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