Land Is Sacred

I often think about who has access to the land and who has rights to the land.  Throughout my life, I have had the privilege of a yard, a small piece of land to converse with, to modify and observe. I do not say property because that term to me signifies a non-living commodity whereas land is alive. I was also lucky enough to have parents who were largely hands off when it came to most things related to soil. Like most of the homes in Detroit, the front yard was dominated by lawn, but their neglect of the backyard meant that the beds mostly grew under their own agency. This meant, as a kid, a somewhat natural landscape was pretty normal for me, as I was surrounded by Elm, Ash and a ton of ferns. A simple rectangular cut-out into the grass became the vegetable garden that was soon over-run by brambles which were planted because a neighbor gave them away for free. It is in many cases that a person’s first introduction to working the land is through vegetable gardening, and it is only later that I came to understand that plants feed much more than humanity, that people part of a larger group so named fauna.  This simple access to a piece of land, with which my folks rarely engaged, became my direct connection to the natural world, however bastardized, a connection non-the-less. In defense of my parents, the demands of this society do not give us grace, nor do they encourage a life that places importance on nature. There was also a decent period of time from college to early adulthood that I did not have direct access to land, and my connection to nature required trips to parks and gardens. For a while, I became just a visitor without the agency to do much else. Eventually, I was lucky enough to become a homeowner and have access again to my own plot of land, healthy land. I had the added bonus of not having an HOA and living in a municipality that was pretty lenient with the city code. Having graduated with a degree in political science and history, I was more than prepared to tackle the landscape…not. I learned a lot through research, classes and making a ton of mistakes. The one thing that remained constant, in addition to the mistakes, was my access to the land. Absent that, I am not sure if I would have ended up practicing what I am now doing.  I tend not to speak in religious terms, but I do make this one exception in that the earth itself is a sacred place, the land upon which our feet rest is holy.  It is hard to imagine how you internalize the inherent value of land if you have grown up in some way, shape or form divorced from it.

Our industrialized world has pushed so many of us away from the land, and, ironically, the same is happening in rural societies dominated and decimated by industrial agriculture, extractive industries, land consolidation and habitat destruction. Our agricultural systems are great at producing vast quantities of cash crops and animal products, but the environmental damage is extensive. We all suffer the results of climate change and ecological destruction regardless of land ownership status. Land has long become a commodity controlled, bought and sold by the few. This is only accelerating as fewer and fewer folks have land or the agency to heal it. In the United States, private ownership of land is culturally paramount and is one of the few situations in which an individual has the ability to make positive impacts on the land. It is wonderful seeing folks manage the land in ways that benefit humanity, the flora and the fauna. Unfortunately, this allows the opposite as well. Private ownership gives one the ability to lord over the land; you can do anything you want as long as you are in compliance with the rules and regulations. In turn, these laws ultimately treat land as property so rarely do they reflect what is best ecologically and ethically. Modification of natural areas in order to protect property is always prioritized even when contrary to ecological principles and good sense- even when your property rights and ensuing actions negatively impact the majority of those around you.

In urban and suburban spaces those who own homes are not typically considered landowners, rather they are homeowners with a “yard” thrown in. Not everybody is able to buy a home, so this further restricts and further alienates people from the land. In the US, owner occupied homes are at 66%; to give a comparison, Detroit sits at 54% and Oakland Co. at 72%. This alone leaves a good number of folks on the outside looking in, and, with a lack of affordable housing, this will not improve in any significant way for some time. Building more houses also has its own drawbacks, especially when it results in urban sprawl and the destruction of more habitat; new housing developments are carved out of natural spaces and farms and then landscaped predominately with non-native and, in many cases, invasive species. It is no secret that the land upon which these properties sit is not created equal. When you factor in things such as size, income level, zoning laws, proximity to natural features, adjacency to industrial zones, the vicinity of major highways, soil health or toxicity, one comes to realize that simple homeownership is not going to get us out of this ecological crisis, especially considering everything is governed by market forces and resale value. We are not asking what people need, as we are too busy trying to figure out how much money can be made. Many locations have zoning laws that make multi family housing difficult to build even though such density makes housing more available and less expensive. Unfortunately, such housing rarely includes green space for residents, so land alienation is still an issue even when people have greater access to housing. Even with broad and aspirational legislation such as the Clean Water Act or the Endangered Species Act, doing what is best for the environment is still largely based on one’s own personal convictions being that there are always loopholes, lax enforcement and ways around legislative protections. Why does it seem so easy to cut down a woodland to build homes while empty lots stay vacant?  There are many reasons, but I would argue that too many people place too little value on nature and on land. Once something is commodified it also becomes disposable.

Land speculation is also part of this system of private ownership. This is simply land that is privately held with the hopes of selling it for a profit regardless of the end result. This can be tracts of wilderness, empty urban lots, urban woodlands, vacant shopping centers, and lake front acreage for example. Nothing much happens on these lands other than they sit around. No one has access to these lands except the folks who own them and there is no real incentive on their part to allow much of anything positive, real or substantial to happen. In some cases, such as wilderness, this can give nature a temporary reprieve and maybe a chance of conservation, but this is usually a long shot and contingent on political will. Urban and suburban speculation often results in neglect, degradation and ultimately sprawl- I do not consider a parking lot as an improvement! As folks hold on to land and amass more hoping for that big payday, cities and suburbs expand out further, swallowing up even more nature and creating an even more compromised and fragmented landscape. 80% of the US population lives in urban/suburban settings. Rural areas are still dominated by forest use, pasture, cropland and resource extraction. Farms are by and large privately owned whereas pastureland and forests are owned by federal or state governments and then leased to private operators of various stipes or managed in other ways such as  parks and protected wilderness. Within those areas of use there are certainly players who care deeply about the environment and diligently work to protect the land and mitigate damage resulting from economic activities. Conversely, there are quite a few who simply do not care. Government control of land is obviously different from private ownership, but it is included here because as currently constituted government control is also very limiting and thus contributive of a population detached from and even alienated from the land.

Even in areas where one may be able to afford a home and some land there are various issues that keep folks from moving there. Things that may keep folks from locating to a particular area include pollution, poor school systems, ethnic/racial demographics, access to desired services, restrictive laws, socioeconomic status of the neighborhoods, and the general conditions of the land, homes and infrastructure. These challenges make these areas particularly challenging for current residents and prospective transplants. One can argue that there is not a general housing crisis but more a housing crisis in preferential locations. The resources required to address these issues are immense and as of yet there is not the political will to try to effectively and fairly address them. Even in wealthier areas, addressing environmental problems is very difficult.

We live in a world cut off from land and nature with some magical notion that we can survive on our own, that tech will save us as we continue to ignore all the warning signs. We do not learn about ecology in schools, nor do we learn about growing our own food. I am sure there are some outliers where these things are taught, but they are few. Maybe you learn some basic stuff in HS biology but that is not enough. Even when folks do have access to land, many create no relationship to the land, as it is simply considered background. There are many that want such a relationship yet are not in a situation to allow it to develop. Consider the aforementioned multifamily housing; very rarely is there green space that residents can use to garden. The landscapes afforded these places are non-native and sterile across the board. Within the greater community, the opportunities are not much better. Maybe you are lucky enough to have a community garden or nature park, and maybe you are even luckier that this place is well funded and sufficiently organized to allow community members a meaningful experience. How about time and attention? Work is all-consuming with productivity being the premium, albeit mostly productivity for others.  Nobody really cares how productive you have been in your home garden. In actuality, home gardens are discouraged in favor of lifeless lawns, so we put our energies elsewhere.  Through the process of growing your own food and creating natural habitats, people can begin to have more agency over their lives and realize that they are part of something larger than themselves. Not only does land access need to be addressed, but so does education and community empowerment.

I do not have many answers, and I often feel that the problems we face are too complicated to solve. However, there is another part of me that understands that no problem is ever completely solved, but better outcomes can be achieved. I do know that we can do better, that I can do better. If you have made it here, to the conclusion, I thank you for taking the time to read this. My goal was to express how complicated the issue of land is, and that first and foremost we need to see land not as a commodity. Land is alive, land is beautiful, and, if we treat it well, it will return the favor.