The Land Conference 2015, Totnes

On 21st March 2015 130 people attended  a one-day conference in Totnes to explore ‘How can we grow a proper relationship between people and place?’  Take a look at a seven minute film or the conference report, which provides links to audio recordings of the presentations that were given.

During the conference people met in groups to talk about things they felt particularly passionate about.  They made contact with others who are passionate about the same things, and went away inspired.  A few of the groups, all of which are described in more detail including contacts in the conference report,  include:

  • Land ownership mapping.  The group decided to scope the possibility of creating an online land ownership map of unregistered land, about 30% of the total land area of England.

  • Land-lend.  The Abundance Food Community encourages landowners in South Devon who are not making full use of their land to share it with volunteers who cultivate it and retain the produce.

  • Community Land Trusts. The Land Society supports people in housing need in Devon to self-build their own affordable home.

  • Low-impact permaculture communities.  The Ecological Land Co-op supports rural regeneration by developing affordable sites for farming, forestry and other ecologically beneficial rural enterprises.

  • Location fees (also known as Land Value Taxation or Stewardship Dues).  The Henry George Society of Devon meets regularly and provides speakers to other groups (incluing schools).

The speakers (with links to videos of their talks) were:

Tal Leshem                    Who does the land REALLY belong to: a moral perspective

Jonty Williams               Economics for taking care of the Earth

Julian Pratt                     Stewardship – an alternative to owning the Earth

Simon Fairlie                  Radical approaches to accessing land

Jyoti Fernandez              Access to land –an international perspective

Toni Spencer (Part 1)     Poems for and from the Devon Land Conference

Toni Spencer (Part 2)

Thanks to the Network of Wellbeing (Totnes) for providing a grant from its Wellbeing Fund that enabled us to make and edit the film and to write the conference report.