Clearing land for grazing cattle the principal driver of destruction and degradation of terrestrial ecosystems. The natural ecosystems on about 25% of Earth’s ice-free land surface have been cleared, destroyed or degraded to provide grazing land for cattle at abn enormous cost to wildlife and biodiversity - the 1.7 Billion domesticated cattle living on Earth today outweigh all remaining wild terrestrial mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians by more than a factor of 15. 

Phasing out beef cattle farming is the single fastest, least expensive and most impactful way to unlock negative GHG emissions on a scale sufficient to bend the trajectory of climate change — by unlocking 1,300 Gt of negative emissions - enough to offset more than 30 years of current fossil fuel emissions. And because cattle grazing accounts for more than 2/3 of the land footprint of humanity, phasing out this practice and restoring native ecosystems it displaced is also by far the most powerful way to reverse the ongoing collapse of terrestrial biodiversity.

Beef farmers and ranchers, most of whom (in the US, in the EU, and very likely elsewhere) actually lose money from that activity, are therefore poised to be the major beneficiaries, as economic incentives for carbon sequestration and ecosystem restoration increase.

But even if every cattle rancher were to decide today to repurpose their land toward the goal of capturing carbon and restoring native ecosystems and biodiversity, there is virtually no reliable scientific information to guide their strategy. 

The overarching goal of Carbon Ranch is to provide reliable, evidence based answers to these questions by carrying out ongoing, large-scale, real world experiments to systematically evaluate and compare potential strategies for ecosystem restoration, monitoring their impact on above and below-ground carbon sequestration; biodiversity and ecosystem restoration; resilience to climate, weather, disease and other perturbations; public perception; and short and long-term economics.

The project will serve as the basis for an evidence-based “playbook” for farmers and ranchers who wish to transition from raising beef cattle to ecosystem restoration and carbon sequestration, and a living model to demonstrate to the public and to policy makers the enormous environmental and economic benefits of such a transition.