With limited water availability, arid lands requires more than just rest to re-vegetate. Livestock based terraforming capitalizes on grazing animals natural ability to transport  water, nutrients, and organic matter across a landscape. The highly concentrated, precisely  scheduled movements of livestock ensures the even distribution and thorough integration of inputs applied. This method effectively prepares the landscape to quickly respond to natural precipitation. This method has been demonstrated to effectively establish perennial plant communities on mine tailings and sites severely impacted by wild fire in the southwest.

Fallowed land resulting from natural resource extraction, arrested development, loss of access to groundwater and even well intentioned conservation efforts present a major economic and public health challenge for southwestern communities. Tens of thousands of acres have remained fallowed for decades in Arizona and are now associated with severe dust storms and the proliferation of respiratory diseases like Valley Fever. Vegetation effectively and cheaply mitigates many of the negative impacts associated with fallowed land by:

• Covering bare soil to reduce the sources of dust.

• Increasing land surface roughness to discourage dust accumulation and encourage the deposit of dust by slowing the wind down.

• Reduces water runoff and increases water infiltration into the land.