The way I see it there are two main ecosystem level designs you could implement in order to create a Hunter's Eden on your property. Understanding succession and what Allan Savory refers to as "brittleness" will be key in determining which path you should focus on with your property. The first path I will call the Succession Dependent path and the second will be the Grazing Dependent path. With the first path you will be focusing on managing succession to create temporary foraging areas by periodically opening up the canopy and planting desirable seeds and plants at each level of succession. The second path would mainly be focused on using large grazing animals (usually livestock but wild or feral grazers could also potentially be used under certain conditions) to maintain long term grassland/savanna plant communities using things like holistic grazing practices. Both of these paths have the potential to work in varying environments, but the path you choose for your property will largely be determined by brittleness and the tools available to you.
The first path would be the Succession Dependent path. This path would be best utilized in relatively non-brittle environments or in areas receiving plentiful precipitation for most of the year. This is because in these environments succession happens very quickly and when land is disturbed it quickly is covered up by weeds and the stages of succession proceed fairly rapidly. With this method you will mostly be trying to plant desirable seeds and plants for each level of succession and removing undesirable plants. This path has the benefit of being relatively easy to maintain with the most laborious parts being planting and creating disturbances. This path is also described in my previous post "Cycling Through Plant Succession" and basically involves creating and maintaining a "food forest" type system for wildlife.
This path could potentially work well in wetter areas with relatively high deer densities. This is because the stages of succession would transition fast enough so that the deer would not be able to over browse the most palatable forage. If however you were attempting to maintain a traditional food plot at that stationary level of succession for a long period of time, eventually the deer would over browse the most desirable species and eventually only undesirable "weeds" would remain. This is because deer are effectively continuous grazers. Unlike bison and other large grazers, which naturally graze on a rotational basis, deer stay in the same general area and continuously graze the same plants over and over until the most palatable species die out. This is the same problem you have when you graze cattle in a single pasture year round. They pick out all the best forage first and then over time all that is left is an overgrazed weedy pasture with very little that the cattle actually want to eat. With cattle this is remedied by rotational grazing them through multiple pastures at high densities where they eat and trample down everything and then give it time to rest and recover until it is ready to be grazed again. Until we can figure out a reasonable way to rotationally graze deer on a large scale I believe the best method to remedy this is to cycle through succession in the manner I have described.
This path however would be difficult in more brittle environments because succession happens much more slowly, which would give the deer time to over browse the most desirable plants at each level of succession. This problem would be even worse if deer densities in these areas were relatively high. That's why in my opinion in the drier more brittle environments I would recommend focusing mostly on the Grazing Dependent path.
With the Grazing Dependent path your main focus would be using grazing animals (mainly livestock) to maintain long term "food plots" or pastures in order to maintain a high percentage of desirable plants for forage use for wildlife. This path would be mostly utilized in brittle environments where there is low rainfall throughout the year or in areas with a long dry season. Also if deer and other wildlife densities in these environments were relatively high then this path would be especially necessary due to the fact that desirable plants would not be able to outcompete the undesirable "weeds" due to the high browsing pressure. However this path could also potentially work well in nonbrittle environments.
In order for this path to work, however, livestock would need to be periodically rotated through these areas in order to trample weeds and promote the growth of desirable species. This could be a potential barrier for some landowners due to the cost and effort involved in managing livestock, however it would also be possible to make deals with local ranchers and farmers and possibly lease out your property to be grazed as long as it met with your property's objectives. If no livestock producers were willing to pay you to use your pastures in this specific manner then you could always offer it to them for free or even pay them for the impact that their livestock provide on your property similarly to the concept of prescribed grazing. Grazing animals also could be used to help establish desirable plants as well as remove undesirable ones when first establishing these systems.
Ultimately livestock are potentially a very valuable tool when it comes to managing the plant communities on your property and especially in the drier, more brittle environments where succession does not happen fast enough to outrun the detrimental effects of overbrowsing by deer and other wildlife. Whichever path you choose it's good to know that you could use both even on the same property. For example a north facing slope could be moist enough to where the succession dependent path could work sufficiently whereas on a dry south facing slope on the same property it may be necessary to focus on the grazing dependent path.
Also even in drier brittle environments the succession dependent path could potentially work if you were able to create less brittle microenvironments by using permaculture techniques such as swales and other earthworks as well as by keeping game densities very low or by utilizing exclusion fences.
Both the succession dependent and the grazing dependent paths have a huge potential to turn properties across North America and beyond into hunting paradises where hunters can manage the wildlife on their properties in a holistic and sustainable manner and provide their families with a low input source of meat for multiple generations.
