 LAND OWNERSHIP and WAR From the start of human life on earth mankind has been acquisitive of land and contentious about its use. The surface of the earth has been divided into millions of separate pieces of land, which have then been grouped and regrouped to form villages, states and nations. Inevitably disagreements arose when people tried to inhabit the same space. Unfortunately, too many of those disagreements have grown into extended territorial conflict, with uncontrolled violence and war. In the long chain of history millions of people have died trying to preserve land which they assumed was theirs. Land ownership is complicated when different people in different cultures have different concepts about how land is owned. Bound up in our new-world global economy are old-world concepts of land ownership. We tend to think that all people have rights to the air they breathe and some minimally appropriate amount of land area space needed to make their homes and pursue their livelihoods - that land ownership is an inalienable human right. The land area needed by one human family is most often defined as that part of the earth’s surface which their psychological well-being and comfort requires. Land area requirements change and are modified to meet the needs.of those who use it. Some people group themselves for social reasons, and cooperatively share the land they occupy. Agricultural people need more land to raise their crops. The land area needed by nomadic people is loosely defined, and changes as they move about. As populations increase it becomes harder and harder for people to move about without trespassing on other people’s land. Land ownership has become an aggravating factor in the lives of many people and eventually the cause of war. The use of land is regulated by law. Different states have different laws. People may not use land except that they do so in ways approved by the State. The water that flows in the stream through my yard is legally mine to use (with regulatory care) until it reaches my neighbor’s yard. Our responsibility to the land is that we be good custodians (stewards) in ways that conform with law; but that the law must be reconfigured to encourage such stewardship. Land ownership must be redefined as the right to care for the land and share the product of our care. Lawyers and politicians keep busy churning the laws of ownership and restating the rules to suit the needs of their constituents. We're plagued by politicians that cloak their private ambitions in the American Flag, and force feed their constituents with pap patriotism that always ends with “God Bless America”. Usually their purpose is to rationalize some kind of American aggression in another country. We need fresh legal opinions - uncompromised by political ambition - a new legitimacy of land ownership that is morally and socially tenable in all parts of the world We need to reevaluate the nature of land and its ownership. Consider those land owners who live in barrios squalor on top of each other. Consider those owners who own more land than they can care for, and sometimes think the land owns them. Consider the arrogant landowner who waves his arm at the horizon and says: “Its all mine". Consider the parasitic landowner who enriches himself by sucking the natural resources out of other people's land. Consider also that the continental land areas are finite in size, that the right to own land is a human presumption that can be abused, and that in all probaility the land will outlast us - surviving for better or worse whatever we do to it. The Native American Indians had a different approach. They believed that North America was home of the Great Spirit, land of the Great Lakes and Rivers, to be shared with other tribes in common ownership with other creatures great and small - with common hunting grounds, streams to fish and wide open spaces in which to pitch their tents, and stay in peace for a limited period of time. The Great Spirit gave to the Indians herds of Buffalo to hunt - but first they had to apologize to the hunted animals, and thank the Great Spirit when the hunt was successful. The Native American’s relation to the earth was relatively uncomplicated..They didn’t own it. The Great Plains were to be shared with other Indian Nations. It was where they lived in harmony with the Great Spirit. That we share the air we breathe and tread lightly on the earth is our legacy from Indian days. A REVOLUTIONARY LAND OWNERSHIP PARADIGM Land ownership has moral and social relevance - basic to living on earth. This paradigm is based on the premise that land ownership is both a gift and a responsibility - a “gift" of creation to be shared in the spirit of "the giving" - and a “responsibility” of owners to be custodial preservationists, and leave the land in better condition than they find it. Land issue wars need never be if land owners are obliged to share it with all those who (regardless of race, creed, ethnicity, and nationality) have reasoned claim to it. The validity of such claims is determined (not by the national identity, cultural and social connections, or the wealth of claimants), but by their commitment and ability to be responsible stewards of the land they occupy. Land ownership law needs to be revised in terms that are globally viable. GUIDELINE PRINCIPLES
Land ownership is temporal and impermanent. Though two parties can not physically occupy the exact same place simultaneously, they may own the same place simultaneously, and occupy the land sequentially. They may own and occupy adjacent space sequentially. Additionally they shall anticipate that others will own the same place sequentially and by means of universal principles of custodial responsibility, prepare their space for sequential ownership and peace. Friendly people shall share their space, and access ways shall be preserved for others to pass in peace.
John Black Lee
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