Learning Site, Learning Community

ACHM’s 3, 200-hectare learning site, known as Dimbangombe, lies 32 km south of Victoria Falls. The learning site is home to a sizeable wildlife population (elephant, lion, buffalo, sable, kudu, leopard, and more), a resident mixed herd of cattle and goats, an impressive team of herders, and an ever improving landscape.  There is much to see and learn.

ACHM is committed to improving our own practice of Holistic Management on Dimbangombe learning site, while continuing to further its development. Visitors, students and researchers learn from our mistakes as well as our successes in using livestock to restore land so that bare ground is covered and springs and rivers flow again.  (See Success Stories)

We are working with our neighbors in the 40,000-hectare Hwange Communal Lands to develop effective methods for introducing Holistic Management to new communities. Six pilot communities in the Hwange Communal Lands serve as extended learning sites, or living laboratories, where training methods are tested and jointly evaluated. Visitors and trainees benefit from first-hand exposure to the challenges and rewards real communities face in using livestock to restore their land.

Dimbangombe RiverWatershed Restoration – with Livestock  

Through a unique planning methodology, livestock are used as a tool for land restoration by combining into large herds to harness the power of their hooves to break up hard ground so air and water can penetrate, and to trample down old grass so the soil is covered and less prone to the drying effects of sun and wind.  Their dung and urine help fertilize the hoof-prepared soil, and their grazing (which is timed to prevent overgrazing) keeps perennial grasses healthy, greatly minimizing the need to burn them and expose soil.  On Dimbangombe, we now have perennial pools, the river is flowing again through most of the year, and forage is abundant and feeding 400% more livestock than when we began, even in drought years.

A community herd going out to graze.In 2008, the first three pilot communities combined their animals into larger herds during the growing season and followed, for the most part, the grazing plan they helped create.  Some livestock owners remained dubious and kept their animals in separate groups that were allowed to wander.  By the end of the growing season in early 2009, the difference in forage yields on land where the grazing plan was followed versus on land where animals were allowed to wander, was significant – 4 times greater, on average.  ACHM is testing a new community mobilization strategy to assist in removing the doubts and fears of non-participating livestock owners so we can better these results.

Increasing Crop Production with ‘Animal Impact’

Following harvest and stover (crop residue) feeding, community livestock are kraaled on successive cropfields at night to break up the soil with their hooves and deposit dung and urine. The treatment has more than doubled (five times, in some cases) the yields on community control fields, made abandoned fields usable again, and eliminated the labour required for transporting manure.

 Sevi Ndlovu in her animal-treated field (left) and in a conventionally managed field beside it (right)