At the Epicenter of Humanity’s Future: People, Land, and Shared Values

Who do you trust when speaking about land, food, and the future?

Frameworks matter. Grazing charts matter. Policy debates matter. They give us structure and language; they help us see more clearly and measure what we do. Yet it is not diagrams on a flip chart that move cattle across brittle ground, nor institutional slogans that bring watersheds back to life. In the end, regeneration is carried by people and by the common policy born of shared values to care for the ecosystems we all depend on.

When I traveled to Zimbabwe for advanced training at the African Centre for Holistic Management (ACHM), just outside Victoria Falls, this truth became undeniable. The landscape was breathtaking: tall grasses shimmering in the wind, African winterthorn trees standing like elders, the sudden flash of an antelope through the bush. The framework of Holistic Management was there in every exercise and every discussion, its rigor sharpening our understanding of how to manage land and community as wholes.

But what gave it all life was not only the land or the charts. It was the people. The circle gathered around the fire each evening was a living commons: ranchers, herders, butchers, policy thinkers, financiers, and teachers, each carrying their own world of experience. They carried the conversation. They gave it weight, texture, and hope.

This essay is about them.

A week on the land

Dimbangombe is not a classroom in the usual sense. Our sessions took place in a round, open-sided hut, its thatched roof held aloft by timber poles, the breeze and birdsong moving freely through the space. It carried the intimacy of a room but the expansiveness of the outdoors, a place where you could feel both sheltered and exposed to the wider world at once.

By midday, we climbed into a Land Rover, bouncing over rutted tracks to wherever the day’s learning would take us. Sometimes it was a patch of land or a river that had been degraded, where Allan would kneel and discuss management. Sometimes it was a herd of cattle moving like a single organism, bunching and flowing as wild herds once did across the savanna.

Evenings became their own classroom. As the sun bled red across the horizon and the sounds of birds gave way to night, we gathered around the fire. Flames crackled, laughter rose, and people told stories of their land, their failures, their fears, and their moments of courage.

The rhythm of the week — learning, walking, and reflecting — bound us together. We had come from different continents, cultures, and professions. Yet as the days unfolded, we discovered a shared language: the language of land and life.

Portraits from the circle

The Smooth family – From activism to stewardship

Among the first to arrive at Dimbangombe was the Smooth family from Utah. Their story defied stereotypes. Unlike some ranchers who inherit century-old operations, the Smooths chose this life deliberately. Decades ago, the father had stood on the opposite side of the debate: an environmental activist who once fought against livestock and the damage it inflicted.

But in the 1990s he encountered Allan Savory’s work. For the first time, he saw how livestock, managed holistically, could restore landscapes rather than destroy them. His story carried weight: it showed us that transformation is possible, that even entrenched opposition can shift into stewardship when guided by new understanding.

Today, the Smooths are navigating the quiet but relentless pressure of rising real estate prices. In the American West, land is often valued more for development than for ecology. Their challenge is not predators or war, but the steady erosion of viable ranchland as urban sprawl pushes outward.

Their son McKinley, already teaching Holistic Management courses himself, shared his concerns about the policies shaping the future of the Great Salt Lake. He spoke of how the public conversation focuses narrowly on refilling the lake with water, while ignoring the deeper question of managing for the health of the whole ecosystem.

Here was the next generation, stepping into responsibility with both passion and clarity. It reminded us all that regeneration is not real until it becomes a legacy — until children inherit not only land but also the love and courage to care for it.

Cameron King – Oregon rancher

Where the Smooth family brought the voice of new stewards, Cameron King of Oregon embodied the tension of tradition. He spoke candidly about what it means to ranch with his daughters, to make daily decisions under the weight of climate uncertainty, market volatility, and intergenerational transition.

Cameron’s gift to the group was his honesty. He admitted that family vision is not always aligned, that succession is never easy, and that resilience often looks like fumbling forward through disagreement. In his stories, we heard both the joy of working the land together as a family and the heartache of tough choices.

He reminded us that the work of regeneration is not a clean slate. It is not about perfect systems. It is about walking faithfully, one decision at a time, knowing that each move of cattle, each investment in water or soil, will ripple forward for decades.

Cory Van Groningen and his daughter – Farmers and butchers from Canada

Cory Van Groningen and his daughter brought a distinctly Canadian note to the circle. As farmers and butchers, they are building Harvest to Gather, an enterprise that integrates regenerative grazing with local butchery and food distribution. Their work is about more than producing meat; it is about educating consumers, reweaving the relationship between eater and land.

Cory’s stories carried the weight of daily farming. His daughter’s presence, however, reminded us that the next generation is already leading, already shaping what comes next.

Their perspective widened our sense of what regeneration entails. It is not only about photosynthesis and soil carbon but about kitchens, markets, and community tables. To regenerate land, we must regenerate culture. To restore ecosystems, we must also restore the ways we eat together.

Byron Shelton – Teacher of rigor and compassion

His work at West Bijou Ranch and his role as a teacher with the Savory Institute made Byron a touchstone for many of us. What set him apart was not only his depth of experience but the calm, steady way he carried it. He listened fully before he spoke, never rushing, never needing to impress.

In discussions that risked drifting into abstraction, Byron would gently bring us back to the essentials of Holistic Management: What is the whole we are managing? What are the ecosystem processes telling us? What future do we actually want? His presence was both grounding and encouraging. He has the rare ability to combine rigor with compassion, to insist on discipline in our thinking while also making space for vulnerability.

Byron is, quite simply, one of the most compassionate teachers I have ever met. He reminded us that regeneration is not only about tools and charts, but also about the way we hold space for one another as we learn.

Richard Lackey – Finance and food security

Richard Lackey arrived from a very different world: the boardrooms and trading floors of global finance. As Chairman and CEO of the World Food Bank, an organization he himself founded, Richard has dedicated his work to enabling real regeneration. Unlike institutions that focus narrowly on aid or emergency relief, his vision is to redesign food systems so they serve both people and land in the long run.

At first glance, the world of international markets seemed far removed from our circle in Zimbabwe. Yet Richard reminded us that the flow of capital is as decisive as the flow of rain. If markets are misaligned, they strip landscapes as surely as overgrazing. But if shaped by values, they can unlock possibilities on a scale that family farms alone could never reach.

Richard’s willingness to step into a circle of ranchers and herders, not to lecture but to listen, was itself a lesson. He showed us that finance is not fate; it is a human system, open to redesign, waiting for values to be inscribed into its codes and contracts.

The gift of the hosts

Brent’s courage in coexistence

Listening to Brent Stapelkamp, now the new Director of the African Centre for Holistic Management (ACHM), was like hearing the land speak through human lips. He told us of nights when lions prowled near the homestead. His family, living in a clay-built home at the edge of the wild, embodied what it means to live fully inside one’s context.

Brent’s presence reminded us that regeneration is never tidy. It is relational, messy, and often dangerous. But he also showed us that even in the shadow of lions it is possible to choose courage over fear, coexistence over violence.

Now, as Director of ACHM, Brent carries forward the work begun by Allan Savory and Jody Butterfield, ensuring that their legacy is not only preserved but lived into a new chapter. His leadership embodies both continuity and renewal, rooted in the wisdom of those who came before, yet shaped by the challenges of a new generation.

Allan and Jody’s living legacy

And then there was the heart of it all: Allan Savory, approaching ninety, still teaching eight hours a day with undimmed fire, and Jody Butterfield, weaving wisdom with a gentleness that grounded us.

Allan did not let us hide behind easy answers. He challenged every assumption, pressed us to ask the hard questions, and reminded us that to carry Holistic Management is not to hold a violin but to play it, to practice it, to let it become part of who we are. Jody, with her depth of understanding, reminded us that frameworks must be lived into culture. Together they embodied the very wholeness they taught — intellect and intuition, challenge and compassion, vision and grounding.

Why people, not heroes

The temptation in any movement is to look for a savior. We want one brilliant voice, one heroic figure, one neat solution. But Zimbabwe reminded us that regeneration cannot rest on a single set of shoulders.

What made the week powerful was the web itself: the cross-pollination of stories, the willingness to be vulnerable, the recognition that no single lens is enough. The Smooth family’s humility needed Richard’s global perspective. Byron’s rigor needed Jody’s wisdom. Cameron’s honesty found a mirror in Brent’s courage. Cory’s passion for food culture resonated with Allan’s vision of wholeness.

Regeneration is not a solo act. It is a chorus of voices, each different, each essential, each making the whole more beautiful.

Carrying the circle home

When I walk the land now, I hear those voices. I hear Allan’s challenge to stop carrying the violin and start playing it. And I am reminded that ecology comes from the Greek oikos (house) and logos (study), the study of our common home. Economy comes from oikos and nomos (law or management), the way the household is ordered and sustained. Management, in its truest sense, is the practice of tending these relationships within the household of life, the web of care that supports our common home, Earth.

Ecology is the study of relationships. Economy is how we structure those relationships. Management is the daily work of keeping them alive, balanced, and whole. To regenerate land is to return to this original meaning: to manage not only cattle or markets, but the living web of relationships that sustains us all.

These voices are now part of my own. They travel with me into meetings, fields, and conversations. They remind me that regeneration is not about technical fixes but about human courage and community.

The Legacy

When I look back on that week, I realize that what we built together at ACHM was more than a circle of people; it was a circle of shared values. Not values written as slogans, but lived out in the way we listened, questioned, and cared for one another.

The real inheritance of that gathering is not a list of techniques or even a set of ideas. It is the recognition that policies grounded in values can create the conditions for both people and nature to thrive. It is the conviction that a meaningful life is more important than a comfortable life, that true wealth is found in the courage to live with integrity, not in the safety of convenience.

And it is the reminder that just as there are no invasive plants, only plants responding to the circumstances they find themselves in, so it is with people. What we often call invasion is simply movement in search of life. When circumstances shift, species and communities alike move toward conditions where they can grow. Regeneration, then, is about creating environments where both people and ecosystems can take root, develop, and flourish together.

That is the legacy I carry forward: the call to build circumstances where thriving is possible, for grass and for children, for rivers and for communities, for families and for the future.

Closing

As I write these words, I can still see the faces of the people who carried the conversation that week, people who taught me that regeneration is less about perfection and more about courage, humility, and relationship.

I carry them with me now, into my own work with GrowWise. Their voices remind me that to regenerate land is to regenerate relationships: between humans and soil, between cattle and grass, between markets and values, between families and future generations.

The week in Zimbabwe was more than a training. It was a glimpse of what is possible when diverse people gather around a fire and choose to listen. It was a reminder that the real wealth of regeneration is not only the grasses that return or the rivers that flow again. The real wealth is the human chorus itself, people from Utah, Oregon, Ontario, Colorado, Zimbabwe, and beyond, singing different notes that together create harmony.

I cannot wait to return to ACHM, to that land. Because what I witnessed there was more than a method; it was a living truth. The epicenter of humanity’s future, the phrase ACHM has chosen as its slogan, is not only deserved, it is a call to all of us. For what I saw in Zimbabwe is not confined to one place. It is a mirror, pointing to every farm, every community, every household across the world.

The epicenter of humanity’s future is wherever people, values, and land come back together. It is wherever regeneration is not reduced to a slogan, but embraced as a way of life.