[Ruminations - Vol. 20] Are grasslands overshadowed by "charismatic megaflora"?

The past few months have been heavy for those in and around the world of Holistic Management. Heroes to the movement such as Stan Parsons, Tony Lovell, Kay James, and Guillermo Osuna have all left this world, and here at Savory, we feel the void they have left.

In celebration of their lives, we wanted to use this newsletter to highlight their lives and legacies.

Allan has penned a memorial to Stan, looking back fondly on the early days of their careers working together. “I have never enjoyed teaching so much with anyone as I did with Stan as he taught economics and I taught ecology and planned grazing,” says Allan. Stan, of course, went on to found the incredibly successful Ranching for Profit School. Read Allan’s memorial to Stan.

Tony Lovell, co-founder and CEO of SLM Partners, was a close friend to the Savory team and a valuable and astute advisor to Savory Institute since its early inception. He achieved incredible success bringing impact investment to Holistic Management for the regeneration of vast properties across Australia. We will miss Tony’s out-of-the-blue emails waxing poetic on the ethos and science of Holistic Management. He was a brilliant mind. We will post a memorial to Tony on his 60th birthday next month.

Linda “Kay” James was a long-time holistic manager, a friend of Savory Institute and the movement, and founder of the James Ranch, a thriving and lush operation nestled between the mountains in Durango, Colorado. With multiple generations all living and running enterprises at James Ranch, Kay and husband David have shown what it means to truly means to live holistically. Read our tribute to Kay.

And finally, Guillermo Osuna, another long-time personal friend of Allan’s, was responsible for getting the Holistic Management book translated to Spanish and inspiring an entire generation of ranchers in Mexico. In Allan’s 2013 TED Talk, he shows before-and-after photos from Guillermo’s Las Pilas Ranch. “The transformation on his land was so dramatic,” says Allan, “that I had to draw arrows to show they were indeed taken at the same spot.” Read Allan’s memorial to Guillermo.