Natural Resource Policy Analysis and Design Workshops
To inquire about scheduling keynote speakers or workshop presenters,
please call
(505)-842-5252 or email hmi@holisticmanagement.org
to request information.
Holistic Management® International provides training
in how to design and analyze effective natural resource policies at the
municipal, county, state, and federal levels. A major role of all governments
(at all levels) is to form policy that will address the needs of its constituents.
Natural resource policy is a particularly volatile and sensitive area today as governments formulate policy on such resources or issues as: forests, fisheries, rangelands, wildlife, rare and endangered species, noxious plant eradication, desertification, dealing with ever increasing floods and droughts, etc.
With our method of Policy Analysis and Design, we teach people how to take the most complex situations and reduce them to the simplicity required to see the big picture and formulate successful policies. Moreover, once you understand our method of policy analysis and design you will also be able to:
Reduce conflict
- Increase citizen participation and build trust in policy formation
- Gain widespread public acceptance of policies
- Monitor policies for effectiveness
- Get the results you want
We will teach you how to avoid the common pitfalls of policy designs that actually prevent the policy from addressing the root cause of a problem. Once you understand the key principles, you will be able to quickly determine policy efficiency and save money that would otherwise be wasted.
The principal facilitator for all our policy courses is Allan Savory. With 40 years of policy experience at all levels, Mr. Savory can share his experiences of working with diverse populations as a Member of Parliament, a government agency employee, a non-profit director, a consultant, a businessman, and citizen. Likewise, as an influential and cutting edge natural resource management consultant and author, Mr. Savory brings his extensive knowledge of sustainable natural resource practices to these courses.
HMI provides Holistic Management® Policy Workshops for governments, international agencies, corporations, environmental organizations, or citizen action groups in any country on request. Workshops need to be planned well ahead of time and to be tailored to the specific organization requesting such training.
What Some Workshop Participants Have Said
Over 2,000 U.S. government agency staff concluded that all of their own policies they studied could never have succeeded. One group in such a Holistic Management® policy training made the statement: “We now recognize that unsound resource management is universal in the United States.”
A group of 30 Foresters from the Government of India Forest Service concluded that of 12 of their current or planned policies studied, all 12 would worsen their situation.
The upper echelon staff of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Government of Lesotho (Southern Africa) concluded that their Soil Conservation Policy would increase soil erosion, and that their Forestry Policy would damage their forests.
In all these cases the officials were also able to form the structure
of a policy that, if applied, would be likely to achieve the desired outcome.
Such holistically sound policies are simultaneously socially, environmentally
and economically sound both short and long term.
"When I was the lead planner for the Natural Resource Department of the Colville Tribe, and later as the consultant facilitating the financial planning process fo rthe entire tribal government, we developed a holistigoal for the Tribe and did testing of the proposed actions to learn about consistency within the Tribe's holisticgoal.
We learned an immense amount from this effort, which consequently resulted in actions to create consistency with the holistic goal. We learned that 80% of the government programs were treating symptoms of problems rather than treating causes (i.e., foster grandparent programs and game wardens). As a result, departments refocused their actions to include treatment of the cause. For instance, the game wardens changed a major focus of their work to education and interaction with the public, including work in schools (initially this effort had been 5%, but they redirected resources to make it 40% of their work).
We also tested Tribal policy. The fact we even did the financial planning work occurred during a policy analysis course. I invited Allan Savory to teach this course for all tribal policy leaders and administrators. I selected the policy of how the present government budgeting was done versus a policy of using the holistic financial planning for the government as our testing example.
Well, of course, the tribal leaders saw that the present budgeting policy
miserably failed, while also discovering the incredible opportunities
of a holistic financial planning policy for the tribe. The rest is history
where we reduced government spending that year from $55 million to $39
million without a loss of a single job or reduction in salaries, passing
the budget three months early with 100% support from the Tribal Council.”
— Carl Jeffry Goebel
“Policies developed through holistic decision-making are focused
on achieving a desired future outcome (i.e., a holistic goal), rather
than solving or preventing problems. Such polices address the underlying
causes of problems as opposed to merely treating the symptoms. In effect,
we manage for what we want, not what we don’t want.” —
Don Nelson, Washington State University, Professor of Animal Science
"Picture this—15 years ago we were a dysfunctional family of 28 decision-makers on our ranch, disagreeing on almost every issue, with seven years of “red ink,” decreasing land viability and productivity. With ranchers and farmers around us going broke, we were losing our dream of being able to hold our ranch in open space for future generations.
Today our family, ranch and environment are no longer dysfunctional. Our finances have been running in the “black” for 13-1/2 years, (the past 4 being our most profitable). We’ve dramatically increased land productivity for livestock and wildlife as we increase the health of our environmental resources. Our 28 extended family members work together as a team to increase the value of our land’s resources, as the temporary “stewards.”
We support, advise, and encourage other ranchers and community folks who come to see the phenomenal changes that have occurred on our ranch. That’s what Holistic Management® has done for us !!!" — Bill Burrows, Vice President, Burrows Ranch, Inc.
“Having been in Parliament and President of a political party,
I would never again dream of being in politics without being able to form
all policies with the Holistic Management® framework. Worldwide people
seek good governance. No ‘isms’ (Communism, Capitalism, Socialism,
Racialism, etc) provide the basis of good governance, neither can religions,
personalities nor party platforms. Governments will provide good governance
if they form policies holistically. In fact, those policies are more fundamental
to providing good governance than is the form, structure or ideology of
that government.”
— Allan Savory