What is a Land Trust?

This past week, I had a lovely experience caring for a friend's pup at a land trust property. Before staying there I had no knowledge of what a land trust is. I was thrilled to discover that a land trust is precisely the scenario that fulfils what my vision of appropriate landlord roles, duties, and activities are! The particular land trust I was fortunate enough to experience was the Lake Claire Community Land Trust in Atlanta Georgia. I have come to learn that a land trust serves as an ideal model of maximizing the use of land in an ecologically supportive and holistically conscious fashion. 

 

 

The landlord of a land trust does not just sit around collecting rent, giving unwise, impulsive, and unexamined orders to maintenance men and gardeners. He actually addresses the land directly, applying horticultural intelligence to take loving care of the land. He tills the earth, manages the compost operations, plants fresh produce and local flora, and has assistants who work side-by-side with him to carry out duties of care. Is this not the way things should be? For far too long those who labour to care for the land have been looked down upon as a "peasant", a "commoner", or "lowly". After all, they are the ones getting their hands dirty, sweating away in the sun to grow the food we eat. Ironically, the diet of a peasant is primarily vegetarian, as opposed to the ancient sedentary royals' meat-rich diets which lead to their unglamorous convalescence into death via obesity, cancers, gout, and diabetes.

No so-called landlord should be pretending s/he is above others while having no knowledge of how to care for the earth.

No so-called landlord should be getting paid to order someone to play a role of a "serf' of sorts, forcing them to labour to take care of the land while these more knowledgeable hard workers are being paid less than the landlord as well as being ordered to do things that will result in land erosion, such as the removal of trees that were holding the top soil in place on hilly terrain. This is especially true in cases when the gardeners often know more about what should be done for a landscape (rather than to it) so that is thrives. Today in urban settings, a common land lord often only deals with properties that are all or mostly paved over, or they manage multiple properties at once, making attaining ecological consciousness regarding each swathe of land nearly impossible. A tenant can grow no food on most of such properties, as the land lord is commonly only concerned with cosmetic changes to the land that have nothing to do with preventing erosion or sustaining the eco system.

Often poison is ordered to be sprayed throughout the property, nullifying the potential of individual tenants taking the gardening into their own hands, and instead the landlord takes on the role of a jail warden of sorts, being sure that the tenants do not violate noise ordinances by attempting to throw social events at late hours, disturbing other tenants, preventing them from flying into a rage that they paid to live and sleep peacefully at night. The landlord concerns themselves with being sure that guests are not over staying the statute of limitations, and that repairs are being done---that is, if the tenants are lucky enough to have a considerate and thoughtful enough landlord in these respects. The same goes often for an independent house holder, as many are too interested in the instant gratification of grocery shopping and eating their groceries, to take the time to do their own gardening, so they also pay a gardener to come in and do the cosmetic work on their property, which often includes spraying poison.