Praised by cattle farmers,[4][5] his controversial ideas have sparked opposition from academics; ranging from debate on evidence for treatment effects to the scope of the potential impact for carbon sequestration.

[10] Prince Charles called him "a remarkable man" and noted farmer Joel Salatin wrote, "History will vindicate Allan Savory as one of the greatest ecologists of all time.

"[12] However, this comment has been subject to criticism in a later article published in The Guardian by Hunter Lovins, titled "Why George Monbiot is wrong: grazing livestock can save the world".

[14][15] Savory’s early career was multifaceted, working as a biologist, soldier, public servant, member of parliament, president of a political party, farmer, rancher, and as a consultant.

Following the recommendations of the Petrides Commission, Dr. Graham Child was appointed Director of National Parks and Wild Life Management who then implemented an elephant culling program.

[25][26] Savory says in his memoir that he enlisted as a ranger with the British Colonial Service in the Northern Rhodesian Game Department to prepare himself for guerilla warfare - learning techniques like bush skills and tracking of animals like elephants from local traditions, which could then have military applications in counter-insurgency.

[28] However, in the early 1960s, his ideas began to gain acceptance when the Federal Army's elite all-white Special Air Service (SAS) invited him to present courses on tracking and "aggressive bush craft" - which were deployed against African nationalist insurgent groups fighting against the colonial government.

[28] At the time of Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965, Savory was a Captain in the part-time Territorial Army unit, the 4th Battalion Royal Rhodesia Regiment.

In 1965, Savory presented a paper to Rhodesian Army Headquarters suggesting the formation of a Guerrilla Anti-terrorist Unit (GATU) with white SAS operators and black police who would specialize in tracking, and pose as African nationalist insurgents to infiltrate and eliminate their groups - this request was approved, but disagreement between army and police led to the unit's termination.

[27] Subsequently, the army allowed Savory to select members of the entirely white Territorial Army, who were also rangers from the Rhodesian Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management (DNPWLM), and civilian professional hunters to form the Tracker Combat Unit (TCU) - as the unit had no black personnel, plans to infiltrate groups were abandoned, and re-focused on tracking and killing African nationalist insurgents.

After resigning from the Rhodesian Front in protest over its policies and handling of the war, in 1973 Savory reformed the defunct Rhodesia Party formerly led by Sir Roy Welensky.

[35] When not travelling the world spreading his message, Savory and Butterfield split their time between their house in Albuquerque and a thatched-roof complex of mud huts in the African bush in Zimbabwe.

[42] This includes conservation projects in the US, Africa, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Canada, and Australia in which various NGOs, government agencies and universities are practicing holistic management and its holistic planned grazing to reverse desertification using livestock as the main agent of change to restore the environment, increase ground cover, soil organic matter and water retention, replenish streams, and combat biodiversity loss.

[39][43] In 2003 Australia honored Savory with the Banksia International Award "for the person doing the most for the environment on a global scale"[9] and in 2010, Savory and the Africa Centre for Holistic Management won The Buckminster Fuller Challenge,[10] an annual international design competition awarding $100,000 "to support the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity's most pressing problems".

[44] Savory has faced criticism for his political and military involvement in colonial Rhodesia in the 1970s - particularly for supporting racial segregation and proposing a "Minister for Population Control" to handle the "population explosion" among Africans during his presidency of the Rhodesia Party,[31][45] and for developing and teaching tracker techniques for all-white military units which were used to track and kill African nationalist insurgents fighting against the colonial government.

Several peer-reviewed studies have found that excluding livestock completely from semi-arid grasslands can lead to significant recovery of vegetation and soil carbon sequestration.

[61] Another peer-reviewed paper found that if current pastureland was restored to its former state as wild grasslands, shrublands, and sparse savannas without livestock this could store an estimated 15.2 - 59.9 Gt additional carbon.

[47] According to a 2016 study published by the University of Uppsala, the actual rate at which improved grazing management could contribute to carbon sequestration is seven times lower than the claims made by Savory.

[65] The FCRN study estimates that, on the basis of meta-study of the scientific literature, the total global soil carbon sequestration potential from grazing management ranges from 0.3-0.8 Gt CO2eq per year, which is equivalent to 4-11% of total global livestock emissions, and that “Expansion or intensification in the grazing sector as an approach to sequestering more carbon would lead to substantial increases in methane, nitrous oxide and land use change-induced CO2 emissions”[65] Project Drawdown estimates the total carbon sequestration potential of improved managed grazing at 13.72 - 20.92 Gigatons CO2eq between 2020–2050, equal to 0.46-0.70 Gt CO2eq per year.

On the contrary, as he has since shown so graphically, the land needs the presence of feeding animals and their droppings for the cycle to be complete, so that soils and grassland areas stay productive.