Wealth inequality has reached truly epic proportions — with 62 individuals amassing the same aggregate wealth as 3.7 billion. Most of us intuitively sense that this outcome was rigged by design by a global elite.

https://medium.com/@joe_brewer/the-global-architecture-of-wealth-extraction-4c0a6b954a14

Here in the United States we know about things like Citizens United (those with money can influence elections) and the Koch Brothers (part of the cabal that purchased this little piece of legislation). We get that the bankers who collapsed the financial system made out like bandits, quite literally. Those unlucky enough to be born anyplace where the tornado of colonialism touched down have been taught that “our people” should blame themselves for the personal character flaw of being on the receiving end of conquest and pillage.

What we’ve been lacking is a name for this integrated system of tax havens, corporate handouts, gutted governments, privatized lands held in common, and so forth. I use the phrase global architecture of wealth extraction and want to describe here how it makes up the core of political systems around the world.

Last year, I worked with a talented graphic designer by the name of Zoe Lowney to help tell this story as a timeline for modern history. This is what she came up with:

We intuitively get that the game has been rigged for some time. But most of us don’t know the details of how things came to be this way. As this graphic demonstrates, the architecture of wealth extraction had to be carefully built up in waves of creative destruction over the span of several hundred years.

In the earliest days, a suite of business innovations (double-entry accounting, the joint-stock company, etc.) were combined with a systematic policy of kicking people off commonly managed lands so that a system of “rent seeking” could be built up for wealthy people to extract money from the working poor. This was done in 16th and 17th Century Britain in what is known as the Enclosure Movement. And it laid the groundwork for a massive colonial empire to grow as the British and other imperial powers spread this logic of wealth extraction across the globe.

The first wave of mass poverty in modern times was the British and French peasantry. When these societies overthrew corrupt leaders and established democracies, the elites had to find more subtle ways to keep syphoning off wealth (thus growing social inequality) that didn’t conclude with rolling heads at the guillotine. So they invaded foreign lands and did their rent-seeking there.

This was how the mass poverty of India and many African nations sprang into being. Accompanied by systems of racial inequality and other “social control” mechanisms at home, they pitted the working classes of their own nations against each other as they took their model of wealth hoarding to new levels in “developing markets” like those of the spice trade and later with oil, coal, and other natural resources.

Flash forward to the 20th Century and you see the high art of wealth hoardingin digital accounting systems, structural debt-repayment programs, “free trade” agreements that privatized public lands, the invention of personal lines of credit to keep people enslaved to mortgages and consumer purchases, and later the so-called austerity programs that gut public coffers to feed private financiers after they orchestrated the deregulation and collapse of financial markets.

Said another way, the seeming lack of choice among political parties has less to do with political ideology and much more to do with the economic ideology that forms the core logic of this planetary-scale system. To really get a sense of just how big it is, consider this:

If we were to tax a mere 10% of the money hoarded away in tax havens, we would have at least $2,000,000,000,000 that could be used to fund (1) universal basic income; (2) universal healthcare for more than 7 billion people; (3) free public and university education for everyone on Earth; (4) fund basic scientific research for all major problems humanity must confront; and (5) make the transition to ecologically-based energy systems and urban design that staves off the potential for collapse of our highly unsustainable civilization.

Think about that for a moment. Let it sink in

The architecture of wealth extraction is a cancer on this planet. It continually corrupts our governments, poisons the natural environment, and pits us against each other in a “race to the bottom” that has only one logical outcome — the wholesale destruction of life-giving capacities for the only home planet we’ll ever have.

I have written elsewhere about systemic corruption, the cognitive science ofhow we fail to see it, how wealth is really created, and what we might do with that $2 trillion dollars that constitutes a small part of the money squirreled away by sociopaths and those who idolize them.

It is time to systematically dismantle this wealth hoarding system. Now that we know what it is and how it was built, we can tear it apart piece by piece and replace it with something better.

Now THAT is change I can believe in.

Onward, fellow humans.

EXCLUSIVE: Duke of Buccleuch’s ‘park levy’ may be illegal

http://www.scottishlegal.com/2016/03/16/exclusive-duke-of-buccleuchs-park-levy-may-be-illegal/

Scottish Legal News can reveal that the the Duke of Buccleuch’s proposed annual £10 charge, to be levied on walkers and joggers accessing his Dalkeith Country Park at certain times from March 21, may be illegal.
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Diggers350/conversations/messages/5926
Midlothian Council said the move was believed to be lawful under the Land Reform Act (Scotland) 2003, which provides that a landowner can charge if they did so for 90 days per year before the act came into force.
However, it may be that the estate only has authority to charge for access over the Midlothian section of the estate, where there was a subsisting charge, and not the East Lothian section.
Dr Jill Robbie, lecturer in private law at the University of Glasgow, told Scottish Legal News that if gates at one side of the park had always been open to the public without charge then the subsection would not be satisfied – meaning the estate could not lawfully charge people to enter the park from any entrance.
-Under s.6(1)(f) of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, land excluded from access rights includes land to which members of the public were admitted only on payment for not fewer than 90 days in the year ending on 31st January 2001 and, after that date, to which members of the public were admitted only on payment for not fewer than 90 days in each subsequent year beginning 1st February 2001, she said.
-If, historically, the gates to one side of the Dalkeith Country Park were left open and members of the public were allowed to enter without incurring a charge, this would suggest that the requirements of s.6(1)(f) have not been met.
-In these circumstances, the park would not be land excluded from access rights for the purposes of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 under this particular section.

Adding to the uncertainty of imposing a charge, a source who was present at meetings involving East Lothian Council outdoor access officers and the estate manager told Scottish Legal News that the estate manager admitted a charge in the East Lothian section may not be enforceable and that, if pushed, he would construct a barrier between the East Lothian and Midlothian sections of the estate.
However, a spokesman for Buccleuch set out the reasons for the charge and the justification for levying it by citing exactly the same provision as Dr Robbie.
He said: “There is a long and continuing history of significant vandalism and illegal behaviour within Dalkeith Country Park, and under the terms of the 2003 Land Reform Act the only way we are able to close the gates and ask irresponsible visitors to leave is through continuing to levy a nominal access charge – something the park has done for many years. This will not restrict access to responsible visitors and the charges in place are exactly the same as in previous years.

“Anyone with an annual pass card will continue to be able to enter the park day or night, year round. An annual adult card, for example, costs £10, or less than 3 pence per day. More than 200 cards have been sold already, demonstrating widespread local support.
“It is not the case that the imposition of a charge would be unlawful. The Dalkeith Country Park is a single entity, which lies across Midlothian and East Lothian. It has a number of access points.”
Citing s.6(1)(f) LR(S)A 2003 he added: “The subsection applies to Dalkeith Country Park. Accordingly, it follows that the owners of the land are entitled to impose a charge for access.”

Revealed: The Duke of Buccleuch and the offshore haven

http://www.thenational.scot/news/revealed-the-duke-of-buccleuch-and-the-offshore-haven.15073
MARCH 15TH, 2016 – 12:37 AM  MICHAEL GRAY
THE Buccleuch family, owners of more than 240,000 acres of private land, use a shadowy Cayman Islands firm to control and sell land, it has emerged.
The aristocratic estate run by Richard Scott, the 10th Duke of Buccleuch, confirmed that an offshore ownership group, Pentland Limited, acts as an offshore contact to the family’s vast land business empire.
The use of the Cayman Islands tax haven, revealed following research by land reform campaigner Andy Wightman, has reignited calls for greater action on the use of complex legal mechanisms to obscure the ownership of Scotland’s land.
Scott, inheritor of the Buccleuch dynasty of 1663, is a director of Pentland, which has a variety of shared financial transactions with firms within the Buccleuch group, where Scott is also a director.
Buccleuch lawyers Anderson Strathern confirmed to the Registers of Scotland that one such transaction was the ownership then sale of half a stake in Smeaton Farm (part of Dalkeith Country Park) from Pentland to Buccleuch Estate.
Pentland also owns land near Canonbie, in Dumfries and Galloway, and signed loans worth millions of pounds in total to various Buccleuch subsidiary companies.
Wightman, who compiled the research, said: “Transparency is one of the key issues for a world of global capital in which the wealthiest one per cent are not only getting wealthier but are able to conceal their affairs through the use of secrecy jurisdictions.
“Since working on the Sunday Times Rich List 20 years ago and since the advent of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, the UK and Scottish Governments are only now beginning to appreciate the potential scale and impact of secrecy in how land and property is owned.
“What I and others have been campaigning for over the past 20 years is quite simple – full, transparent and accessible information on who really owns Scotland. What we have uncovered today is probably just the tip of the iceberg and it will be a key challenge for the next Scottish Parliament to ensure complete transparency on these matters and ensure that there are no longer any secrets about who owns Scotland.”
A spokesman for the Duke’s estate confirmed Pentland Limited was a Buccleuch venture with interests in Scottish land. “Pentland Limited is a Cayman Islands incorporated vehicle which is wholly owned by The Buccleuch Estates Limited which is UK registered,” he said. “The company has always been wholly owned by Buccleuch and members of the Buccleuch family, all of whom are UK resident taxpayers. All profits arising in Pentland Limited are subject to UK corporation tax.
“Pentland Limited has historically owned land in the UK and currently owns an area of land near Canonbie in Dumfries and Galloway.”
The Duke, whose five estates cover an acreage larger than any other landowner in the UK, has been a consistent opponent of land reform and has been implicated in numerous community disputes in recent years.
Last week the inherited estate announced plans to block access to Dalkeith Country Park at night unless walkers and cyclists paid for access. Buccleuch also faced a community backlash in Canonbie over plans for coal bed methane extraction.
Buccleuch, one of the old aristocratic families that grew to dominate rural Scotland through historic land grabs, said he was ‘deeply dismayed’ that the land reform debate had been ‘re-opened’ in the past few years.
Rob Gibson MSP, convener of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment (RACCE) committee that led scrutiny of the Land Reform Bill, said the new evidence demonstrated the need to use the Land Reform Bill to ensure future ownership transparency.
“This adds to the fact that what the government is proposing is going to expose this kind of thing,” he said. “What for? You need to know who owns land to hold them to account and to tax them. That’s why completing the land register is vital.”
Yesterday the RACCE committee published its legacy report for 2011-16, which signalled land reform efforts would continue through establishing a Land Commission.
Gibson added that “the next committee will have a big job to do” to ensure that land ownership is transparent and any ongoing tax avoidance is identified.
The scale of offshore ownership of land is estimated to equal 750,000 acres. As the national land register is incomplete, Scottish Government officials have been unable to confirm the scale of the tax haven problem.
In January chief police investigators warned complex offshore ownership structures also created a bureaucratic nightmare for enforcing the law, specifically in relation to prosecuting the wildlife crime that took place on the Kildrummy estate. The police found it impossible to identify a legal owner of the land – held offshore in Jersey – despite three years of effort and ‘significant international investigations’.
Nine months of negotiation between MSPs, campaigners and the government aimed to strengthen the Bill to ensure the greatest transparency for Scottish land registered in places like Cayman, the British Virgin Isles and Jersey. On Wednesday the Scottish Parliament will hear amendments to the bill from Patrick Harvie MSP, including proposals to tighten regulation on land owned in British overseas territories.
Nicky MacCrimmon, who led land reform campaigners to victory at the 2015 SNP conference, called for the government to end tax haven ownership by rich landowners. He said: “It is not just a question of tax revenue or potential money laundering. It goes to the heart of democracy by saying we demand transparency and accountability from the people who own and exploit our natural resources.
“The [land reform] movement seems to be getting stronger all the time both within political parties and outwith them. It is becoming mainstream to believe in land reform; ordinary people are having conversations in pubs and online forums about land value tax. The next big leap for me to take the debate forward will be to really begin to highlight the problems caused by our land use and ownership in urban settings.”
The greatest opposition to land reform has come from the lobbyists for big landowners and their legal representatives. Legal firm Brodies warned the Scottish Government that land reform action could lead to a court challenge and high compensation claims from landowners.
Socialist coalition Rise has called for Scotland’s aristocracy to be confronted through ‘a campaign of protest’.
The ownership of land in Scotland has also caught the attention of tax justice campaigners, who oppose the web of ‘secrecy jurisdictions’ where an estimated $7.6 billion of global wealth is stored offshore.
Alex Cobham, director of research with the Tax Justice Network, said: “There’s no good reason not to know who you’re doing business with, so any time you come across such complex and opaque ownership arrangements, you have to ask what the reason is. The irony here is that it relates to the ownership of the most tangible assets imaginable: the land itself of this country.
“The UK Government has played an important role in the fight against anonymous company ownership, but there’s a very long way to go – and it starts with addressing the biggest global financial secrecy network, which is of course made up of the UK’s own Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. When David Cameron hosts his international anti-corruption summit in May, the item at the top of the agenda must be to require every one of these jurisdictions to commit to public registries of the beneficial ownership of companies, trusts and foundations.
“The Scottish Government, meanwhile, can take its own steps to ensure that no land is owned without public record of the ultimate beneficial ownership – regardless of which jurisdiction or structure is used.”
The Cayman Islands, where Buccleuch’s Pentland Limited firm is based, were condemned by President Barack Obama for undermining global tax rules.
Cayman, a British Overseas Territory, has no direct taxation and is used by many of the world’s largest corporations to avoid tax. One Cayman building, Ugland house, is the registered address of nearly 20,000 global firms.
When asked who could shut down the tax avoidance industry on the island, Cayman premier Alden McLaughlin said: “Ultimately the UK can, because they have the overriding responsibility.”
Further controversy over business activity in tax havens coincides with the release of a new report from charity Oxfam titled Ending the Era of Tax Havens.
Mark Goldring, Oxfam chief executive, said: “It’s time the government ended the secrecy that allows tax dodgers to get away without paying their fair share, robbing the UK – and poor countries – of vital revenue that could help fund public services and provide a strong safety net for the most vulnerable.”

This report is in collaboration with Common Space: visit CommonSpace.scot
Andy Wightman: On the trail of Pentland Ltd
The National View: Transparency about ownership is vital to our land reform

Hitler’s aristocratic admirers

LORD DARLINGTON was adamant. The two young German maids would have to go. Miss Kenton, the housekeeper, was close to tears as she explained that they would have to return to Germany, a terrible risk considering both were Jewish.

http://www.express.co.uk/expressyourself/126784/Hitler-s-aristocratic-admirers
By PAUL CALLAN PUBLISHED: 00:00, Sat, Sep 12, 2009

FAWNING: The Duke and Duchess of Windsor meet Hitler

But his lordship remained unmoved. He believed in appeasement towards Nazi Germany and the employment of Jewish people was ‘inappropriate’.
Although fictional, there is a bitter ring of truth about this scene – featuring James Fox and Emma Thompson – from the 1993 film The Remains Of The Day, based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel.
The Lord Darlington figure was typical of a formidable group of British peers who were attracted by Hitler and supported efforts to keep the dictator placated. A new book, Aristocrats by Lawrence James, includes material on such ardently Right-wing and anti-Semitic aristocrats and how their vile attitudes brought considerable satisfaction to Hitler.
What lay behind their support of appeasement was a fear of Communism . ‘What emerges,’ writes James, ‘is a picture of a knot of peers adrift in an uncongenial world, united by paranoia, pessimism and panic.’

‘A knot of peers were united by utter paranoia. One duke went to the Fuhrer’s birthday party. Lord Brocket fawned over visiting Nazis.’

They all saw an immensely powerful union between Communism and the Jewish people as a world conspiracy that could be thwarted only by Fascism.
Both Hitler and his strutting Italian cohort Mussolini offered these bewildered aristocrats a safe world that would be secure from any Communist takeover. It also confirmed their long-held private prejudice.
Explains James: ‘[Visceral] anti-Semitism permeated the upper classes between the wars. Jews were vilified as flashy and pushy arrivistes with a knack of enriching themselves when the aristocracy was grumbling about an often exaggerated downturn in their fortunes.’
What made such hatred additionally odious was the fact these peers continued to air their views long after Hitler’s persecution of Germany’s Jewish population had become widely known.
Prominent among such peers was Lord Brocket who joined various anti-Semitic organisations. He fawned over visiting Nazi officials whom he invited to his home and even attended the celebrations for Hitler’s 50th birthday.
Brocket, said to be ‘a fundamentally nice but stupid man’ even deluded himself that he was a valuable link between Hitler and Britain’s leaders. It was suggested that he lit fires on his Hertfordshire estates to guide German bombers on their way to London.
Another pro-Nazi peer was Lord Redesdale . His daughters, who became famous as the literary Mitford sisters, included Unity who went to Germany and stalked Hitler, having fallen in love with him. Although she did become close to Hitler – he considered her to be a ‘perfect example of Aryan womanhood’. He told her to return to England as war approached. She shot herself in the head in Munich’s English Garden but survived and was dispatched home.
Another admirer of Hitler was the Duke of Westminster, a man who believed countless conspiracies among British Jews to subvert the country. He even spent the first year of the war demanding, to whoever would listen, that peace be made with Germany.
One of the most colourful ermine-clad extremists was the 22nd Earl of Erroll, the Casanova of Kenya’s debauched Happy Valley set. After being mesmerised by Hitler, this devastatingly handsome man promised to introduce Fascism to East Africa. This included a self-supporting empire that would not ‘trade with the dirty foreigner’.
But his plans were short-lived. The Earl was found murdered in his car on January 24, 1941, on a country road outside Nairobi. It has been suggested that his death was carried out by the British secret services when his political activities became dangerous.
Among the most famous names associated with anti-Semitism was the fifth Duke of Wellington . He became a member of the secret Right Club, which attempted to unify all pre-war Right-wing groups in Britain.
The founder, Archibald Ramsay, said of the organisation: ‘The main objective was to oppose and expose the activities of organised Jewry. Our first objective was to clear the Conservative Party of Jewish influence, and the character of our membership and meetings were strictly in keeping with this objective.’
Yet another extremist was the Marquess of Graham . He succeeded to the title of Duke of Montrose and went to live in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) where he became a staunch white supremacist. He served in Ian Smith’s breakaway Rhodesia Front government and in one speech said: ‘The Beatles, international finance groups, colonial freedom movements and students agitators were all agents of a communist plot to achieve world domination.’
One Hitler-admiring peer, the Duke of Buccleuch, was even close to King George VI as the Lord Steward of the Royal Household. He also accompanied Lord Brocket to celebrate the Fuhrer;s 50th birthday. It was a matter of personal delight to Hitler that the duke, a man who served in the very court of Britain;s Royal Family, was there .
Buccleuch was opposed to any war with the Nazis and when it did break out in 1939, he joined the Peace Aims Group and urged a truce based on Germany keeping all the lands Hitler had stolen in Europe. Even after the bombing started, he continued to defend Hitler. A continuing embarrassment to the King, he was sacked in 1940.
One of the most alarming figures among this cabal was Lord Londonderry – Winston Churchill’s cousin and a member of one of the country’s wealthiest aristocratic families. The king called him ‘Charlie’ and other members of the Royal Family were frequent guests at his London home, as were major political figures.
He regularly visited Germany, met Hitler several times and even stayed with Goering at his hunting lodge. But he was not taken seriously and Churchill referred to him as a ‘half-wit’. He was known in the press as ‘the Londonderry Herr’ for his pro-German leanings.
One of the best-known figures was Sir Oswald Mosley, founder of the Blackshirts and a man who yearned to be Britain’s own ‘Fuhrer’. A highly charismatic man , he was deeply impressed by Mussolini and founded the British Union of Fascists.
I once interviewed him at his ‘Versailles home and over lunch, at which Lady Mosley (one of the Mitford sisters) was present, we discussed the Holocaust.
I mentioned, just in the course of conversation, that I was Jewish – at which Lady Mosley went ashen, snapped a crimson nail and left the room. No explanation was given but she would later write to a friend:
‘A nice, polite reporter came to interview Tom [as Mosley was known] but he turned out to be Jewish and was sitting there at our table. They are a very clever race and come in all shapes and sizes.’
But towering over all these figures were the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. He had abdicated as King Edward VIII in 1936 in order to marry American divorcee, Wallis Simpson. They were later given the ducal titles .
Their admiration for Hitler concerned the government, particularly after they were entertained by him on a visit in 1937. Even the Americans were alarmed – the FBI sent a memo to President Roosevelt stating that the duchess was ‘exceedingly pro-German in her sympathies and connections’. The Duke was given the wartime job of governor of the Bahamas and ‘Roosevelt ordered the FBI to follow them when they visited the US.
It was believed that Goering had concluded a deal with the Duke to install him on the throne after Germany had won the war. His court would, no doubt, have comprised many of those pernicious peers who had lauded Hitler so lavishly.

To order Aristocrats: Power, Grace And Decadence by Lawrence James (Little, Brown, £25) with free UK delivery, send a cheque or PO made payable to Express Bookshop to Aristocrats Book Offer, PO Box 200, Falmouth TR11 4WJ or phone 0871 988 8367 (calls (10p/min from UK landlines) or visit www.expressbookshop.com

Seven charged after Yorkley Court Farm group eviction

This Is What It’s Like to Farm Under Police Surveillance

Noon Friday 11 March 2016

Hello all. Update.

Firstly , a big thank you for all the support and solidarity, not just for yesterday but for every action taken by all to keep this land occupied, the community informed and having empathy for this cause.

Yesterday morning around 10am court bailiffs, private security, builders with bulldozers and Brian Bennett arrived on site followed by a police presence and took hold of y.c.c.f, tearing people out of their homes and dragging them out onto the road, there was no time to gather all belonging and most have been destroyed by Bennett’s team.

Bennett’s team smashed van windows, stole money, security dogs attacked and bit, worst of all buildings and homes have been crushed to rubble by diggers, burying piles of homes, the farm now looks like a land fill.
Trees were torn out of the ground to crush the tree houses, its a really sad situation, soul destroying.

Four cats have been lost in the chaos and a chicken. We are trying to get them back, the dogs and rest of chickens and cockerel are safe and sound.

The police have said that a briefing between them and Bennett’s team clarified the way the eviction was to be dealt with, they were not allowed to destroy any buildings with possessions in. However they destroyed every building apart from the main hanger.
The few people who argued their way back in, collected what possessions they could from the rubble.

No documents were showed by any authority at any time and court bailfs signed the possesion over to bennet whilst the land was still in occupation by at least four y.c.c.f occupants.

Over night more have gathered in the hanger and back woodland, please support, come stay even for a night or if you can bring food, tents or blankets/sleeping bags.

This is not over, y.c.c.f are still in occupation of the land. Site number is 07522 025889.

Directions to safe entry woodland camp at rear of site. Look on map and be creative.

Hippie ‘hunter-gatherers’ face eviction from woodland commune where they’ve lived for 16 years because they didn’t get planning permission for the timber structures

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3472981/Hippie-hunter-gatherers-face-eviction-woodland-commune-ve-lived-16-years-didn-t-planning-permission-timber-structures.html

• The Steward Woodland Community was established near Moretonhampstead, Devon, in 2000, by a group of foragers
• The 21 self-sufficient residents – which includes children – use solar-powered electricity and alternative medicines
• Group was given temporary permission for timber homes but Dartmoor National Park refused permanent request 
• Residents are now trying to raise £38,000 to fight the authority’s decision and are ‘focusing on a positive outcome’

By STEPH COCKROFT FOR MAILONLINE   PUBLISHED: 14:06, 2 March 2016 | UPDATED: 16:54, 2 March 2016
A group of hunter-gatherers who have been living in a commune in the woods for 16 years are facing eviction after being refused planning permission for their makeshift homes.
The Steward Woodland Community, which has 21 residents, including nine children, live in homes in rural Dartmoor, Devon, which they built themselves using timber and recycled materials.
Their alternative self-sufficient lifestyle includes foraging for food, using solar powered electricity and alternative medicines.

The Steward Woodland Community, which is made up of 21 people, including nine children and teenagers, live in homes they built themselves in rural Dartmoor, Devon. Resident Mel Davis is pictured with her 13-year-old son Ash
But despite living there since 2000, the Dartmoor National Park Authority has refused permanent planning permission for their homes and ordered them group to leave.
The commune houses are built using recycled materials and timber from the 32-acre former conifer plantation
‘It’s hard for people to understand unless you have lived closely together with community and family like we do.
‘But we are an intrinsic support system – there are loads of little things that we all do that support each other and I just can’t even imagine what it would be be like not to have that.’
She added: ‘I wouldn’t feel alive if I wasn’t living here with these people.’
The community purchased Steward Wood, near Moretonhampstead, Devon, at the turn of the millennium. The Woodlanders try to live sustainable lives by using renewable energy – including solar panels – and growing their own fruit and veg.
Most of the children are also home-educated but are friends with people from the surrounding villages. They use running water.
They have twice secured temporary five-year planning permission. But their request to stay permanently has been rejected.
A crowdfunding campaign has now been launched to raise the £38,000 needed to launch a legal challenge against the planning decision. They have already managed to raise £22,808 and have received 406 letters of support.
Dr Tom Greeves, chairman of the Dartmoor Society, a group that aims to promote the wellbeing of the area, is among those backing their cause.
He said: ‘We admire the tenacity and dedication over 15 years of this small group of men, women and children who have opted for a very different lifestyle to that enjoyed by most of us.
‘Particularly striking is their commitment to genuine sustainability in use of resources whenever possible, and their involvement with the local community.’
But, ahead of the application decision, there were 19 letters of objection sent to the authority, with one of their neighbours, Karen Thwaite, saying their lifestyle is not ‘valuable’.
In a letter, she wrote: ‘In my opinion, they have a simple desire to live in a woodland. This does not benefit the animals that inhabit the woodland, the national park or the cause of sustainable living.’
The community purchased Steward Wood, near Moretonhampstead, Devon, at the turn of the millennium
But, despite the opposition, the group remain hopeful. Melanie Davis, 36, a teaching assistant at the local school who has lived in the community for 10 years added: ‘It’s [leaving the woodland] is not something I have put my energy into thinking about.
‘We are focusing so much on a positive outcome. We are really hopeful.’
The development management committee of the Dartmoor National Park Authority said the application had been refused because of the ‘harmful effect’ that the camp has on the ‘character and appearance of the National Park’.
They added: ‘Another area of concern was the lack of consideration for European Protected Species, three of which are present either on the site or within the area, namely Otters, Hazel Dormice and woodland Bats, particularly the Greater Horseshoe Bat.
‘I can see no real justification for any residential property on site, regardless of whatever form of land management one might favour or woodland enterprise.’
The statement added that the Steward Woodland community was ‘experimental’ and any development in the countryside needs to be essential and ‘sustainable over the longer term’.
A planning inspector is due to hear the case next month.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3472981/Hippie-hunter-gatherers-face-eviction-woodland-commune-ve-lived-16-years-didn-t-planning-permission-timber-structures.html

Tony Gosling – The Land Is Ours/Ecovillage Network UK
10-12 Picton Street. Montpelier, Bristol, BS6 5QA

Object: To begin the process of returning the land in the UK to the people to whom it rightly belongs.
Methodology: Given that land  and its associated rights – is a free gift to mankind as a whole  not to particular individuals, this legislation will begin the process of divesting particular individual and corporate freeholders of title to excessive amounts of that land and distributing it fairly to whoever amongst the poorest in the land wishes to have it

Current situation: With roughly 10% of the population of the UK owning 95% of the land many ordinary people are entirely without security; the strain on current housing stock means prices are spiralling out of all realistic measure of a homes actual worth and the need for more homes is only being restrained by a draconian development control system.

Historical models: There are two historical models which will be referred to throughout this bill, both occurring in and around the 1880s in the British Isles. Firstly the handing over of title to land in Ireland to impoverished tenants through a series of acts of parliament culminating in the Wyndham Acts. Secondly the enshrining in British law the customary practices of the Scottish crofters through the Royal Commission into the grievances of the Crofters and the subsequent Crofting Act.

Powerful landed interests: human beings can be particularly nasty and graspingly territorial when it comes to the idea of controlling or owning land. Dirty tricks and underhand tactics to dilute or stop such a bill progressing through to legal enactment must be expected and allowed for. At all times it must be explained to landowners affected by this and subsequent bills that their land is held from the crown; it is not their own; and that in almost every case has been gained historically in various unethical ways including as a crude reward for bloodshed.

Stages of the bill
The setting up of a land commission of 12 individuals with a proven track record in land rights and a UK government ministry of land with the task of ensuring that all Britains citizens have access to land.
The identification by the commission of Britains top 10 individual and corporate landowners and the opening by the ministry of a list of individuals in various degrees of housing need to take part in the land resettlement programme. These individual will be prioritised by a points system similar to that used on local authority housing lists.
The organising of people in the land resettlement list into clusters of like-minded individuals and the setting up of individual workers co-operatives using the same rules of succession and land management as in the Crofting Acts. Each Ecovillage will contain a proportion of at least 50% of the land as collectively managed but ideally more like 90% collectively managed.
The selection by the commission of 10% of large landowners land for reclaiming by the crown (the current ultimate landowner) into the crown estates.
The appointment by the commission of a further group of 7 experts in Permaculture, Bioregionalism, alternative technology and low-impact land use to divide reclaimed crown land into areas which can readily support between 500 and 1000 people with a density of roughly ¼ acre per individual. This Ecovillage commission will designate particular areas as village centres and arrange for the building of large meeting halls. They will also clear and landscaping rail/roadways to be completed by the villagers themselves.
The transfer of freehold from the crown estates to the new co-operatives and the apportioning of interest free land ministry loans repayable over at least 80 years to build on granted land.

The Land Is Ours – www.tlio.org.uk
Ecovillage Network UK – www.evnuk.org.uk

Take a look either side of this gate. There is no indication from the National Mistrust as to what the ‘innocuous’ brown pillars are for! All rather too 1984 & Edward Snowden for my liking B-)

High Quality audio with Roger and now sadly passed away director of the Shumacher Society Richard St George on one of Britain’s greatest ever Ecovillage design concepts
If the govt. was any good they’d have picked up on this

UK 2000 person autonomous ecovillage design 
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/69405

Who knows – perhaps someday someone will?
Tony

Roger Kelly HQ edited 00:49:40 128Kbps mp3
(47MB) Stereo

Schumacher socs Richard St George – on Ecoville 00:05:45 128Kbps mp3
(5MB) Stereo

UK 2000 person autonomous ecovillage design
Series: Bristol Broadband Co-operative 
Subtitle: Ecoville 2000 was a brilliant ecovillage design squashed by the UK government
Program Type: Weekly Program
Featured Speakers/Commentators: Roger Kelly former director of Machynlleth’s Centre for
Contributor: Bristol Broadband Co-operative  [Contact Contributor]
Broadcast Restrictions: For non-profit use only.
Summary: 
Credits: Ecoville 2000 was a giant ecovillage project developed at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales in the 1990s. Roger was director of CAT and one of the project leaders.
Notes: Ecovillage 2000 was the brainchild of two men at the Centre of Alternative Technology (CAT) in Machynlleth.
Roger Kelly was a pioneer of Housing Associations in the 1970’s. As director of Solon South-West he built and managed thousands of homes. Roger then moved to Wales, becoming director of CAT in 1988. Richard St. George was intent on putting the ideas of E.F. Schumacher into practice. Small is Beautiful, for Richard, marked the coming of age of the green movement. Specifically his emphasis on researching, designing and building the alternatives.
Richard and Roger had both been racking their brains over a dilemma. Small were acting as beautiful beacons for future sustainable development, but pioneering communities needed to be bigger to compete with the outside economy. The question was just how big?
The fundamental test of a community’s viability, Richard argued, is its ability to retain its teenagers and to enable people of all ages to to share positions of responsibility. strike a balance with everyone sharing the community’s positions of responsibility. So many times with Intentional Communities young people decided it wasn’t for them so many of them fled the nest after a generation or so they died out through being abandoned by their young people. What would keep them there would be a standard of living as good or better than the best civilisation has to offer combined with a real independent spirit
In the winter of 1994 Richard woke one morning to find himself snowed in. It looked like it might be several days until he found his way into work at CAT. A great time, he decided, to bite the bullet. Richard sat down and listed every service that we might expect in any civilised community: doctor, farmer, teacher, mechanic, builder, plumber, carpenter, printer, IT fixer, and the list went on… and on… and on.
Eventually it ran to over 220 roles under eleven headings, with a job description for each role. Agricultural; crafts; arts; sports; estate management; services; health; educational; commercial; technical and industrial. Over succeeding days for the two weeks he was snowed in, he worked out how many people, considering holidays, training, sickness, shift work, etc. would be need in each of these key roles. Children and the elderly would not be expected to do any work of course. He came up with a figure of each role needing from between one and 25 people to fill it.
[picture of ecoville house design] Meanwhile Roger was working on designs for the Ecohomes. Through his experience with the pitfalls of building social housing he decided on several constraints. Each family house would have an allotment sized portion of land immediately attached to it. Evidence in our cities is that if people have allotments adjacent they use them. But the price of urban land makes that very difficult to realise. Ecoville’s good sized gardens were for the family to use for growing, grazing or recreational space.
Then there was the density of housing. Roger knew that people tend to like living close to other families but not close to too many. He settled on ideal huddle of ten to twenty houses fairly close together, with the clusters being up to a kilometre from the village centre.
Each housing cluster would include individual houses (1), most with attached workshops; a building with communal facilities (2) such as a laundry, meeting room, boiler house or store for shared tools and equipment; and an area of horticultural land (3), providing principally for the residents’ own needs but also selling surplus produce.
The core of the design was the village centre – the existing farmhouse, outhouses and semi-derelict buildings (1-4). These fulfilled a dual function as accommodation for self-builders as the project was being constructed as well as fulfilling an ultimate function, with the addition of some new buildings (5) forming a central village square. Finally the village centre would contain workshops, an exhibition space, a café/bar and a small shop.
The acreage needed for the entire project would depend on what figure Richard came up with for the minimum viable population.
As snowbound Richard worked his figures through it became clear the figure would be higher than either of them had thought. When Richard eventually arrived for work at CAT he announced the magic number: two thousand. After totting up all the roles Richard looked at all the different reasons why a resident would not be able to fulfil that role. 25% were children, 10% elderly or infirm, 10% drop out, 10% away at university etc., 5% nursing mothers, 5% dad’s on paternity leave, 5% on holidays, sabbaticals and secondments leaving only 30% of residents as a workforce. This brought the number of roles needed, around 600 up to a figure of around 1000 total residents.
Under this figure residents were likely to have too much responsibility, Richard felt. Over 2000 would be too many for everyone to feel enfranchised. Once they were clear about the overall scale they started drawing up criteria, starting with water needs, with which to identify potential sites. 
The response from UK planning authorities was almost universally negative. No British local authorities would consider seriously allowing permission for Ecovillage 2000 in their patch so, rather than let planning constraints and land values kill the project, in 1997 they decided to focus their efforts abroad.
[map of the site in france] Eventually the team decided the best bet was to build it on a site in France with a highly supportive local authority. A farmer’s son who owned the site had no-one to take on his farm and wanted to retire, sell up. Ecovillage 2000 became Ecoville 2000. 
This was a mostly wooded site of several hundred hectares at Versels, Causse de Sauveterre in the Canton of Le Massegros, near where Roquefort cheese is produced. Here, the French government funded much of the Ecoville feasibility study which – 18 months after they first set foot on the land – cleared the way for planning permission to be granted. At this point the tale sadly ends, the farmer’s son changed his mind and his father decided not to sell the land.

THE LAND IS OURS

Questions or ideas? Please get in touch! Our email is mail@scottishlandactionmovement.org
http://www.scottishlandactionmovement.org/#backround-section

WE DEMAND…

1. A land information system
Currently only 26% of Scotland’s land is registered in the land register. To find out who owns what, we demand a mandatory system that is up to date and available to the public. 

2. A Land-Value Rating (LVT)
There is no taxation on just land itself. We demand a move towards a more progressive tax, that takes into account the value and use of the land. 

3. A cap on the amount of land any one private individual or beneficial interest is eligible to own 
Huge private estates leave the land empty and barren. We would like them community-owned or broken up through the establishment of a National Land Policy, and updated laws of succession.

4. Greater powers for communities to buy and own land 
Statutory rights of: registration of interest in land, pre-emption over land, and a right to buy land through a compulsory purchase order where there is a clear benefit to the community, both urban and rural.

5. Security for tenants in rented accommodation 
How we live on the land affects us all – secure tenancies for private renters ensure communities can flourish.

6. A robust self-build sector
We believe incentives to self-build homes can offer alternatives to current housing schemes and strengthen communities.

7. Rights for tenant farmers
Tenant farmers currently have very little security over their tenancies, leaving them vulnerable to huge rent increases and evictions. We demand protective legislation and an inquiry into an optional automatic right to buy.

8. Hutting
Hutting should be encouraged and facilitated by landowners and planning authorities to encourage rural leisure.

9. Greater governmental aid
Establish a distinct governmental unit that will facilitate community buyouts, advise ministers, and provide support services. Increase the Land Fund. 

10. Common Good lands
We demand that Common Good Lands be safeguarded, their management be democratic and modern, and information regarding Common Good lands and funds be readily available and up to date.

Look at our political structures, our economy, and our land, and you’ll find a fundamental lack of democracy. 

Our focus is land.  Who owns Scotland?  Very few.  Just 432 landowners have 50% of the privately owned land.  That’s a mere 0.008% of the population.

The causes for this extraordinary situation go back centuries – feudalism was only abolished in Scotland a decade ago – but the concentration of land ownership has actually increased in the last 50 years. 

The early years of the Scottish Parliament brought tentative progress in the form of the 2003 Land Reform (Scotland) Act; this legislation, with the provision of a Land Fund, encouraged a series of community buy-outs in rural areas.  These have shown how extraordinarily successful communities can be when they manage their own affairs; producing off-grid electricity, increasing tourism, boosting local jobs… developments essential to stop the disastrous trend of rural depopulation. 

But the case for much bolder, wider-reaching land reform never went away.  It was heard frequently during the referendum debate; increasingly recognised as a central issue for those calling for social justice, democracy and equality in Scotland. 

This isn’t just a rural issue.  Land reform in Scotland has its roots in the struggles of the 1800s to oppose clearances and establish crofters’ rights – but now it is much broader.  Soaring land values and monopoly control are what drive housing shortages, deprivation, urban blight.  Our city centres are full of half-empty hotels, stalled developments, overpriced and ugly student housing. 

Meanwhile rural communities decline further under – often absent – landowners; and vast swathes of the Highlands are set aside as playgrounds for the world’s richest, with troubling ecological and social consequences. This is an issue that affects everyone.

The Scottish Land Action Movement is a collective of activists all striving for the same goal – to deliver comprehensive and radical land reform in Scotland by 2016.

WHAT WE DO

We are a collective of activists all striving for the same goal – to deliver comprehensive and radical land reform in Scotland by 2016.
We believe that people-powered campaigning is the best way to do this. We have the backing of prominent researchers, journalists, activists and even politicians to help us reach our goal. However, it is the power of collective democracy that has founded this movement. Post-referendum Scotland is a place brimming full of passion and ideas – we believe there has never been a better time to fight for land reform, and with the support of a politicised nation, we can create a fairer and more just Scotland.

Our aim is simple – get enough people talking about our message, and change will happen.

We plan to provide a cohesive network for activists and campaign groups from all over the country to come together and learn from each other. We have a library of resources of all varieties so people can educate themselves on the topic of land reform, reaching far beyond just lairds in their castles. Land reform is just as important to communities in central Glasgow as it is to communities in the Western Isles, and the more knowledge we have about these issues, the more power we can wield in affecting change. 

If you would like to set up a campaign or group, we will help you in whatever way we can with the resources at our disposal. 

If you would like to contribute to our movement, our blog will be showcasing stories of communities in action, of campaigns, and examples of community ownership successes. Even just telling us why you think land reform is important – we want to hear from you!

Over the coming months we will be setting up petitions and meetings – please follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook to receive up-to-date information.
 

Questions or ideas? Please get in touch! Our email is mail@scottishlandactionmovement.org