Trumpeter (1990)
ISSN: 0832-6193
Intentional Communities & Land Stewardship Trusts
Jeffery Thyson Banighen is the founder and present Executive Director of Turtle Island Earth Stewards (TIES), an instructor in the Communications Department of Simon Fraser University, curriculum designer and trainer for the Environmental Education Project of the Association for the Promotion and Advancement of Science Education (APASE) and the Socio-Environmental Editor for SPARC News.
Turtle Island - the old/new name for the continent, based on many creation myths of the people who have been living there for millenniums, and reapplied by some of them to 'North America' in recent years; also an idea found world-wide, of the earth, or cosmos being sustained by a giant turtle or serpent of eternity. Gary Synder, Turtle Island, 1974
Introduction
Turtle Island is an oceanic deluge/creation myth common to the indigenous cultures of the Pacific Rim. After the last deluge the Great Turtle scooped sea bottom mud onto its back and arose from the ocean depths to support life anew. As Earth stewards we must sustain this turtle continent, otherwise it will once again roll over on its back and sink beneath the waves.
This article will deal with the rights and privileges of land ownership in our society, community ownership of land and the advantages and/or disadvantages of land being held by tenants-in- common, co-operatives or non-profit societies; how lands can be placed in trust; and, how Turtle Island Earth Stewards (TIES) has established the land stewardship trust model both in Canada and in the USA.
The Rights and Privileges of Land Ownership
The free-enterprise system of North American culture involves treating land as a commodity to be bought and sold. The living land, Gaia the Earth Mother, has been enslaved to serve humanity. Science views the sea, land, water, air and living species as resources to be exploited for human use. The ownership of land is the cornerstone of the democratic and free enterprise system, and a major source of private and corporate wealth and the wealth of nations. In democracies ownership and use of land is considered an inalienable right of every citizen who can afford to pay the market price and yearly taxes. However, land ownership is not ownership per se, but is rather a bundle of use- rights for which the "owner" pays the government in the form of taxes on the land, minerals, water, trees and other land resources. Once paid, the "owner" is granted the right to use the land and/or its resources for their own benefit. Who has access to land and can exercise these rights is, therefore, a very contentious political issue, particularly in the Third World, where people are poor, the population large, and the land scarce. Land ownership in most societies is a status symbol, and such ownership gives one a privileged position. Buying or owning land is an act of control over one part of the planetary lifestream, and as such is a political act; owning land is a political statement.
Community Ownership of Land
When a group joins together to purchase land collectively certain problems can arise. A clearly written agreement is, therefore, essential, whether the group comes together as tenants-in-common, as members of a co-operative, or as a non- profit society. In whatever organizational form the group chooses to purchase land, they need to be very clear on why the are doing so. What is the groups' vision, mission statement, or aims and objectives? Why do they want to purchase or own land? What do they intend to do with the land? How do they intend to manage their collective land ownership rights and privileges, and what are the rights and privileges of each individual member?
Membership, therefore, becomes the key issue for any group, and certain questions need to be asked. How does someone become a member? How is a member asked to leave? How are decisions to be made in the group, and how are disagreements to be handled?
If the group is organized as a co-operative with individual share capital, then there is another set of questions. What happens when members leave the group? Are they entitled to their original share capital plus land improvements? The issue then becomes how to compensate such a member. If compensation is an issue, then the co-op needs to have a first option to purchase the members' shares; however, if the group has insufficient money to buy the shares, then certain legal questions arise. Can the shares be purchased by a non-member? What if the member leaving the co-op is unhappy and wants compensation but the group cannot afford to compensate them? Can the member take the group to court? In some cases this has happened and the land has had to be sold in order to pay the member their share capital. Unfortunately this happens quite often, particularly when a founding member wants to leave and holds the majority of the original share capital. Tenants-in-common face similar problems, when members want to leave.
For these reasons I do not recommend that land be owned co- operatively with share capital or by tenants-in-common. Rather, I recommend that groups own land as a non-profit society. This necessitates that the group become clear about its aims and objectives (i.e. mission or vision statement), why the land is being purchased, and how the land will be used to further the aims and objectives of the society, whose purpose in a larger sense is to serve the betterment of society as a whole. Usually, low income access to land is an insufficient glue to hold a group together. Hence, there needs to be a larger purpose, one of service to the greater community such as education or demonstration of alternatives, whatever the purpose, it needs to be clearly stated as part of the group's aims and objectives.
If the group members individually own land then they can donate their land, or they can donate money to the non-profit society to purchase land. If the society has charitable status in Canada then each person can write-off the amount of their donation or the appraised value of the land donated up to 20% of their gross-annual yearly income as a charitable gift to the society. Any outstanding balance can be carried forward for five years as a charitable donation. If the society has charitable status, then the difference between the appraised market price and the price at which the land is sold to the land trust is tax deductible. The land owned by a non-profit society in Canada or the USA must be used to further the society's aims and objectives. Should the society dissolve, its assets cannot be divided-up and redistributed among the members, but rather must go to another non-profit society of the group's choice. However, the land itself is not protected and can be sold as an asset.
Land Stewardship Trusts
The function of a land stewardship trust such as TIES is to give a voice to the land in human and land development decisions. The land stewardship trust removes the land from the speculative real estate market, and it ceases to be a commodity to be bought and sold as a speculative item in the marketplace; it then becomes available in perpetuity to be managed in an ecologically sensitive manner. The land in trust is stewarded on behalf of and for the use of future generations of all life. In the case of a non-profit society the future members could include the group's descendants. A land trust, therefore, allows for long term multi-generational planning which is a necessity for sustainable communities, agriculture and forestry. The trust agreement outlines how the land, forests, watersheds and reserve lands are to be stewarded so as to insure that some, or all of the reasons, why the land was originally purchased and placed in trust are maintained. The ecological use conditions registered against the title are designed to protect the sustainability of the land and the ecosystem of which it is part.
There are many reasons to place land in trust. One reason could be to establish an ecological reserve, preserve wildlife habitant, or for other conservation purposes called a conservation trust. Another reason may be to help low income people obtain access to land, which they could not otherwise afford to purchase, through a community land trust. Other reasons may be to establish a park, community garden, or green spaces through a community or neighbourhood land stewardship trust; the aim might be to preserve agricultural land for agricultural purposes, through an agricultural trust. Another reason might be to bring unmanaged forestlands into timber production through a forest trust. A land stewardship trust combines many of purposes of the above trusts such as, conservation, community access to land, agriculture and a forest trust, into trust agreement under one integrated land use plan. The land in trust is then made available to a group of stewards whose actions and home base will be on the land; there they will be able to carry out their aims and objective as defined by their non-profit society.
The majority of groups place the most ecologically sensitive or most sacred areas of their land in an ecological reserve. The value of a reserve is to protect unique and fragile ecosystems on the property which serve as untouched base-lines against which to gauge the impact of any development on the surrounding ecosystem. In the case of forests in trust, an ecological reserve would protect old growth forest, or the oldest part of the forest, as gene pools for seedlings and so as to provide a base-line for long-term monitoring of permaculture and social forestry projects. Because of their long-term regenerative cycles 60 to 1500 years, forests require long-term planning beyond this generation period, a function that can be provided by a land trust.
Ecological covenants registered against the land title in perpetuity can insure that the land will continue to be used for the intent for which it was originally purchased and then placed in trust. But, more importantly, the covenants can insure that the ecologic sustainability of the land and resources are maintained—a necessary basis for sustainable development and a healthy and economically stable community. Should the society of stewards disband then it becomes the land trusts's responsibility to find another non-profit group to steward the lands, according to the covenants registered against the title in perpetuity.
Because the purpose of a land trust is to ecologically protect land in perpetuity, and to remove the land from the speculative market, the land itself cannot be used as collateral for loans to carry out a group's objectives. One alternative source of development capital is to raise it from the membership in the form of non-interest or low interest bearing loans to the society. Part of this share capital, say 25%, is held in trust, in case a member should chose to leave and wants to withdraw their loan. The rest of the capital can then be used to fund various projects. In this way the land is protected in trust by the non-profit society, but the land itself can be used to derive an income for members from farming, forestry, co-operative enterprises, social services or intentional community projects, with the profits being used to pay back the loans, be distributed amongst members, or be placed into a communal account.
Turtle Island Earth Stewards (Ties)
TIES is a non-profit, charitable society incorporated in Canada in 1973 and in the USA in 1984. To assist individuals and community groups to place private lands and forests in trust. TIES brings together the ancient Earth wisdom of the indigenous Turtle Island Earth Stewards — who revere the Earth as their Mother, with the science of ecology to weave the past into the present, combine feeling with intellect, and synthesis with analysis, so as to create an environmental ethic appropriate to the 21st Century.
Lands purchased and donated to TIES are placed in public trust with ecological use conditions registered against the land titles in perpetuity. The land trust then enters into a negotiated land stewardship agreement with a non-profit group to steward the land according to these ecological conditions. As long as the group fulfils its aims and objectives, as stated in their constitution, abides by the ecological conditions, and lives up to the stewardship agreement, they have stewardship rights in perpetuity. The land trust and stewards form a local committee to monitor the land stewardship trust agreement. If the agreement is not adhered to, or if the group folds, then the lands become available for another group to steward. Let us consider a specific example, The Caravan Farm Land Stewardship Trust.
Caravan Farm Land Stewardship Trust
The preamble to the Caravan Farm Land Stewardship Trust Agreement, which is presently being negotiated with TIES, provides one groups' perception of why lands should be placed in trust and it also describes their concept of land stewardship.
We live in an age when appropriate ecological values are becoming paramount to our continued survival. To arrive at viable strategies to preserve and heal the global environment it is necessary to develop new local relationships between people and the land on which they live. Alternatives to the traditional idea of land "ownership" must be developed. The idea of land "stewardship" is one such alternative.
What is land stewardship? How does one legally and philosophically create a situation in which land is not "owned" by people, who view their property as distinct from its environment, but rather in which the land is managed with the idea that it is indivisible from its surrounding environment and subject to local ecological constraints? What are relevant ground rules for such land use? How can a group of people manage their property according to ecologically constructive principles? How can this same group of people establish a functioning model of land stewardship that can be maintained over the years by a staff of changing personnel? How can this model serve to educate and guide other community groups or individuals seeking to practice land stewardship?
The larger question is how can the land stewardship trust model provide a process at the community or bioregional level to arrive at a negotiated settlement between the competing interests of such parties as: representatives of local, regional and provincial governments; industry; environmental groups, indigenous people, and local citizens? Can negotiated agreements, in the form of ecological use conditions, protect the local social fabric and the surrounding environment, yet provide sustainable development guidelines and monitoring procedures for sustainable economic development?
A land stewardship trust agreement is one means of addressing these questions in a legal format. It lays out a series of "covenants" which are guiding principles concerning ecologically sound land use. It describes an organizational structure designed to facilitate and carry out long term environmental goals and monitoring procedures, while at the same time creating a stable land base for a group to realize its own aims and objectives. TIES' function as a land trust is to speak on behalf of the land through an ongoing consensus decision making process with the group inhabiting the land and the stewards.
The Stewardship Trust Council
A Stewardship Trust Council (Council) has been formed under the TIES umbrella. The Council consist of two representatives appointed by TIES board of directors and two members from each Land Stewardship Trust group associated with TIES. Presently there are six groups:
- Linnaea Farm on Cortes Island, B.C.
- Main River Rehabilitation Society near Westbridge, B.C.
- De Mong Memorial Society near Black Creek, B.C.
- Caravan Farm near Armstrong, B.C.
- Dunsmuir Gardening Group of Crescent Beach, B.C.
- Burns Bog Conservation Society of Delta, B.C.
The Council meetings are open to all TIES and LST members and their guests, however, each LST group and TIES will have only two voices in the consensus decision making process. The Council will act as peer monitors of all LST Agreements and will provide as well an opportunity for land stewards to discuss common stewardship issues, as well as to share expertise and resources.
West Coast Land Stewardship Trusts
Along the West Coast of North America the cry of the turtle has been heard. In British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and California and overseas in Britain, India and Africa, TIES has been or is involved in land stewardship or land trust projects which are conservation, stewardship education, theatre, agriculture, forestry and international development projects.
Associate membership in TIES is $20.00 and includes a quarterly newsletter. All donations of land or money are greatly appreciated and are tax deductible both in Canada and the USA. For further information, guest speakers or technical information or technical advice to place lands in trust contact: Tyhson Banighen, Executive Director, TURTLE ISLAND EARTH STEWARDS, 101- 5810 Battison Street, Vancouver, BC, V5R 5X8, (604) 432-9473.
Copyright retained by author(s)
PID: http://hdl.handle.net/10515/sy55x25r3
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