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  • From: venaurafarm <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Seeking International Land Trust
  • Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2012 21:38:08 -0400

On 10/10/2012 10:19 AM, michael judd wrote:

Folks, We at Project Bona Fide, Nicaragua, are seeking understanding
and contacts to learn more about putting our 22 acre permaculture
farm into a trust or other similar long term security. The land has
been permaculturally designed and planted with wide diversity for 11+
years. The project has grown successfully as a registered 501(c)3 in
the U.S. and is a regional center for education, research and
community outreach. The land originally bought by myself for the
project still remains in my name. We would like to find out how to
put the land and project into perpetuity. Any leads, ideas, direction
would be most welcome and appreciated. En Paz, Michael Judd
www.projectbonafide.com

Michael:

I suggest you contact these people; S.O.L. offers an umbrella land trust
you could become part of. Look into it:

School Of Living
http://www.schoolofliving.org/landtrust.htm
The Community Land Trust
Introduction

The Community Land Trust concept was formed out of the underlying principle, which has been accepted by most people throughout most of history, that: Land and its Resources are Nature given to all of us. Thus, it might be said to be owned by all of us in common. The private ownership concept applied to land, is a very recent historical event. What is important about this concept is not that each person should have an equal amount of equally good land, but rather that each person should be entitled to a fair share of the return on land and its resources. Land and its resources is a major component in the creation of wealth. The major disparity between the rich and the poor has its roots in the private accumulation of land resources, which has given a few the bulk of the economic advantage from its use and impoverished many.

Marx saw the solution as State Ownership. But this has only resulted in the bureaucrats who run the state getting most of the benefit with incentive drained from the rest. A proposal by Henry George, clearly saw that it was not ownership or use rights that created the disparity but rather the maldistribution of income (unearned increment) resulting from ownership and use rights. He saw a mechanism already in place whereby local governments could collect a tax on land and its resources equal to the annual economic value of the resource and that such tax could either be used to support all public functions (no other tax would be necessary) or as some have proposed could be distributed to each member of society. Under such a system, who owned and used the land made little difference, so long as the economic value was justly distributed among all. Such a common heritage fund would produce an income credit of thousands of dollars per person each year.

Since governments have been extremely reluctant to institute a land value tax in proportion to the actual value of the land (except in some isolated and very successful instances) it was the idea of Ralph Borsodi (based on Ghandian Trusterty principles) to accomplish the same goal through private initiative, and the Community Land Trust was born.

Twin Oaks Intentional Community
http://www.twinoaks.org/
Communities Conference
http://www.communitiesconference.org/
Earthaven Ecovillage
http://www.earthaven.org/

Christian Stalberg
a subscriber to this permaculture list

LL




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