[permaculture] Trends in (Meso)America Part II
christopher nesbitt
christopher.nesbitt at mmrfbz.org
Sun Nov 9 13:24:46 EST 2008
Hi Steve,
The issue of subprime loans and predatory lending practices, cloaked
in the flag of enabling everyone to be a land owner, is a whole other
topic. So is long term debt. Neither of them apply to this situation,
which is the only situation I have been discussing here. I don't have
time to address that, and it is peripheral to what I have tried to
say, but would like to say that privatized profit and socialized risk
for corporations are symptoms of a very seriously unhealthy economic
system, but have absolutely zero to do with what I am talking about,
the benefit of property rights to the health of land and people in
Maya communities in Belize.
You seem to have read a lot into what I have said, assigning values to
things I have said, and assuming I am saying things which I did not
say. I am not advocating a landlord class, in China or anywhere,
though looking at the millions of Chinese who starved to death and
resorted to cannibalism during the Great Leap Forward, perhaps what
you are mentioning would be an improvement over statist agricultural
models. Also, the reply about the ancient Maya was not to you, it was
to a comment regarding stewardship of the commons posted by Scott. I
suggest you reread it so that you can see it was not addressed to
anything you said. Judging from your questions, you have not read or
understood what I wrote. To reiterate, I am not advocating anything as
a universal cure, just pointing out examples where land ownership in
Maya communities has been beneficial. The critical parts that answer
your latest questions, which would have been answered already if you
had bothered to read what I wrote a bit more carefully, are in ALL CAPS.
So far I have only been speaking of this watershed and district, and
the benefits it has had in indigenous communities who have been able
to gain title to land that was already theirs. This is land they have
been using, and now is land they own. As I have said, this very clear
benefit to their living standards is not a universal cure to the
worlds ills, few things are universal, replicable everywhere, but it
has had many benefits in the communities here.
The advantage of private property for my neighbors is that now they
are wiling to make long term investments in their land with
agroforestry, which takes a long term plan, and there are legal
structures that protect their land from being take by the government,
taken by developers, taken by someone else. This was done with out
incurring a debt, and now people have the land they have been working
for the last 50-100 years (the Kekchi migrated into this valley in
waves, with the first being around 1905).
After three years looking at various pieces of land, in 1988, I bought
a severely damaged piece of land that no one wanted. I have sweated
and bled on it for 20 years, put more into this land than I can write
about, and now..... I have something that is worth wanting. 20 years
on site and it is my home. When I bought this land it had been on the
market for years. Local people could have bought it, it was cheap, and
this community was loaded with ganja money in the 1980s, picture 5
gallon buckets crammed full of USD100 bills, there were many hundreds
of thousands of dollars floating around here in the go-go 1980s, but
the land was too far away (still is), and too damaged for anyone to
want it, except for young people like I was who wanted to live
somewhere remote, and who did not realize how damaged much of the land
was. Most people avoided this village because it had a reputation as
being the Wild West. The only reason I wanted this land was because I
did not realize how damaged the land was, or how much a road would
make life easier. If I had known then what I know now, I would have
bought a different piece of land. With two exceptions, one gringo
couple who bought an adjacent piece of land 2 years ago, which had
been empty for many years, and a local family that lives across the
river on land that has been in their family for 100 years, but only
moved there in 1997, our nearest neighbors are at least a mile away.
Judging from what you have written, I should feel conflicted for
stewarding this abandoned and damaged land and planting out thousands
of trees, planting vetiver to control erosion, rehabilitating pasture
that had severely compacted and degraded soils and creating a very
complex food forest. No offense, but I don't.
> If, Christopher, you can show me situations where private property
> doesn't lead to division into the propertied class and the rent
> paying class, doesn't lead to longterm debt, where in order to
> service their debts people aren't forced into accepting whatever job
> is available, doesn't cause people to be leading precarious lives
> tied to the whims of big banks, where the agents that legitimate
> private property are ones that one would like to see in future
> abundant sustainable communities, then I would be happy to change my
> assertion that private property is a universal longterm ill.
I think I have already, Steve. I am going to repeat this once more, to
try to clarify what I am saying, so please read this very carefully,
okay? The local people have ALREADY been given title to the land they
have been working. It's fairly simple, they had been using it for
generations, they had many problems related to their lack of
ownership, they wanted secure land tenure in the form of property so
that they could make improvements to their land and own those
improvements. In response to the will of the people, government
facilitated that, and not one of them is unhappy with being given
their land. It belonged to them, already, but their "ownership" was
not well protected. THEY NOW OWN THEIR LAND. IT IS LEGALLY THEIR
PROPERTY, and there are all the frameworks to protect their land that
any other ethnic group in Belize has. THERE IS NO DEBT. This merely
formalized what was theirs already. Your main points of contention are
moot here. This is not replicable everywhere, obviously, but it works
here.
In Belize, getting land is a right for every Belizean, wether Mopan
Maya, Garifuna, Kekchi Maya, Yucatec Maya, Creole, Mennonite, ethnic
Chinese, Lebanese, Nigerian, Mestizo, East Indian, even naturalized
foreigners like myself can apply for a piece of land, so this land,
that they were already using, was given to them using the same legal
structure every other Belizean has. It now belongs to them. All they
have had to pay for is a portion of the cost of surveying the land. No
debt. No loans. With that land, they have been able to plant long term
crops, like cacao, as some community members who already had property
were doing in the 1920s and in the 1950s, which has enabled them to
access international (fairtrade/organic) markets, which help to lift
then out of poverty, send their children to school, buy iPods and
computers washing machines and televisions, whatever they want to buy
and can afford, the same choices you can make,
I think that the lack of secure, viable mechanisms of land tenure,
including land ownership (wether individually, through land trusts,
communities) is a practically guaranteed way to sow dissension and
lock people in the developing world in perpetual poverty. At least
that has been the case here. If you can show me otherwise, which is
unlikely, since you do not live here, I will be happy to modify my
assertion that anyone who asserts with sweeping blanket statements
that property is a universal long term ill is myopic, idealistic,
unrealistic, delusional and misinformed. ;-) Very few things are
universal, and here, land ownership has been very beneficial, both for
the environment and for the people working the land.
Because of poorly defined land ownership, this community, and others
like it, have been filled with contention, envy, bitterness, sabotage,
and arson over people planting long term crops, like cacao and coffee,
or milpa plantations of large size into "communally owned land". These
crops, cacao and coffee, provide economic benefits to the families
engaged in growing them, provide ecological services like flood
mitigation to the community, fuel wood for cooking, habitat for
animals they traditionally hunt, and financially by allowing access to
schools, healthcare, etc. They do this while providing ecological
services that are valuable on a global scale that are increasingly
important , in the form of carbon sequestration, habitat creation,
soil and soil moisture retention, etc, etc, etc. The change of land
tenure to private ownership has resulted in better practice, and has
been close good for the biotic health of that land. Previously,
communally managed land has been managed poorly here (and again, I am
not saying it couldn't be managed well elsewhere).
Perhaps in years to come, this titling of land will lead into all the
things you speak of, the unhappiness, polarization, rent paying, but
there are no indications in the communities that have had private land
for generations that it will. In villages like San Antonio, many of
the land owners who planted cacao 25-40 years ago have built up their
land, have shops, and citrus farmers use oranges to earn income in
addition to their other farming, and are more prosperous than their
neighbors who decided that the short term gains of planting rice beans
and corn were more worth their efforts than the cacao and timber their
prosperous neighbors planted (on land they owned). There are virtually
no rent payers in Toledo west, except teachers, Peace Corps types, and
health care workers posted in the back villages, and government pays
that, and the people renting the houses are pleased with the extra
income.
I will branch out a bit. Here is another example, outside Belize: I
can't remember the mans name, but there is a Peruvian economist that
wrote an interesting article about a squatter invasion of land outside
Lima. I read this a very long time ago in Harpers(?) or Utne Reader(?)
or maybe that bastion of free market conservatism, Whole Earth Review,
but it stuck with me as an excellent example of what is wrong with
land use/ownership patterns in Latin America (and I am sure you and I
can find plenty of common ground there). The incident he described
involved thousands of land less peasants who occupied empty land,
overnight, mapping out streets, putting up simple houses, four walls,
a roof, making their neighborhoods. They had tried legal means, but
were stymied by the process, 200 papers from 60 government agencies,
which took an average of 300 days of work to have processed (or
something like this) and they decided to just grab this empty land.
The government chased some of them away, but many stayed, and many who
had been chased out, returned. This land was divided by a river. X
amount of years later (20-25? I don't remember), one side had nice
permanent houses, with gardens, ornamentals, trees, small community
managed parks, gardens, streets, street lights, while on the other,
the people still lived in cardboard and zinc houses, still had lack of
access to running water, still had lack of access to legal electricity.
These two communities were established during the same squatter
invasion. They were still involved in the same socioeconomic bracket,
working in Lima in the same factories, or as domestics, or as day
labourers, and yet they lived in two communities where one was
beautiful, and had been improved, had trees planted, had well managed
community spaces, parks for children, churches, and the other was
marked by temporary housing, squalor and lack of sanitation. By all
indications, they should be the same, the settlements on both sides of
the river were established during the same event, the people living
there were working the same jobs, so, what was the difference with
these communities? Well, the better developed community had worked
together as "informal" owners and were better organized to prove
ownership, which the Peruvian government agreed to recognize. With
ownership, or secure land tenure, they were willing to invest their
income, their energy and their time into the land, since the land was
legally theirs and it was protected by the Police, the courts, etc,
all systems you see as tools of the oppressor (it would seem).
The other side of that river at the time the article was published was
still (10-12 years ago) considered a squatter camp, and the
inhabitants faced eviction by the government, or seizure by powerful
land speculators. Under such a system of land tenure, nobody is
willing to invest their money into improving what is essentially not
theirs, subject to the whim of some ink shitting paper pusher behind a
desk somewhere who may decide to have them removed, and remove them
with a pen. Such decisions may be made in offices by "urban planners",
and in smoke filed board rooms reeking of greed and avarice, and their
land, which they have lived in for many years, may be taken, parceled
out and distributed through an "urban renewal" campaign, or just given
to developers. Those people are permanently at risk of eviction or
seizure, or losing their land to other squatters, even if they were
settled 50 years earlier. After 50 years, they can still be removed.
They have not built any equity, they have not secured any land, built
any assets, improved their standard of living. In this case, lack of
property has created a permanent underclass, which may well be the aim
of the ruling class in Peru.
The side that managed to wrest legal tenure to that land now has
access to services, water, sewage, electricity, and is able to sell
their land, which they have invested their time, money and labour
into, to return to the rural communities they left, in desperation
(economic desperation, fear of Shining Path, etc). They had built up
equity which they were free to sell, free to pass on to their
children, free to use as collateral for loans. I am hard pressed to
see what could possibly be wrong with enabling landless peasants to
have land ownership.
So, should those landless peasants who squatted land not be given
access to titles for their land because it might lead to divisions
someday in the future? If you think so, can you explain why? How about
all my neighbors, many of whom did not have security in their land
tenure before they were given titles to their land, should they all be
deprived of the ownership of land they have farmed and want to own? If
you think so, can you explain why? This is not a rhetorical question,
in the absence of a working model, one that is applicable to most
people (and eco-villages may be the future, but take a more highly
evolved person, in my experience, one willing to deal with a lot of
people issues, and one that is not infinitely scaleable), ay least on
a local scale, I am not seeing a viable alternative model, and you
aren't offering one, either, other than making sweeping broad
generalizations about "universal long term" ills.
Again, the will of the people in Maya communities in southern Belize
is to own their land. That is what THEY want. Do you think that you
know better than all of these thousands of people in what is best for
them? What alternative do you suggest? Should they be forced to give
up their land?
It's easy to throw rocks, Steve, vaguely identifying a problem, and,
admittedly, there are problems with land ownership, but I am not sure
these problems are worse than the problems that are a byproduct of
insecure land tenure, at least here. You half identify what you feel
are problems, and say that there are solutions, but provide none.
What, exactly, is the solution you are offering? How do you think land
should be used? Is there a vision here, with tools to make it happen,
or are you just..... making noise? Can you provide any working
examples of this land use pattern you envision, if such a vision
exists? What, exactly, is your point? Your point, if you have one,
remains elusive.
I will sign off by saying that property rights occupy an extremely
small amount of my time, hahaha, entirely too much, recently! I mostly
think about agroecology, food security and biological diversity in
agriculture, renewable energy and poverty alleviation, all of which
are much more interesting topics, and offer real chances of making
changes in peoples lives, although my world view is not universal in
scope, and merely applies to the lowland humid tropics. Breadnuts
don't grow everywhere, just like the issues I identified here related
to land tenure are not "universal". I would prefer to focus on things
that are likely to result in positive change. I am
Best wishes,
Christopher
On Nov 8, 2008, at 4:32 AM, Steve Read wrote:
> Hello, christopher nesbitt,
>
> Thanks for your reply and the subsequent analysis of old Mayan
> culture, I wasn't aware that people considered them highly spiritual
> and elevated, If I gave the impression that I thought they held
> property in common then I didn't mean to, personally I have no
> illusions about past civilisations in general.
>
> However we could perhaps look at the situation now; as you pointed
> out people are using private property around you as a means to
> ensure stability and security of tenure. You have done likewise,
> although having at first the idea to open up your private paradise
> to a more communal situation. Looking around you see the local
> people doing the same thing and perhaps see in this a justification
> of your tenure status? I don't know about the other PmC teachers you
> brought in but I imagine that a private property apologist like Toby
> would also help to justify your tenure status.
>
> I would perhaps suggest that someone such as you who has wider
> contacts than many of the local neighbours of yours, and I imagine
> much experience of nations where private property held by
> individuals is the norm, might be more questioning as to the
> efficiency of this as a long term solution.
>
> An even cursory glance at the USA toady reveals many of the
> problems associated with private property as a medium to longterm
> solution, particularly at this time of mortage arrears, repossession
> and negative equity.
>
> Then we can look at the structures which are needed to legitimise
> private individual property, these form the basis of the nations
> states in which many people live and are again perhaps not the most
> optimal longterm solution to human socio-economic needs.
>
> We can look also at how anyone, let alone the less well off can
> access private property, few have the means to get their own place
> without recourse to incurring a big and longterm debt. Their lives
> are now locked into a debt/repayment cycle which will lock them into
> a certain pattern of living which will enable them to repay that
> debt, a job, any job very usually, few can afford to be unemployed
> even for a short term. How do you envisage the local people around
> you getting their private property? Perhaps you have a solution to
> logterm private debt whereby people end up paying far more for
> their property than the original cost that is if they end up at the
> end rather than experiencing a global economic downturn etc etc.
>
> In China the landlord class is apparently being reinstated, people
> going to the city will be able to sell their land to a landlord who
> can then rent it out, this is apparently seen by the Chinese
> authorities as the solution to their "inefficient" agriculture which
> hasn't seen harvest increase in the manner deemed appropriate, so
> you are in good company.
>
> If, Christopher, you can show me situations where private property
> doesn't lead to division into the propertied class and the rent
> paying class, doesn't lead to longterm debt, where in order to
> service their debts people aren't forced into accepting whatever job
> is available, doesn't cause people to be leading precarious lives
> tied to the whims of big banks, where the agents that legitimate
> private property are ones that one would like to see in future
> abundant sustainable communities, then I would be happy to change my
> assertion that private property is a universal longterm ill.
>
> That people use it as a solution to their current unstable situation
> does not, imo, mean that it is the optimal solution, a viable
> longterm solution or one that will be effective at longterm earth
> and people care.
>
> The space I left before to be filled in with names/details of
> projects that had found a communal ownership strategy I left in the
> perhaps forlorn hope that others knew more than I (something I
> usually find). I ahd hoped that there would be more voices raised
> against this obscene dividing of this Earth onto little private
> holes where people retreat with some idea of security at the same
> time denying to themselves that any security comes from the Police/
> Courts and Governments, insitutions they often don't trust, disagree
> with and would like to change.
>
> As an aside many Brits believe they own their own home, ignoring the
> fact they live in a Monarchy, Britain belongs to their Queen, that
> she doesn't chose to wield her power is another matter.
>
> SteveR
>
> ======= At 2008-10-31, 04:29:54 you wrote: =======
>
>> Hi Steve,
>>
>> I didn't assume anything about you. I know nothing about you. I just
>> find that the idea that property is an inherent wrong is uninformed,
>> but seems to be popular amongst people in the developed world who
>> have
>> access to property. I am pretty sure the only part I mentioned about
>> you is that many people here do not have the things you subsequently
>> agreed that you have, and that perhaps yo had not considered that
>> they
>> would like to, and that commonly held land and the problems
>> associated
>> with it were barriers to their accessing those things they wanted.
>> All
>> I discussed was my experiences regarding what I see as problems
>> related to commonly owned property and benefits of private land
>> ownership for both the people who own it and for the land itself, but
>> looking at it on a very local scale. This is not a universal view,
>> applicable to all situations, but it is something I have observed
>> during my life of protracted observation of the place where I live. I
>> am not advocating anything. I am pointing out that the desire to
>> own a
>> piece of land is near universal in the rural agrarian Maya
>> communities
>> I have worked in.
>>
>> As an aside, Kekchi and Mopan people are still on the periphery of
>> the
>> currency based economy, especially the back villages, and still
>> engage
>> in currency free trade, firewood for corn, corn for a pig, a days
>> labour for a days labour. There are many cultural traits that they
>> have retained that are under threat. One is that a very high
>> percentage of the children do not want to be farmers like their
>> parents.
>>
>> As far as the Maya holding all things in common, that is plain wrong.
>> That never happened. That is mere Caucasian mythology about
>> indigenous
>> people that just never happened.
>>
>>> Its important to not fall into the trap of mistaking indiginous
>>> peoples for ones who have some sort of cultural purity and are in
>>> some way unaffected by the marketing and straight forward socio-
>>> economic pressures driving this 'modern' world, the Macdonaldisation
>>> of the planet continues apace.
>> No worries about me romanticizing Maya people. They are just people.
>>
>> I would be interested to see you fill in that gap where communally
>> owned property has allowed people to access TVs etc. With the
>> exception of Cuba, which has not allowed access to TVs (but has very
>> good health care and education), I am not thinking of any, but,
>> again,
>> my experience is limited. I agree that things like Ecovillages are a
>> way forward, but even those are a form of ownership, albeit more
>> cooperative and egalitarian.
>>
>> While I would say that, in my opinion, commonly owned land has not
>> worked well here, I had a consultancy in Venezuela in 2006, looking
>> at
>> cacao, which was very interesting. I had previously been to Venezuela
>> to look at coffee, but cacao is my thing. One part of my time there
>> was in a place called Cata, one valley over from the famous El Chuao.
>> The community an abandoned cacao grove the community took over. The
>> cacao grove was 400 acres or so, managed by the community, divided
>> into sections, owned by the community, but individual families had
>> access to and responsibilities for set plots, delineated, clearly.
>> All
>> of it was centrally fermented and marketed through the cooperative at
>> Ocumare. There were a few other communities that provided cacao to
>> the
>> coop, too. It was a wonderful example of community managed
>> agriculture, well organized, only a few unhappy people (all
>> cooperatives have their unhappy members), and I was struck by how
>> market savvy they were. World market prices for cacao was swinging
>> between USD1200-1600 a tonne. Fairtrade/organic was USD1950 a tonne,
>> and they were getting USD4500 a tonne. That is a place where a form
>> of
>> collective ownership worked, but with clearly delineated boundaries
>> and responsibilities. Any earnings were directly tied to their
>> management practices. That is a nuanced private land ownership/
>> commonly held land model that I really admired.
>>
>> As far as scholarships, we host courses, attracting great teachers
>> from all over the world, like Toby. One course we have done the last
>> three years is a permaculture design course. We are able to provide
>> or
>> find funding to allow local students to take the course free of cost.
>> This is subsidized by students who are paying, and by the teachers,
>> like Toby, who are willing to facilitate training for free (hat off
>> to
>> Toby Hemenway, Penny Livingston, Larry Santoyo, Albert Bates and
>> Andrew Goodheart Brown, who have done that in tha past, and to
>> Albert,
>> Goodheart, Andrew Leslie Phillips and Maria Ros who are doing that
>> this year). 23 Belizeans have taken a PDC here, including extension
>> officers from Ministry of Agriculture, extension officers from NGOs
>> as
>> well as Peace Corps volunteers, and hundreds of farmers have been
>> given training in agroforestry.
>>
>> Anyway, I am not on an opposite side to you, I just see that
>> universal
>> platitudes about the evils of ownership are not wholistic in scope.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Christopher
>>
>> On Oct 30, 2008, at 3:51 PM, Steve Read wrote:
>>
>>> Hello, christopher nesbitt,
>>>
>>> Thank you for the examples which are all very interesting, although
>>> i'm not sure why you imagine that my experience is exclusively
>>> 'developed world' it most certainly isn't I have lived and worked
>>> in a number of different countries, cultures and environements,
>>> 'nuff said
>>>
>>> You are discussing driven societies/people, the socio-environmental
>>> pressures that have driven cultures that by tradition held all in
>>> common to reject that way and adopt private property as a way of
>>> dealing with the developmental pressures most cultures are
>>> undergoing go unmmentioned in your list of successful projects, as
>>> do the millenia many of these cultures have lived and thrived with
>>> their old communal way.
>>>
>>> " would like all the things that I suspect you enjoy or have access
>>> to, Steve, a computer, an education for their children, a TV, a
>>> car" I'm sure they would and I'm not going to apologise for
>>> currently being in a culture where 2nd hand computers/cars trickle
>>> down to me, on the contrary I am lucky to have lived in such
>>> cultures and seen/see at first hand the pitiful state to which so
>>> many people are reduced. When people start bandying comparisons
>>> between rich and poor countries I often suggest they dig out some of
>>> the social and health statistics, despite all these 'golden years'
>>> of capitalism, private ownership and development these so called
>>> developed countries carry hidden in their dark underbelly millions
>>> of dispossesed, come and live in a cardboard box under a bridge in
>>> the winter in London, to be woken at 5am to be doused with
>>> disinfectant, Cold, the Cold. The shifting cultivators around you
>>> don't have these 'luxuries' simply because the areas they live in
>>> have star
>>> ted down this Oh So Wonderful developmental path later than here, so
>>> what? Bruno in Brazil who did a PDC with me pointed out that many
>>> people were 'dispossesed' becaus ethe Govet had a lwa that stated
>>> that any labourer who worked for 'you' for more than 90 days (I
>>> think) became eligible for pensions and stuff so your wonderful
>>> private property owners simply kick them off at the end of that
>>> period and get new ones, no chance to develop a veg patch or
>>> anything.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> the gap above can be filled in with examples from developing
>>> countries where communally held land etc has enabled then to
>>> improve their standards of living, have a TV etc.
>>>
>>> Its important to not fall into the trap of mistaking indiginous
>>> peoples for ones who have some sort of cultural purity and are in
>>> some way unaffected by the marketing and straight forward socio-
>>> economic pressures driving this 'modern' world, the Macdonaldisation
>>> of the planet continues apace.
>>>
>>> There would be too nuances of private ownership, where a land is
>>> owned by an extended family and lived and worked by them through
>>> generations, this resembles in many ways a tribal communal tenure,
>>> the legal status giving the extended family security of tenure
>>> similar to when tribal lands are decreed as being "owned" by such or
>>> such tribe. Before current modern pressures undermined tribal areas
>>> they too had security of tenure, although they may often have had to
>>> fight to keep it. If we do as I keep suggesting and buy the land to
>>> put it into a safe common holding, educate people to use it wisely
>>> then where is the difficulty?
>>>
>>>
>>> What do you mean 'scholarships'? I am glad Toby has had the
>>> opportunity to see and experience these areas, I'm sure it has
>>> enriched the quality he brings to his designs.
>>>
>>> SteveR
>>> ======= At 2008-10-30, 19:00:47 you wrote: =======
>>>
>>>> Hi Steve and Toby,
>>>>
>>>> I am going to make some observations of land tenure from the
>>>> limited
>>>> perspective of living in proximity to indigenous communities, but
>>>> am
>>>> not emotionally attached, am not attacking anybody. This is an
>>>> alternative view of the problems and benefits of land tenure in
>>>> Maya
>>>> communities in southern Belize:
>>>>
>>>> I have lived in a piece of land in southern Belize for the last 20
>>>> tears. When I bought it, I bought it cheap because it lacked road
>>>> access (still lacks road access), had no grid (still has no grid
>>>> electricity), and the land was severely damaged abandoned pasture
>>>> land
>>>> and old citrus groves. I have used my labour, my thoughts, my
>>>> energies, income earned off the farm as well as income from the
>>>> farm,
>>>> to rehabilitate the soil, make this land a beautiful farm, and to
>>>> make
>>>> a very well established food forest, with many hundreds of species.
>>>>
>>>> When I bought this land, I wanted to open it up to be a
>>>> community. I
>>>> invited local people, and international people, and.... no one was
>>>> really interested. They all wanted to pursue their own thing, so I
>>>> pursued my own thing, too. I now have an Eden, which I intend to
>>>> pass
>>>> on to my children, which I share through courses. Toby has taught
>>>> here, twice, and knows that we provide scholarships for
>>>> participants
>>>> who can not afford to take the courses we offer (made possible by
>>>> teachers like Toby who are willing to facilitate scholarships).
>>>>
>>>> If this land had been community owned, it would have all been
>>>> burned
>>>> down and planted to corn years ago.
>>>>
>>>> Moving on to the matter that you may not have considered: most
>>>> people
>>>> in the developing world want private property, at least the
>>>> people I
>>>> know. For the last 20 years, I have lived in San Pedro Columbia,
>>>> Toledo, Belize. My neighbors are mostly Kekchi Maya people who did
>>>> have community land tenure, and, as the book "the Tragedy of the
>>>> Commons" points out, community land was not always well managed.
>>>> I am
>>>> not saying that it couldn't be, but my experience here has shown me
>>>> that, here at least, it is not. Fallow crop rotational cycles
>>>> appropriate for the types of soil we have here, 12-15 years, were
>>>> not
>>>> observed when that land was everybody's and nobody's. The incentive
>>>> was, at the time, to chop it, burn it and plant it out to corn
>>>> before
>>>> someone else did, resulting in shortened fallow cycles of 7
>>>> years, 5
>>>> years, 3 years, with the predictable decline in production and an
>>>> increased environmental cost of erosion, siltation, and fire damage
>>>> (we lost 50 acres of habitat to a caretaker for a privately owned
>>>> piece of land "managed" by absentee land owners this last year,
>>>> though
>>>> the core areas of the farm were largely unaffected). Any one who
>>>> fallowed a piece of land for more than 7 years could expect to find
>>>> someone else clearing it for their milpa when they went out to
>>>> their
>>>> farm.
>>>>
>>>> Toby has been to two of the farms in San Pedro Columbia with well
>>>> developed agroforestry. One is Saul Garcias land, farmed for 40
>>>> years,
>>>> worthy of a book of its own, amazing levels of biodiversity both
>>>> between species and within species, and the other is Ignacio Ash's
>>>> farm, a very wel developed farm that is a cacao dominant
>>>> polyculture
>>>> that has been in one family for 3 generations. He has also been to
>>>> Burton Caliz's farm, which is another farm that is amazing. These
>>>> farms are exceptional, and a common feature is that they are
>>>> "owned",
>>>> that the person who established them expected to have something to
>>>> pass on to their children.
>>>>
>>>> In 20 years time I have watched all the rainforest within a two
>>>> hour
>>>> walk of the village chopped and burned up for corn. Lack of
>>>> delineated
>>>> properties resulted in a land use pattern that is full of
>>>> contention
>>>> and conflict, where the land was not stewarded for the long term
>>>> benefit of the community or for the land itself, and has kept this
>>>> community mired in stagnation, economically marginalized by a
>>>> lack of
>>>> access to traditional avenues of credit (and this is not a debate
>>>> about wether or not that is a good thing) and with a social
>>>> prohibition on making long term investments in the land, like
>>>> planting
>>>> cacao, enforced by sabotage, community censure, arson and violence.
>>>> Any attempt to plant long term crops like cacao or coffee, or
>>>> timber
>>>> trees in association with cacao or coffee was seen as a resource
>>>> grab.
>>>> Cattle pastures were not managed to avoid soil damage, because it
>>>> was
>>>> not "theirs", and the way to show intention to use that land was
>>>> through not fallowing it.
>>>>
>>>> Commonly owned land here resulted in greed, fear and division, too,
>>>> worse, in my opinion, than where property was delineated.
>>>>
>>>> The few cacao farms in this watershed of any size are held by
>>>> families
>>>> that managed to get their land titled back in the 1920s or 1950s,
>>>> like
>>>> Ignacios, whose grandfather planted out most of the cacao he has.
>>>> Saul
>>>> "stronged" his land and would probably have chopped anybody who
>>>> tried
>>>> to steal it from him into several chunks a few years ago. He owned
>>>> that then and now by respect for his abilities and age,
>>>> respectively.
>>>>
>>>> Now, the land that provides the ecological services displaced by
>>>> shifting cultivation tends to be privately owned land. I allow
>>>> people
>>>> to collect firewood from my land, for example, since their is no
>>>> firewood close to the village anymore, except on privately owned
>>>> land.
>>>>
>>>> Another community near hear is San Antonio village, a Mopan Maya
>>>> community that was established in 1840. San Antonio is very well
>>>> developed (if you like agroforestry, there is a section in the
>>>> middle
>>>> of the village that is staggeringly productive, combining several
>>>> back
>>>> yards to make a small carbon sink and block of habitat for birds
>>>> that
>>>> is also very productive in food and cacao). The largest cacao farms
>>>> in
>>>> Toledo are all owned by farmers in this village. Average acreage of
>>>> cacao farms in Maya communities is a bit over an acre. In this
>>>> community, the median acreahe is 4 acres, with several farms as
>>>> large
>>>> as 12 acres. Some of the farms are being managed by the children or
>>>> even grandchildren of the initial farmer. San Antonio village is
>>>> like
>>>> a garden, one of the prettiest villages in Toledo, and well
>>>> developed.
>>>>
>>>> San Antonio is a prosperous village. People invest their energies
>>>> into
>>>> their land because it belongs to them.
>>>>
>>>> Looking at San Antonio Village, and San Pedro Columbia we see one
>>>> community with property rights that has engaged in very
>>>> sophisticated
>>>> agroforestry, land that is passed securely from generation to
>>>> generation, who can access credit to expand their farms, buy TVs,
>>>> build new houses, have shops, that is able to send children to
>>>> school,
>>>> and another, that has also developed, but not as quickly, that is
>>>> still dependent (though less so) on shifting cultivation, that
>>>> lacks
>>>> access to credit and has been marginalized at the boundary of the
>>>> currency based economy. Both of these communities are engaged in
>>>> agriculture. Both of these communities have access to the same
>>>> markets. Both of these communities are over 100 years old. One of
>>>> these communities is a nicer place to live (hahaha, and I don't
>>>> live
>>>> there)!
>>>>
>>>> San Antonio observes better agricultural practices on commonly
>>>> owned
>>>> land, too, with 60 feet from any waterway kept forested, and the
>>>> school and church well taken care of, a pride in ther community
>>>> that
>>>> is an extension of their pride in their farms.
>>>>
>>>> There are some differences in the communities apart from property
>>>> rights. San Antionio is Mopan Maya, a lowland Maya in the Yucatecan
>>>> language group, and the Kekchi are a Quichean people, highland in
>>>> origin, who arrived in Belize after 300 years of perpetual
>>>> displacement. The Mopan came from San Luis Rey, Peten, with the
>>>> intention to settle that valley, a single movement to establish a
>>>> settlment, from a place very similar to San Antonio, same plants,
>>>> soils, weather patterns. The Kekchi in Columbia arrived as the
>>>> front
>>>> end of a wave of the displaced of the displaced of the displaced,
>>>> and
>>>> have a legacy of living for a few generations in one place and then
>>>> migrating, either by choice or external factors. They are from the
>>>> highlands, cooler, with a pronounced wet season and dry season, and
>>>> different plants. But, apart from that, right now, they both have
>>>> access to the same markets, the same level of service (clinics,
>>>> schools, extension services, hospitals). The biggest difference has
>>>> been their relationship with the land they farm.
>>>>
>>>> There are people here who speak against private property for the
>>>> Maya,
>>>> saying the communal land system is their culture (debatable, but
>>>> certainly the model since the Conquest). Most of these proponents
>>>> own
>>>> their own land, if Maya, or are Caucasian, who own property back
>>>> where
>>>> they come from. Most Maya people would like property they can
>>>> pass to
>>>> their children, or use to access credit, and can increase the value
>>>> of
>>>> by their labour, etc.
>>>>
>>>> I am not debating the merits of access to credit, or economic
>>>> integration with the balance of the country and the global economy,
>>>> but it is worth noting that %99.9 of the farmers I know would
>>>> like to
>>>> own their land, would like access to more money, would like all the
>>>> things that I suspect you enjoy or have access to, Steve, a
>>>> computer,
>>>> an education for their children, a TV, a car, and they don't have
>>>> those things because with poor land tenure, making shifting
>>>> cultivation provide the bulk of their income (financial and
>>>> caloric),
>>>> they are always two steps from a bad crop failure and loss.
>>>>
>>>> San Pedro Columbia surveyed most of the land five years back and
>>>> gave
>>>> the land to people. I wish I could say that was done transparently
>>>> and
>>>> was painlessly, but it was not. It was done in the months before a
>>>> general election with the intention of gaining votes. I am sad to
>>>> say
>>>> it worked, and that party swept into power for a second term
>>>> (though
>>>> they lost the next election when they had no assets to give away).
>>>> Having aid that, most people got the land they were farming, and
>>>> are
>>>> happy with this. They have also started planting out more tree
>>>> crops,
>>>> and the overall health of that land is better as people have
>>>> incentive
>>>> to manage it well, by planting long term crops, and to avoid
>>>> burning
>>>> into their neighbors lands.
>>>>
>>>> There is also a movement in Belize for land owners to set aside a
>>>> percentage of their land to be maintained as habitat and for the
>>>> ecological services wild areas provide, which is a whole other
>>>> subject. Their are talks about incentives for this, etc.
>>>>
>>>> In closing I would say that the 30 prettiest farms I have seen (I
>>>> worked as the head of extension for a cacao cooperative here, and
>>>> have
>>>> visited well over 400 farms in Belize, and dozens of farms in Costa
>>>> Rica, Panama, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Venezuela) have all been
>>>> farms
>>>> where the owner had very secure land tenure, either property or
>>>> long
>>>> term leased land, and an ability to transfer ownership to their
>>>> children. I am not saying that communal land doesn't work, or that
>>>> private property is a panacea that will solve all of the problems
>>>> facing farmers here (or anywhere), but that land here is better
>>>> maintained when the stakeholders have something to pass on to their
>>>> own children via secure property rights.
>>>>
>>>> Just my .02.
>>>>
>>>> I have to run, go plant some more trees.
>>>>
>>>> In development,
>>>>
>>>> Christopher
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Oct 30, 2008, at 1:26 AM, Steve Read wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hello, Toby Hemenway,
>>>>>
>>>>> Interesting approach to extrapolte from one PDC and its mug
>>>>> praxis
>>>>> to principles and strategies of land tenure; It reminds me too of
>>>>> the platitudinous arguments that Thatcher & Co. put forward to
>>>>> justify selling off the council owned housing, frankly I rarely
>>>>> saw
>>>>> a run down council house except on estates that had been
>>>>> designanted
>>>>> as 'problem' estates by the local council and were then therefore
>>>>> following some strange logic of their own refilled with more
>>>>> 'problem' families. And then of course council blocks that fell
>>>>> into
>>>>> disrepair and misuse becaus ethey were simply so badly designed.
>>>>>
>>>>> Your argument also belies the fact that for prbably millenia
>>>>> humane
>>>>> societies have enabled land tenure strategies that allowed
>>>>> sustainable, durable use of commonly held assets. Th
>>>>> e fatuous book 'Tragedy of the commons' has been massively
>>>>> instrumental in creating a mythology around this subject. Your
>>>>> argument also imo seems to betray a certian myopia, looking out
>>>>> the
>>>>> window do I see a world where privately owned resources are not
>>>>> destructively exploited, a world where privately property is
>>>>> tended
>>>>> and nurtured for subsequent generations? Or do I see a world where
>>>>> the traditional class layers have gone to be replaced by one big
>>>>> squandering propertied class in the rich countries and those that
>>>>> are becoming fatter? For myself I only have to go to the municipal
>>>>> dump to see where private property ends up, even when still in
>>>>> good
>>>>> condition.
>>>>>
>>>>> I imagine that you personally however are tending well your
>>>>> private
>>>>> patch of Earth, your private Eden.
>>>>>
>>>>> And of course there's Renting property out, what a great way to
>>>>> increase my income, living off the sweat and labour of others,
>>>>> keeping the world split into have's and have nots and of course
>>>>> expecting the people who are renting the property to look after it
>>>>> as if it were their own, well how is it they can do that in rented
>>>>> accomodation and yet wouldn't be able to do it in commonly held
>>>>> accomodation?
>>>>>
>>>>> I would however agree with you Toby that there is some education
>>>>> to
>>>>> be done, its not difficult, one simply transports the emotional
>>>>> content that one has for 'mine' to 'ours'. I frankly fail to see
>>>>> that if we can't do this and that as designers we are not
>>>>> promoting
>>>>> this how we are to move along towards sustainable interconnected
>>>>> communities.
>>>>>
>>>>> Buy the land and free it into a safe common legal entity, then
>>>>> help
>>>>> people develop the capacity to nurture it, and in this I am
>>>>> speaking
>>>>> too and perhaps in particular of the urban areas. This definately
>>>>> seems to be the philosophy developing here in France.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Steve R
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ======= At 2008-10-30, 04:45:47 you wrote: =======
>>>>>
>>>>>> A story I may have told before: On opening day of a PDC, the
>>>>>> venue
>>>>>> was
>>>>>> kind enough to put out mugs, each with a participant's name on
>>>>>> it.
>>>>>> They
>>>>>> asked that each person be responsible for rinsing and putting
>>>>>> away
>>>>>> their
>>>>>> own mug. The system worked beautifully; the classroom stayed free
>>>>>> of
>>>>>> scattered mugs; each was back in the rack at the end of the day.
>>>>>> Then,
>>>>>> come our mid-class day off, the mugs were put through an
>>>>>> industrial
>>>>>> sterilizer and the labels were removed. They went back to the
>>>>>> classroom
>>>>>> unlabeled. Within a few days, mugs were everywhere--under chairs,
>>>>>> on
>>>>>> shelves, left outside, many full of molding tea leaves, and
>>>>>> another
>>>>>> couple of dozen mugs had been commandeered from elsewhere since
>>>>>> no
>>>>>> one
>>>>>> could find a clean mug and it was easier to grab another from the
>>>>>> stash.
>>>>>> Soon almost every mug the place had was in our classroom, dirty
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> haphazardly stuck anywhere.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I was pretty surprised, since the participants seemed like decent
>>>>>> folks.
>>>>>> The lesson I took home was twofold: private ownership is one
>>>>>> way to
>>>>>> encourage responsibility toward resources, and, a culture that is
>>>>>> used
>>>>>> to private ownership is liable to behave irresponsibly toward
>>>>>> resources
>>>>>> held in common.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Toby
>>>>>> http://patternliteracy.com
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Nancy Frank wrote:
>>>>>>> Steve -
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I think it will be awhile before we get as far as we've come and
>>>>>>> return to common land.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Nancy
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Best regards.
>>>>> Steve Read
>>>>> steveread at free.fr
>>>>> 2008-10-30
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> permaculture mailing list
>>>>> permaculture at lists.ibiblio.org
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _____________________________
>>>> Christopher Nesbitt
>>>>
>>>> Maya Mountain Research Farm
>>>> San Pedro Columbia, Toledo
>>>> PO 153 Punta Gorda Town, Toledo
>>>> BELIZE,
>>>> Central America
>>>>
>>>> www.mmrfbz.org
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> permaculture mailing list
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
>>>
>>>
>>> Best regards.
>>> Steve Read
>>> steveread at free.fr
>>> 2008-10-30
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _____________________________
>> Christopher Nesbitt
>>
>> Maya Mountain Research Farm
>> San Pedro Columbia, Toledo
>> PO 153 Punta Gorda Town, Toledo
>> BELIZE,
>> Central America
>>
>> www.mmrfbz.org
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> permaculture mailing list
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>>
>>
>
> = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
>
>
> Best regards.
> Steve Read
> steveread at free.fr
> 2008-11-08
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> permaculture mailing list
> permaculture at lists.ibiblio.org
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>
_____________________________
Christopher Nesbitt
Maya Mountain Research Farm
San Pedro Columbia, Toledo
PO 153 Punta Gorda Town, Toledo
BELIZE,
Central America
www.mmrfbz.org
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