Kachana West

    Seeking a team to develop and lead a new Savory Hub

    13 November 2023 - Chris Henggeler, Kachana Pastoral Company

    Seeking a team to develop and lead a new Savory Hub (ultimately on Kachana West)

     

    Drawing attention to the challenge at hand:

     

    What does it take to arouse public and political interest in solutions being applied to providing water-security? (drought and flood mitigation, minimising impacts of wild-fire, building stable and resilient local and regional microclimate)

     

    How can we facilitate the desire for individuals to become involved?

     

    What action is required to transform interest and involvement into sustained commitment?

     

    If the “food-story” is to be “the Trojan horse” that will assist in shaping public behaviour towards becoming regenerative, then an improved understanding of the ‘water-story’ might need to be the ground upon which this Trojan horse is then rolled into the city.

    This compilation of photos and text is an attempt to graphically present this message:

    In higher rainfall areas flooding is fast becoming a regular threat to water-security.

    In lower rainfall regions, immediate common symptoms tend to be drought, wildfire and salinity.

    The offer:

    Subject to Environmental Outcomes Verification (EOV), in an 800+ mm rainfall area, Kachana Pastoral Company P L (KPC) offers to surrender 300 sq km of degraded land for the training of landdoctors, and to demonstrate how tools and skills, that are already being gainfully embraced by regenerative farmers and graziers, can be applied to rehabilitate remote and currently deteriorating river catchments.

    Purpose:

    Establish a training ground for ‘Land Doctors’ with the aim/potential to pay back seed-capital and to develop a self-funding learning site(s).

    The immediate challenge:

    • Locating project designers with ownership in the outcome (Familiarisation and sponsorship)
    • Locating project drivers and trainers with ownership in the outcome
    • Advertising for students who see the merit in a four- to five-year training commitment
      (To become a ‘Land-Doctor’ is comparable to choosing a career in medicine or in the military.)

    The social challenge

    (beyond racial and even species politics):

    • Payroll relevant familiarisation, infrastructure and admin
    • Payroll the actual training of ‘Land Doctors’
    • Payroll the regenerative work of ‘Land Doctors’

     

    When addressing practical challenges on the ground, primary criteria include:

    ➢ Are we rehydrating land?

    ➢ Are we increasing net photosynthetic activity?

    ➢ Are we enhancing soilbuilding?

    ➢ Is biodiversity increasing?

    ➢ Is landscape productivity stable or increasing?

    KEY

    The managed behaviour of wild herds as a landscape management tool in otherwise unmanaged and deteriorating catchments

     

    NB: Regenerative expertise that is already associated with building a better food-story is now needed to lead to a better water-story.

     

    “Sustainable development” and “domestication of wild or feral animals” are words that might attract funding; however, such a focus could easily undermine the aim of self-regulating landscapes.

    (with animals therein exhibiting functional behaviour that is conducive to the control of fuel-loads and soilbuilding, etc.)

     

    The aim is to produce healed landscapes wherein animals behave (on their own terms) such that their behaviour eventually achieves the functions originally performed by their wild ancestors or by extinct megafauna.

    • Fred Provenza delivers the science
    • Work conducted by my father on our farm in Rhodesia from 1956-1978 as well as first-hand experience with a small herd of wild sable antelope gave me the lead
    • experimentation on Kachana 1992–2017 supported my notions, and now offers proof of concept
    • late 2018, KPC invested in approximately $ 40’000 of helicopter time with pilot Roger Nowland* interacting with the population of managed wild donkeys on Kachana, only to obtain further support for our theories and much valuable additional learning.
      *Roger features in ‘Without a voice’ (a movie about the Kachana Donkeys).