarding the reversal of desertification of lands into grasslands and I was amazed by it. If you would humor me and let me go into detail on one portion of it, in the talk he speaks of doing research and coming to the conclusion that the loss of grasslands on a portion of land that they wanted to turn into a reserve in Africa was due to overgrazing. One thing he mentions is that all scientists know that overgrazing has caused the loss of vegetative growth and thus has deteriorated grasslands into deserts. With this in mind they took out the livestock and as the grasslands continued to dwindle he put forth data to suggest that the elephants were overgrazing and that they would have to decrease the quantity of elephants to a number that could be supported by that land. After another group of scientists came to the same conclusion they ended up killing over 40,000 elephants in an attempt to save the preserve. That number stuns me and haunts me. I could not live with myself knowing that my decision caused the death of so many animals, endangered animals. What happened after the 40,000 elephants were taken out of the picture? The land deteriorated even worse. As he states, his decision is one that will haunt him to his grave.

His wish to make amends and his search to find the cause for that desertification caused him to realize that mimicking nature was the only way to heal the land and to bring back the vegetation. What was he to do? Bring the livestock back into the deteriorating grasslands and mimic nature. I'll let you hear him describe it in his own words:

As you might expect, I find myself trying to dig up and read as much of his research as possible. One thing he mentioned on the TED Radio Hour is that the need to cover the soil is something that every gardener understands. Yes, yes we do. The lack of cover increases evaporation and worsens our soil. The need to not till but to treat the soil as it was intended brings me back to reading the books Edible Forest Gardens Vol 1 and 2, by Jacke and Toensmeier in which they reference research referencing practices of Native American in what was mistakenly called "wilderness" rather than the food forest that they had established. I find myself combing through more scholarly journals (Thank you Google Scholar!) In an attempt to find additional information on techniques to create an environment in which the forest feeds itself and those who maintain it. As I find more and more research I'll be sure to post it, not only because I find the information fascinating but because I think it is valuable knowledge that all humans should possess.