Commentary: A critical assessment of the policy endorsement for holistic management

• Five major points challenge the policy endorsement of Sherren et al. (2012).
• Distinction between adaptive capacity and intensive rotational grazing identified.
• Conclude with evidence-based interpretation of intensive rotational grazing.
• Policy endorsement of holistic management is unjustified and unwarranted.

This commentary summarizes the evidence supporting holistic management (HM) and intensive rotational grazing (IRG) to demonstrate the extent to which Sherren and coauthors (2012) have overstated their policy endorsement of HM for rangeland application. Five major points are presented – distinction between HM and IRG, insufficient evaluation of the contradictory evidence, limitations of the experimental approach, additional costs associated with IRG, and heterogeneous capabilities and goals of graziers’ to manage intensive strategies – to justify why this policy endorsement is ill-advised. The vast majority of experimental evidence does not support claims of enhanced ecological benefits in IRG compared to other grazing strategies, including the capacity to increase storage of soil organic carbon.