Issue 182


Your Community and the Law

Posted on April 30, 2019 by

Earthaven Ecovillage learns the hard way that it’s important for a community to choose its legal entities carefully, and to consult and listen to lawyers. A member shares some lessons from their ordeal.


What Can We Learn from the Amish?

Posted on April 23, 2019 by

Touch the soil, live simply, and be satisfied with “enough”: it’s worked for the Amish for almost 300 years and it can work for us as well.


Community, Land, Self: We’re Part of the Same Elephant

Posted on April 16, 2019 by

Escaping to an ecotopian or intact natural world proves neither possible nor effective as a way to avoid the realities of human and planetary suffering. Instead, a communitarian receives lessons in interconnectedness that he will never forget.


Growing Together through Trauma, with the Land

Posted on April 9, 2019 by

When La’akea Community’s stability is disrupted and its existence threatened by the aftermath of an earthquake, members discover that their land is a much larger source of “glue” to keep them together than they had thought.


How We Came to Inherit a Salmon Stream

Posted on March 30, 2019 by

The residents of Sahale Learning Center and EcoVillage welcome the salmon who swim from the Hood Canal up the Tahuya River each year to spawn.


Cross-Class Cooperation and Land Access

Posted on March 23, 2019 by
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It is important to not only talk about the role class privilege plays in our movement, but also celebrate the ways that cross-class cooperation can be a form of much-needed solidarity.


The Dilemmas of Being a Benefactor: Creating a Community Land Trust

Posted on March 16, 2019 by
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CommonSpace CLT fulfills its founder’s dream of using her inheritance to create an affordable, not-for-profit example of diverse community on protected land in perpetuity.


Land Speaking through the People: The Great Work of Our Times

Posted on March 9, 2019 by

Through Community Land Trusts, we can reimagine and experience anew our relationship with the land as communities of place-based people.


Review: Farming While Black

Posted on February 26, 2019 by

This book is written for young Black, Brown, and Latinx people with dreams of farming, but it is also a gift to all of us who care about farming, equality, and justice.


Black Land Matters: An Interview with Leah Penniman of Soul Fire Farm

Posted on February 24, 2019 by

Headquartered on a community farm, a nonprofit, people-of-color-led organization works to dismantle racism in the food system by increasing farmland stewardship by people of color, promoting equity in food access, and training the next generation of activist farmers.


Connecting Land and Community

Posted on February 21, 2019 by

Through collective, organized efforts, groups that have lost access to land can regain it, while building community as well.


Land in a Sustainable and Just Society

Posted on February 17, 2019 by
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To value equally the needs of all life and all people, we need to shift our land-use approach away from control towards access and stewardship.


Community Land, #182 Contents and Free/By Donation Digital Download

Posted on February 14, 2019 by

Communities issue #182, Spring 2019, Community Land, shares stories about how intentional community projects can gain access to land. It asks provocative questions about land, people, privilege, and the obstacles that prevent communities (particularly disadvantaged communities) from reconnecting to land―and offers inspiring stories of overcoming those barriers to achieve more equity and sustainability. Just as access to land depends on community in some form, community often depends on and derives its vitality from a group’s relationship to land. The issue highlights the interdependence of our selves, our human communities, and the lands which steward (and are stewarded by) our presence.


Seeking Brigadoon: A Community of Dance-Campers Finds a Permanent Homeplace

Posted on February 10, 2019 by

After 40 years of summer camps and other gatherings with shifting locations, Dance New England finally lands on its own 417 acres.