Our habitat is the key to understanding ourselves, our social interactions, and the ballooning problems we face, from parenting challenges to geopolitical challenges. He believes that it is important to interact with modern challenges both with ideas and actions.
He has lived an adventurous life that allowed him to formulate a global understanding of savanna ecosystems, but it has meant he has had to say goodbye to many people and places that he has loved. However, this perspective has allowed him to have a unique view of the ecology and psychology of our ancestor’s habitat, savanna ecosystems. He loves writing and talking about savannas and their loss. Savannas shaped human ancestors. From this unique perspective, it is obvious that the loss of savanna ecosystems was the engine that shaped the world in which we live.
He lives in Kenya with his wife, Hanna Hart, and their three young children. There, he co-manages several large pieces of savanna in Kenya, along with the elephants, buffalo, zebra, and lions. This gives him visceral and direct knowledge of megafauna-maintained ecosystems, something that is rare, even among people who talk about grazing and large animals.
Before he moved to Africa, he and his wife owned five hundred acres of the most productive pasture in the world in Western Oregon. When Covid made the land and the debt that financed it more expensive, they sold the land (and leased it back) to be close to the action of dynamic savanna ecosystems. The high production of this land allowed Nate to test and refine his grass management skills because high production allowed him to learn faster, five times faster, than on other ranch properties.
Prior to moving to Oregon, Nate built a ranching business called Grounded Land and Livestock in the San Francisco Bay Area, along with his business partner, Byron Palmer. From nothing, they built a 5,000-acre operation and had the opportunity to do some cutting-edge science on grazing management. Before that, Nate worked for the most innovative ecosystem managers around the world, which gave him a toolbox of ideas. Nate was always a nature geek who knew from the age of twelve that he was going to find a way to use livestock and forestry to restore savannas and the human values they foster.
