Chapter Ten
Other Ways to the Future
I thought that it would be useful to gather together in this Chapter a number of different ways that individuals and governments have set up alternate ways of living. Some are compulsory, like national service, and some voluntary but all aim to improve society and/or individu- als in a positive way. Some of these might indeed be called social inventions. We begin with land trusts that aim to make land more available directly to citizens that live on or directly use the land.
Land Trusts
The purpose of a land trust is to put the ownership of a piece of property in the name of one party for the benefit of a second party. There are different uses of the land trust principle such as to hide the name of the real owner of property in the case of a real estate development, to transfer property on death to avoid probate, for a community to own property to avoid real estate develop- ment or for conservation purposes. What we are con- cerned with is the latter use.
The Land Trust Alliance founded in 1981 was set up to provide technical support to a growing network of land trusts in the United States. They reported that in 2003 conservation land trusts have protected almost 9.4 million acres of land in the U.S. Conservation land trusts are in nearly all of the U.S. states. So it would appear that conservation land trusts is a large activity.
The E.F.Schumacher Society of Great Barrington, Mass. has been active in setting up land trusts in many areas.1) The Society website reports that Robert Swann and Slater King set up the first community land trust in 1967 in Albany, Georgia. Robert Swann and others of the Society wrote a pioneering book on the subject: The Community Land Trust - a Guide to the New Model for Land Tenure in America. A website now tells of the activities of the National CLT Network. The Schumacher Society has also published The Community Land Trust Online Handbook to help others start land trust organizations.
The E. F. Schumacher Society has provided technical assistance to the Community Land Trust in the southern Berkshires which owns tracts of land including Forest Row, a residential locale of permanently affordable housing; and a community supported farm, a model for farm- land preservation and conservation.
Susan Witt of the Society visited the settlements on the west side of Lake Baikal in Russia to work with USAID projects to establish land trusts where applicable in that area. They set up plans for a land trust to include the village of Tolovkah and adjoining farm land. This would give the local people ownership and control of their own land in the area.
I found it interesting that the personnel from the Schumacher Society were reaching out to contribute internationally to the development of the concept of land trusts. A model for others to emulate.
National Youth Agencies
From time to time governments feel the need to set up agencies to engage the youth of the country into meaningful and challenging opportunities and prepare them better for the full citizenship role. Organizations such as the Peace Corps in the U.S. and Outward Bound come to mind. Some countries have compulsory military service for a year or two. In Canada there were two organizations set up to engage youth - the Company of Young Canadians and Katimavik.
A search on Google reveals more national youth agencies than I had expected to find. However, let us deal with the Canadian situation first.2)
Company of Young Canadians.
The Company of Young Canadians (CYC) was set up in 1966 by the government to provide an opportunity for young people to