While I don't have enough background to personally pass judgement on Allan Savory, Chris Clarke apparently does. It's not the full-on kookiness of vortex math, but apparently he feels that to an ecologist, his TED talk is "full of red flags":

http://www.kcet.org/updaily/socal_focus/commentary/east-ca/l...

I don't feel that one counterexample automatically disproves your main point, but it is a TED.com talk.