Best ideas for widespread permaculture land tenure / access

Given the context of where things stand currently in much of the world with regards to property law and markets, what are the most promising directions to work, push, or leap and establish better suited templates and systems for effective and enduring land stewardship that delivers equitable abundance into the future for willing participants?

A very wide open question, and perhaps prone to flights of fantasy driven to escape or oppose the many painful flaws and failings of the status quo; but I'd especially like to home in on workable tactics and evolutionary angles that could realistically be adapted to existing legal and social frameworks, rather than utopian visions of some dreamy paradise for the enlightened.

So a little more directly: what can a few competent and motivated people undertake today to leverage limited fortunes toward securing long term productive relationship with a place they hold a sense of belonging to and sustenance from, along with reasonable rights and privilege of self-determination? What are the main obstacles to get past, and what kind of setting, location, or strategy may serve best? Any good examples and success stories to share?

PS I'm aware of ongoing offers and experiments along these lines at Wheaton Labs and open to some commentary on that but want to stay at the level of patterns and principles here rather than addressing specifics of a given scenario unless personally involved!

Given ... all these things: my perspective, worth exactly what you paid.

Beware of revolutions. Revolutions  morph into exactly what they were fighting against. Flip side of the same coin. Equitable distribution is in practice inequitable: some animals are always more equal than others.

Legal mechanisms already exist in open countries (where there is reliable rule of law) to enable land access without ownership, given the agreement of both parties. Leases and contracts carry moral and legal weight, and the rights and obligations of both parties are spelled out clearly.

And yet, the challenge is getting to the point of such an agreement, especially for a long-term lease. The glue that makes such a binding agreement possible is person-to-person contact, and the building of deep and earned trust. This does not come from the top down, but from the bottom up -- people who trust me/you making introductions to people with resources who trust them. It is a social compact long before it can become a legal lease/contract. The corners of land are out there, and many owners would like to see them used. But how do they know they can trust? My 2c.

Fine inputs and observations, Douglas! Indeed, trust is a keyword in a couple of senses and something that typically flows perpendicular to economic value, which can either simplify or complicate land use decisions.

Certainly there are a range of cultural paradigms and protocols around land governance, and we take for granted a particularly abstract, insular cartesian one that's at odds in many ways with the living systems upon it. Yet it does powerfully affirm a certain bond and obligation between person and place.

I'll just point out a couple of promising organizations intent on spreading sound long term lease models for regenerative ag entrepreneurs, based on a cumulative foundation of resources, inputs, knowledge and care from supportive communities:

https://ecologicalland.coop

https://www.agrariantrust.org/initiatives/agrarian-commons/

Seemingly a successful pattern that addresses many of the challenges here, although I'm not personally familiar with either project. Let's see what others may want to pitch in for thoughts and instances to reflect on.

I came across the attached paper a few years ago, on a village scale common field land division arrangement which originated in the salt marshes of China near the mouth of the Pearl River, Hong Kong and Macau.

The seemingly independently developed similarity of land division to what prevailed in feudal Europe, despite the differences in social context, makes me wonder if there isn't something broadly applicable and enduring, here, especially for voluntary communal living arrangements.  Convergent evolution, socially.

I'll freely admit to being better with things than people, so this sort of sociological inquiry is not in my wheelhouse - I am far out of my depth.

My interest in the common field template of land allocation was piqued by Ken Follet's books, "Pillars of the Earth" and "World without End", in which the common field is an important backdrop, and which books I was reading mostly because of my interest in the great flush of Gothic cathedral construction - both the building techniques (many of which must be somewhat conjecturally inferred at this remove) and the social and economic conditions which made these endeavors possible.  Something about the end of the 12th into the 13th centuries (roughly speaking) both encouraged and permitted this profligate flurry of investment in a pre-industrial agrarian economic context.  A relatively clement climatic interlude within the Holocene may have been a necessary pre-condition, but I'm not convinced that alone was sufficient.  Again, for me, these are deep waters, so I'm just musing, not really asserting anything.

One thing leads to another...

Hello Ben!

I think the Skills To Inherit Property (S.K.I.P.)  program though permies is working well.   It is a viable path to land ownership.

With zero financial input and a few weeks of concentrated work,  a person or family can be well on their way to owning a lovely homestead, farm or permaculture paradise.




https://permies.com/wiki/skip-pep-bb


https://permies.com/f/383/skip

Thanks for that "common field" tidbit Kevin, I've also been mildly intrigued by the manorial systems at the core of 'feudal' land arrangements, and how aspects of that could be mirrored (for better and worse) in modern social systems.

Highly recommend taking a browse through old Ordnance Survey maps of the UK to get a sense of how the landscape was viewed, occupied, and used leading up to industrial era. Here's a great side by side view with modern satellite imagery showing incredible staying power of those old parchment lines:

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=12.1&lat=53.08452&lon=-1.14048&layers=6&right=ESRIWorld

An elder West Coast permaculture teacher I admire, Tom Ward, published a wonderfully visionary handbook last year titled "Social Forestry" with several variations on the notion of mutualistic subsistence tenant farm-steward communities partnering with wealthy landholders to provide essential services, production, and protection or resilience.

Samantha hi, I'm interested in seeing how SKIP is working out for participants so far, and how well that approach can be adapted elsewhere! Sounds promising, but I've just begun to investigate. Welcome any additional perspective from those more familiar, and any similar programs of note. Thanks for sharing.

A couple more "patterns" I'd like to bring up for consideration in this design challenge, such as it is, are the cohousing and cooperative (specifically, limited equity housing coop) models that are somewhat widespread among intentional community projects. Is there a comparable approach for more land-based projects and lifestyles? The main advantage being that this can greatly reduce acquisition, improvement, and upkeep costs when shared among several participants.

Co-housing, often under the umbrella of a community land trust, offers individual ownership of a dwelling space (usually not the land it's on though) and shared access to some common facilities such as a community hall gathering space. Housing coops are simplified further into an equal shareholder model which, for a set price, provides a dwelling space and voice in the overall governance of the facility - usually an apartment, condo, or other multi-family structure.

How might these models could be adapted to a permaculture property and system, with greater emphasis on land stewardship and productive use? I'm sure there are examples around, but I'm not pulling up good ones besides perhaps some community garden or allotment systems which don't generally allow for residency on site. There certainly are some rural co-housing projects that incorporate permaculture informed site plans and activities, but I suspect most of these are secondary aims, often more of a luxury amenity for people with the capital to buy into the concept as a hobby or aesthetic.

Just a few more seeds for thought, as I'm actively considering a range of possibilities on both a personal project/property, and more broadly for application in regions that are struggling with the intersecting challenges of housing affordability, land degradation, social and cultural dissonance, and overall future oriented resilience and revitalization!