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Manipulating the Four Ecosystem Processes

Introduction to the Six ToolsIn any industry, tools are used to manipulate ‘resources’, and the purpose of using the tool is your achievement or movement towards a specific outcome.

When managing holistically the resources that underpin your economic whole, and the things you manipulate, are the four renewable ecosystem processes. They are the underlying capital of your business. Once you begin, you are making decisions that give equal footing to your quality of life, your economic success, and to the four ecosystems that govern your environmental soundness.

For an individual or a group that has set their holisticgoal, the challenge is to select tools and actions that will lead toward achieving it. All tools and actions should be tested for movement towards your holisticgoal by using the framework’s testing guidelines, so learning to use the testing guidelines is a keypart of the process.

When managing holistically, your choice of tools and actions to help you achieve your goal is limited only by your creativity! One of the many powerful attributes of the process is the fact that there need be no prejudice against the use of any tool or action—the testing guidelines will indicate whether its selection will lean toward or away from your holisticgoal.

Some people have difficulty thinking of tools as anything other than technologies, but as you explore this section try to think of alternatives. For example: If you were to think that the only way you can approach an infestation of grasshoppers is by trying to find the best pesticide, then you may overlook less costly approaches, such as getting the bare ground covered where they lay their eggs.

Categories of ToolsThere are millions of individual tools and actions available to humans to influence our environment and thus sustain ourselves, however, in the end they all fall under the six specific headings shown inside the dotted box in the drawing below.

Human CreativityThis tool is used in EVERY decision, and is unquestionably the single most important tool in your toolbox. You use it whilst considering how and why one or more of the other tools might be used.

Every human-altered landscape and every building, piece of equipment or gadget has been created first in the mind of a human, and then fashioned into existence using the remaining eight tools in a multitude of combinations. Even something as simple as where to place a portable electric fence line today involves your ‘human creativity’.

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LabourAlmost every tool within the dotted box requires the involvement of human labour to make its use effective. A stone axe will not do its work without human effort!

MoneyAssociated with the use of almost any tool is likely to be money. The Testing Guidelines help you determine whether the expenditure you are considering is appropriate for you and your group under the prevailing circumstances.

1. TechnologyThis heading covers all artifacts made by humans, from stone age axes to genetic engineering: machinery, chemicals, piping, computers, pumps, tractors, fertilisers, herbicides, insecticides and so on. The common factor is that a human first thought of the thing (human creativity), and then manipulated some form of resource to create something different—the tool.

There is no point in dividing the forms of technology into different headings as they all have to pass through the same testing against the holisticgoal anyway. On this basis it doesn’t really matter if, for instance, genetic engineering is classed as ‘technology’ or ‘living organisms’ as the testing process is the same!

Technology is very often the first tool that people resort to when faced with a problem, no matter what the origin of the problem is. For example, an infestation of weeds is usually addressed by the technology tool of spraying, or by mechanical treatment.

In Australia there are large areas of salinity, as shown in this photo.

The real issue—the root cause of the problem—is usually the removal of deep rooted vegetation over vast areas of landscape, and replacing it with shallow rooted annual crops such as wheat. During the growing or wet season the plants have little root system, and during the non-growing season there is often no soil cover at all for months.

However, some people want to continue carrying out what they have always done, and resort to expensive trenching and contouring before considering what other tools might be used other than expensive machinery. The problem was not caused by a shortage of expensive machinery, so perhaps there is a place for deeper thinking!

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2. FireNo fire lit by humans is ‘natural!’ It is the deliberate use of the tool, with the specific objective of creating a desired result or outcome. Fire is used in every industry, not just agriculture.

In an agricultural setting fire is the tool used when burning range lands, forests, crop residues, factory wastes, etc. Fire is the engine room of both industry and the arts. It produces much of our electricity. It is used in factories and boutique jewelry shops alike to heat, bend, weld, transform, alloy and generally manipulate all manner of metals, plastics and other materials. It is an enormously powerful tool for change.

People sometimes think that fire is not a permitted tool when managing holistically, but of course, it is, as no tool or action is exempt. Like all tools, fire simply needs to be tested towards your holisticgoal immediately before you use it. That’s when you will decide whether it passes or fails for you!

Remember, decisions are not ‘right’ or ‘wrong’: they are the best you can do at the time you make them, and you assume you could be wrong, and monitor for early evidence of an adverse outcome.

3. RestRest is a term applied to both plants and the soil they grow in. Resting, or non-disturbance, is an action we can choose to take and therefore qualifies as a management tool. When lakes, seas, forests, crop lands and range lands are deliberately rested, profound changes are created.

Different outcomes, depending on brittlenessThe almost universal human belief is that resting any environment (“leaving it to nature”) is beneficial. This belief is well based as it generally holds true in non-brittle environments. However in brittle-tending environments, over time rest leads to serious losses in biodiversity, with symptoms such as increased soil erosion, and increased frequency and severity of droughts and floods becoming more obvious.

In damaged, brittle-tending environments the first two or three years after rest is applied often give the appearance that rest is beneficial, as vegetation generally increases in bulk. That’s because, when animals are removed the widespread overgrazing that was frequently occurring is largely halted, and theplants respond with a surge of growth. However, after say, five or more years, close inspection usually reveals that the land is again degrading, bare soil is increasing, and many plants are old, grey, lignified and inedible.

Plants: the difference between recovery and restPlants need full recovery between grazings. However, if they remain ungrazed once they have reached full recovery, plants gradually become over-rested. The cell structure of the leaves changes, and the plant is no longer capable of photosynthesis. The plant begins to slowly die. ]

You will notice on their growth curve below that it ‘tops out’, and over time the previous bulk of plant material declines. This is due to slow, oxidising decay (as opposed to the rapid biological decay that occurs in non-brittle environments), which can take a long time to complete, and whilst it is occurring the plants become progressively more grey, and the material more ‘woody’ or lignified. When managing holistically your task is to manage the left hand or productive side of what is actually a ‘bell curve’ representing the complete carbon cycle.

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You can tell if your plants are over-rested. Gradually the plants die from the centre, outwards. If you approach the plant you can pull handfuls of old, grey lignified material from the centre of the plant, just like the one below.

Soils: Total RestTotal rest occurs when animals are deliberately removed from a piece of land for a long time. This usually occurs because it is expected that this will help heal degrading land. At times it might, but on theother hand, sometimes it sends the soil surface to sleep, and over time the soil becomes increasingly capped, reducing the ingress of rainfall and lowering the overall performance of the landscape. You can definitely expect this to occur in brittle-tending environments, and if it does, the soil surface will begin to look like the photo below.

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This soil surface has gone to ‘sleep’, and will only ‘wake up’ after it is disturbed. Without serious disturbance it will gradually move from bare soil towards a soil surface covered in cryptogams, which although a cover, provide little opportunity for a grazier to convert sunlight to revenue (by capturing sunlight and converting it into a potentially marketable product). Neither does it provide much protected habitat for living organisms.

Soils: Partial RestPerhaps hardest for many people to understand is the fact that the land can be rested—what we refer to as partial rest—when there are herding animals (wild or domestic) on it but in low numbers, low density, and seldom bunched. This form of rest can be nearly as destructive as total rest, when all animals are excluded.

Managed disturbance of both totally rested and partially rested landscapes can only be created by mechanical means (involving machinery and the consumptive use of fuel) or by herding animals, changing their behaviour, and holding them at greater density for short periods, and then not returning to that of land until the benefits of the disturbance have started to occur, and the plants are fully recovered, when it will need to be repeated. This is the tool of animal impact.

The devastating paradigm of ‘overstocking’As land starts to decline under partial rest, carrying capacity also reduces. The conventional wisdom is to declare that the land is ‘overstocked’ and to further reduce the number of animals that are still held at low desities for a long time on the piece of land.

The effect of this decision is to establish the condition that allow even more plants to become over-rested and die, creating still more bare soil in brittle-tending environments. This negative spiral occurs until the majority of plants are dead or dying, stocking rate is very low and declining, and the farmer hasprobably given up. The root cause of the problem, lack of appropriate disturbance, is rarely addressed.

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4. Grazing‘Grazing’ happens to plants, and never to paddocks, blocks, pastures or veldt—you select the word depending on where in the world you live! By definition, grazing is a tool that requires animals to be present and active. Much of the discussion here revolves around grasses, but the same principles apply for shrub plants and trees that are browsed.

Here’s an interesting thought: as you move through this page you will discover that proper grazing management is vital for the health of plants. Most people know that grass is essential for the well-beingof grazing animals, but few people recognise how important the animals are for the well-being of the plants.

There are two ways that the tool of Grazing can be used:

‘Grazing’, which fosters and maintains healthy, normal plants

‘Overgrazing’, which leads to deformed plants with lower productive capacity.

If a plant is not grazed or overgrazed, then it will be over-rested.

a. ‘Normal’ or healthy plantsWhen an individual perennial grass plant is grazed (whether lightly topped or severely defoliated), it is commonly invigorated and its life prolonged. Over millions of years the bulk of perennial grass plant species coevolved with herding animals that graze severely. As a result, many species of grass plants have developed growth points that are located out of harm’s way, close to the soil surface. The plant shown in the photograph below is erect and dense. It has the structure of a ‘normal’ plant. This plant is adapted to a regular program of severe grazing followed by adequate recovery time, and it can sustain this graze:recover regime for many years—for perhaps much of a human lifetime. These plants really are a biological and financial asset to a farmer.

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b. Overgrazed plantsAs discussed in the ‘role of time’ graph, when normal plants who have their growth points down near the soil surface are grazed too frequently, ie before they are fully recovered from a previous grazing, they will over time become deformed, and are then said to be ‘overgrazed’.

You can quickly identify an overgrazed plant as it will tend to grow prostrate to the ground rather than erect, as the photo below shows. In this photo, notice that the centre has very little emerging vegetation, and the few leaves that exist are growing sideways rather than erect. The plant is effectivelya damaged and deformed ‘solar panel’, capturing little sunlight and contributing little to the wealth of the farmer.

Plants develop the prostrate growth habit because as their mechanism for avoiding the ‘marauding mouths’ of grazing animals who are able to constantly return to them before they are fully recovered. For otherwise healthy plants there are just two conditions that expose them to the risk of overgrazing:

Animals remaining too long in a paddock in periods of rapid growth Animals returning to a paddock too soon in periods of slow growth

The second scenario is the most common, and most devastating over the long term. The graph below shows the various parts of the growth cycle of a plant (whether annual or perennial). You can quickly see that set stocking of animals is potentially very damaging to the health of the plants, because animalsare always present and might nip short, new growth, time after time, after time.

Equally, any form of rotational grazing that does not adjust speed of moves to the dynamic and constantly changing plant recovery times creates the risks (if not certainty) of returning animals to a paddock too soon, whilst many or most plants are still low down on the plant recovery curve.

Note: Returning a bit too late, or when their growth curve is at, or near the apex, does not cause significant problems to plants, although there may be a slight drop off in both plant productivity and animal performance.

Here is the “Golden Rule” and the most important part of this page. You will ignore this at your peril!

In periods of rapid growth you should move the animals quickly. (That is: recovery periods can be shortened)

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In periods of slow growth you MUST move the animals slowly.(That is: grazing periods per paddock must be lengthened to match slow plant recovery rates)

c. Plants adapted to over-restSome bunched perennial grass plants are not dependent on severe grazing to sustain their health. Such grasses are commonly found to have growth points along their stems, located well above the soil surface. These plants are well adapted to over-rest. Because they are adapted to over-rest they are also adapted to poor ecosystem function, and tend to grow much less bulk of material than normal, healthy plants.

The plant below is adapted to over-rest. The arrow points to the aerial growing point. Notice that the growing point is a nice straw colour, whereas the balance of the plant is grey, and slowly oxidising away.It is extremely unpalatable to most grazing animals, even to ruminants who can process significant amounts of lignified material. (Note: this photo is acknowledged as taken by Allan Savory).

In Australia, many of the remaining perennial grass plants exhibit form like the plant above. Many of the ‘windmill’ grasses (chloris spp), aristida spp, and some of the stipa spp have variations of this theme.

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5. Animal ImpactAnimal impact is all the effects that are associated with herding animals, including:

Trampling of standing vegetation Disturbance of exposed soil surfaces Dunging Urination Salivation

Animal impact can be implemented in three forms:1. Low animal impact 2. High animal impact 3. Herd effect

Low animal impactRegardless of its size, a herd or flock of animals that can be continuously held in a paddock for weeks, or even months, is delivering low animal impact.

At low stock density animals walk carefully upon the land. They walk around bunches of grass, rather than through them. The photo below shows the effect of low stock density. You will notice that the old grass clumps have tracks through them where stock have walked. There is no incentive for the animals to walk into (or onto) a clump of grass.

High animal impactHigh animal impact comes about when herds or flocks are joined together and sequentially move through a number of divisions of land. If animals can only remain in a fully recovered paddock for a matter of days, they are delivering high animal impact.

Depending on their density, there will be significant behavourial change in the herd or flock. For example, animals will tend to be in each other’s ‘space’ more. They will become less careful about wherethey walk, and as a result, they will trample more material onto the soil surface, thus completing the second phase of the mineral cycle. The photo below shows how a big mob of sheep were able to trample and lay down a substantial litter cover. If you look, you can see that new growth is appearing through the litter cover.

The photo shows the vigor that new grass has developed when protected by trampled litter. It is simply ‘bouncing’ out of the ground.

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6. Living OrganismsIt is difficult to ‘force’ insects and microorganisms to work for you! What needs to be done is use all the other tools so you create the conditions where the small critters ‘want’ to work for you.

For about 100 years now there has been an obsession with technology and much knowledge about the use of living organisms as tools, in crop protection particularly, has been lost. Increasingly, it’s my guess that we will return to using plants, insects, birds and small animals as tools to achieve agricultural production that is more socially and environmentally responsible.

The Rule of SuccessionWhen you are dealing with the natural environment, there is a fundamental ‘rule of succession’ that will drive all of your future thinking and decision-making. Please take the time to ‘read, mark, learn and inwardly digest’ this rule, as it is of vital importance to you. Here it is:

A species will move into an environment when the conditions are suitable for its establishment, and will move out of that environment when the conditions become unsuitable for its reproduction.

Diagnosis ModeWhen a problem strikes, it’s useful to quickly work out what the root cause might be, and that’s often more difficult on a farm, where there is the added dimension of biological complexity to deal with.Thereis a simple and quick way to attack the problem. It is based on two things:

1. Knowing approximately where your location is on the brittleness scale 2. Assessing how each of the six tools has previously been used

When assessing the tools used you are usually looking backwards the last 30 to 50 years, because landscapes take a while to change unless there has been a massive (usually technological, like a tractor and plough) intervention. Your objective is to see if the problem is a ‘natural’ problem, or whether your management actions (and perhaps those of others before you) might be leading to the problem.

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Essentially, each tool can be used one of two ways. For instance, if the tool of Grazing has been used at any time on your land, you can only have used it as either ‘grazing’ or as ‘overgrazing’. Depending on brittleness, each leads to differing outcomes. Similarly, if Rest has been used, it can only have been usedas either ‘Partial rest’ or ‘Total rest’. There are no other choices, and again, depending on brittleness, each leads towards different outcomes.

How to diagnoseDownload and complete a BlankDiagnosis Worksheet. Acompleted sample is shown atright.

From this you will begin to see ifyour management has in any waycontributed to the problem. If youconclude that it has, then you canstart to test new ways of doingthings that might give you moremovement towards rather thanaway from your holisticgoal.

Hint: Over the years I have foundthat doing the opposite of whatyou are doing now, works verywell!