ARTICLE: #2

You were raised in the country, perhaps on a family farm. Perhaps, too, it has been in your
family for generations.
Or, you grew up in, or made the choice of moving to, the country. Your life is surrounded by the
natural world of forest and streams and fresh eggs each morning.
                                                                             (all photos by R.J.Ratner)
You live in or grew up on or have chosen to be where the serenity and industry and solace of a
rural lifestyle, a countrified way of life has meant and still means more to you than the dollar
value of your timber or your acreage.

And suddenly, you realize that when you have grown older or are no longer able to maintain your
dream homestead apart from a harsher world beyond, questions arise.
You see the developments down the road inching closer, but still far enough away thanks to your
own buffer of forest..or field between your peace of mind and it.
Perhaps you have realized there is no one else in your family interested in a lifestyle as you
have so long lived and enjoyed. And it troubles you to think that when you are gone, greedy
relatives or uncaring relatives, or worse, strangers, will bisect, trisect, partition and devour the
piece of eden you always knew and loved as home.
 

Are there alternatives to letting your property go the way of monied interests?
Are there choices you can now make to preserve for posterity that which you so appreciate and
respect?
Are there others, like you, who care? Who could possibly feel as you do about the spot where
morning sunlight strikes that blooming laurel bush in the middle of the hardwood grove?

Could someone possibly allow those intricately beautiful spider webs to remain intact between
the clothes line pole and the sassafrass sapling if you weren't here to admire and allow it?
Are there still people around nowadays who would even think of mounting the old ford 8-n tractor
that has long served well, and turn the dark earth where next season's beans and tomatoes and
zucchini and all will grow?
 

In a few more years, the apple orchard will need pruning and the barn roof new paint. Who could
possibly care about this stuff other than you, yourself?
And if they do exist, if there are people somewhere who could share your sensibilities about this
life and lifestyle and they are not to be found within your own family, where does one begin to
look?
And where does one begin to preserve  this quality of life that it seems none have time to
appreciate anymore?
 

Preservation and continuation of our farming and agricultural heritage and traditions are
essential to our human community as well as to the  earth's environment. Fewer and fewer farm
bred children  are staying on to follow in their family's footsteps. The encroachment of suburbia
and developments, raise ever higher the start up costs of anyone wishing to begin the trades of
the rural life, virtually putting the possibility of starting a working farm out of their reach.

At the same time, the hopes of many people whose hearts and hands are already enmeshed in
the cultivation of the land are at a stand-still when it comes to passing on their legacy.
Most people in this situation see the fruition of all their hard work going the way of the auctioneer
or realtor.
Are there any options or alternatives to this situation available?
 And, at the same time, what steps may be taken to better use our shrinking arable and forested
lands?

Providing insight and access and guidance to some of these options and alternatives is the
purpose of an organization now based in Floyd , called Green Dancing, Inc.

Most of the options provided by organizations such as Green Dancing, Inc. ask something in
return; to view land ownership and land-use in an ecologically sound and conscientious manner.
 According to Dawn Shiner , "we can take into consideration both protecting agriculturally based
lifestyles and environmental qualities and provide a highly beneficial merger of the two."
    Shiner's non profit organization, Dancing Green,Inc.,headquartered here in Floyd, promotes
social empowerment and bioregional sustainability, or "permaculture".
 

She explains,  "the belief is that we can value people as much as we value the earth and have a
win - win - situation. All systems in nature are cyclical, all output in nature nourishes something
that needs input,and these are natural cycles. And by emulating them we can integrate human
systems with natural systems," for a more beneficial and highly productive, lifestyle.
(Dawn Shiner discusses aspects of conscientious community living with guest lecturer, Mel Leasure -photos by R.J. Ratner)

In terms of
human and land use interaction "it would provide non, or atleast, less destructive input to replace
what we have taken out of our environment. Nothing in and of itself is permanent, but
sustainability allows for systems to be permanent.  And these systems are what is termed
"permaculture".
 

The concept of "permanent" is, of course, relative. But in terms of the processes discussed here
we are speaking of continuity and perpetuation of not only beneficial processes that enhance
multiple aspects of life, but in terms of an individual having a major say in the direction and
applications of use of their own property.

And in a time when  it appears that most of our agricultural land is being bulldozed into housing
tracts, and fertile farmland is ripped and torn into concreted fragments for financial gain only,
there are other reasons for this transformation of soil into cement that is of great concern locally.
There are people not only in more rapidly overdeveloping areas of the country, but, here in rural
Floyd, as well, who share a concern for the current or eventual loss of farms. Some of these
loses can be attributed to aging farming families  who have no children or relatives interested  in
continuing an agriculturally based lifestyle or because they cannot afford hired help.
 
 

Basically, a community land trust replaces traditional ownership of land with " agreements in
trust." These are cooperative arrangements that promote "people-friendly" communities that
safeguard resources.
 

Ms. Shiner is among those who firmly believe it is possible to value community over
economics, yet still achieve reward and security. It is possible for rural, agrarian cottage
industries to do better than just survive....that people working together will achieve more than a
person working alone.
 

To provide a better understanding of that interaction and application, Dancing Green, Inc. has
sponsored forums and lectures to discuss and educate on alternate approaches to living on and
working the land we live on. Her group also acts as a referral service to direct inquiries to a
proper resource, such as The School Of Living, The E.F. Schumacher Society and Common
Ground.
(Guest lecturer Mel Leasure is a life-long participant and advocate of intentional community and currently a member of Common Ground Community outside of Lexington, Va.)
 

These alternate approaches are ones  that do not contribute to the corruption of the environment
nor to the destruction of the individual or family whose life is tied directly into that land. The
concept of the "land trust" is one that provides an individual landowner the choice of continuity to
the use of their property even after their own death.

Even though there are many options available  when considering community or private land
trusts as an alternative to individually owned and worked rural property, this is not  going to be
for everyone. But, it does offer choices that  could allow for any number of viable opportunities
that concur with the current landowner's needs. It should be noted that a conservation easement
is another option.

A conservation easement, unlike a community or private land trust, is a
voluntary legal agreement between a landowner and public body, such as a preservation or
conservation group that is established as a permanent overseer and protector of natural
resources and open spaces.
 

(Some of the participants at a forum on intentional communities and land trusts held in Floyd; Mel Leasure holds the stage)
Conservation easement agreements limit divisions of land, excluding intensive residential or
commercial development and prohibiting industrial and mining applications.
 Unlike conservation easements or the controversial process of eminent domain that our
goverment can exercise upon our property now, without landowners having much choice in the
matter, community land trusts can enable landowners the planning and direction of their property
in a manner that benefits themselves personally, philosophically, and practically.

It can avail the
natural states of the terrain to a predetermined amount of other people and encourage and
protect more fully  the ecosystems that sustain all of us.
 
 

Here are a few examples of the community/private land trust possibilities: A landowner could
choose to set aside an acre or a few acres including his home and buildings and put the rest of
the property into a trust, assuring that it would not be sold off to development.Or they may
include the land where the house and buildings are..since a land trust only actually involves real
estate and not personal property.
 

The entrusted land then could become a community where
others of like minds would reside on small homestead sites, working the common property
together. Or it could be set up where only one family would move into the home of the deceased
original landowner, and maintain the integrity of the land-use agreement. Those people who
would come to live on the land would not become the landowners, since it would be held in a
"trust", hopefully, in perpetuity.

This provides a continuation of families to continue farming,
woodland management, grazing-husbandry or for whatever purpose the land-use had been
established.
 

Yet another option provides for another family or families to move onto the land while the
original owners are still alive and living there, developing a community based environment.
These other people then would share in and assist the original residents with  the daily routines
of their agriculturally based livlihood or property usage. They then would be in place to continue
after the original owners depart.
 

This system provides particularly for older people with farms or orchards or woodlands that don't
have family either interested in carrying on their traditions or don't have children or heirs to leave
their property to.
 

Some of these options are especially viable for they who are concerned about
their land-use being continued with the care and in the direction that they themselves have
shown it over their lifetime and feel strongly about wanting it to continue along that same path.
For more information about community land trusts, future forums, or any of the topics discussed
in this article, please contact Dancing Green's executive director, Dawn Shiner, at 540-745-5994
or
   mailto:shihly@swva.net

Other useful and pertinent links:
 the School of Living(land trust management information):
 School of Living
 the E.F. Schumacher Society
Schumacher Society
Common Ground Community:

all photos & article Copyright © 2000-2001 R.J.Ratner - All Rights Reserved.
 

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