Bison are so majestic. 🦬 I visited West Bijou last Friday, a 7,500-acre bison ranch 1 hour from downtown Denver. It is one of two @SavoryInstitute global campuses. The other global campus is in Zimbabwe, the birthplace of holistic management. The Savory Institute team led us through their Ecological Outcome Verification (EOV), which evaluates the overall health of the land base being managed. Both short-term and long-term assessments are taken periodically in the exact same locations. Often, we focus more on long-term indicators of regeneration and underprioritize short-term ones. We all want to see soil carbon and biodiversity increase (long-term) but ignore incremental improvements from observing bare ground, litter abundance, and manure decomposition. We get what we manage for. And you could see it plainly contrasting the neighbor's property. There was an abundance of sagebrush across the landscape. But on West Bijou's land? No sagebrush. They explained that when livestock are left to graze freely, shrubs can be established because of the uneven animal impact and rest cycles. Again, we get what we manage for. And we can manage in ways that regenerate landscapes and key ecosystem functions. Can't wait to visit in five or ten years to see the transformation from holistic management and animal impact. Allan Savory is a hero and, through holistic management, is helping combat desertification worldwide with the help of livestock. Thank you Regenerative Food Systems Investment for setting this up!