International Projects 2008
Holistic Management® International
History of Holistic Management®
Africa
Southern Africa: Heifer International
Southern Africa: Community Dynamics
Kenya: World Vision International
United States
New Mexico: Heifer International
What is HMI?
HMI is an Albuquerque-based, international nonprofit organization that provides training, courses and consulting services to stewards of large landscapes, including ranchers, farmers, pastoral communities, government agencies, NGOs, environmental advocacy groups and other non-profits.
HMI’s proven holistic practices yield a “triple bottom line”
of sustainable economic, environmental and social benefits by:
- Improving soil health and biodiversity of rangelands and pastures.
- Increasing grazing and wildlife capacity.
- Increasing annual profits and enhance livelihoods.
- Optimally using rainfall and conserve water.
- Growing healthier crops and achieving higher yields.
- Reversing desertification in brittle environments.
- Breaking the cycle of food and water insecurity.
- Enhancing family relationships.
- Resisting and positively affecting global climate change.
HMI also trains Certified Educators to educate others about Holistic Management®,
which replaces fragmentary decision-making and short-term solutions with a
system that encompasses a whole, long-term process of restoring damaged land
and managing healthy land.
30 million acres of land worldwide currently benefit from Holistic
Management® practices.
History of Holistic Management®
The idea of Holistic Management® began more than 40 years ago to offer land stewards a comprehensive framework for identifying specific goals; making grazing, land management and financial decisions that positively impact land health and productivity; and performing effective monitoring in ways that specifically further those goals.
Allan Savory, then a young wildlife biologist in his
native Zimbabwe, wished to solve the riddle of desertification. After successive
careers as a farmer, game rancher, management consultant, a member of Parliament
and leader of the opposition party in the midst of a civil war, Savory concluded
that the spread of deserts, the loss of wildlife, and the human impoverishment
that always resulted were related to the way people made decisions, whether
or not those people lived or worked on the land.HMI was founded in 1984.
International Activities: Africa
Zimbabwe: Dimbangombe Ranch.
The Africa Centre
for Holistic Management® occupies the 6,500-acre Dimbangombe
Ranch near Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe.
The ranch is a Holistic Management® learning site and home to the Dimbangombe
College of Wildlife, Agriculture and Conservation Management, which provides
Holistic Management® training to the local community.
In 2005, Dimbangombe Ranch launched a micro-banking program, using goats as
currency to counteract extreme monetary inflation in Zimbabwe. The project
is now self-funded in two villages and is improving food security, healing
the land, and empowering the women of the villages.
Southern Africa: Heifer International.
Heifer International is a non-profit organization dedicated to ending hunger permanently by providing families with livestock and teaching animal management.
HMI is training members of Heifer International to be certified to teach Holistic
Management® in their home communities in Southern Africa, so that they can
fulfill the caring-for-the-land component of the organization’s mission.
Southern Africa: Community Dynamics.
Community Dynamics, an organization of Holistic Management® Certified Educators from Southern Africa (Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa), provides training and consulting services for agricultural producers, community projects, educational institutions, non-governmental organizations, and other entities.
Kenya: World Vision International. 
HMI provides cutting-edge natural resource management
training to Maasai community members and leaders in Kenya in coordination with
World Vision International, a Christian relief, development and advocacy organization
dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty
and injustice. In this program, HMI trains community leaders to integrate livestock and wildlife on 50,000 acres in a way that addresses healthy land, improved profitability and food security for 1,500 families.
United States
Horizon Organic® Dairy.
HMI has a contract with Horizon Organic® Dairy, the nation’s largest organic dairy and a subsidiary of WhiteWave Foods.HMI provides the framework and tools for Holistic Management® planning and decision making at Horizon Organic®’s dairies in Idaho and Maryland.
The goal is: To create a leading-edge example of how to run large dairies with animals out on the land in such a manner that the health of the grazing land is also maintained and improved.
Horizon Organic® has a network of more than 540 dairy farmers; 340 are currently organic, and more than 200 are transitioning to organic.
Whole Foods.
Whole Foods and HMI work with the company’s Animal Compassion Program in a pilot study to integrate small and large animals in pasture restoration.
New Mexico: Acoma Pueblo.
HMI is in Year Two of a two-year program working with Acoma Pueblo to integrate land and livestock with hunting and fishing to better heal and promote the productivity of 300,000 acres belonging to the Pueblo.
New Mexico: Heifer International.
HMI is training members of Heifer International’s field staff to be certified to teach Holistic Management® in their home communities in New Mexico, so that they can fulfill the caring-for-the-land component of the organization’s mission.
Texas: The David West Station for Holistic Management®
in Ozona, Texas.
Interns from Mexico’s National Autonomous University work on special
research, education and ranching activities.
Another program trains teachers in two Texas school districts in Holistic
Management® for K-8 curricula.
Across the U.S.
Active networks of Holistic Management® practitioners
and educators have developed across the U.S. in California and the West, the
Northwest, the Southwest, the Midwest, and the Northeast. Canada
Since 1984, Holistic Management®’s strong presence in Canada, through some of the longest running management clubs and Certified Educators, has continued to offer training and ongoing support to new Holistic Management® practitioners.
Mexico
HMI’s active network of Certified Educators and
branch, Fundacion para Fomentar el Manejo Holistico, AC, will soon release
a Spanish version of the Holistic Management® textbook. The National Autonomous University (UNAM) research station at Chapa de Mota has been used as a Holistic Management® learning site, hosting interns, numerous students and agricultural workers.
Australia and New Zealand
Certified Educators work directly with practitioners and through universities
and other educational organizations to bring Holistic Management® to thousands
of farmers addressing issues of improving land health and increasing farm
profitability.
Australia has more land under organic management than any other nation
in the world. Because of this, a new unit of HMI is developing a
variety of programs, including holding discussions with that country’s
leading vocational/technical school to carry Holistic Management® branded
programs throughout their system.