The Lot of Land Stewardship

Another must read book if you care at all about the lot of the remaining natural spaces on earth. To peak your interest

"If in order to protect our forest land we designate it a commons or commonwealth separate from private ownership (side note by Marta: this is the current model that we have in BC), then who will care for it? The absentee timber companies who see no reason to care about local consequences? The same government agencies and agents who are failing at present to take good care of our public forests? It is credible that people inadequately skilled and inadequately motivated to care well for the land can be made to care well for it by public insistence that they do so? The answer is obvious: you cannot get good care in the use of land by demanding it from public officials. That you have the legal right to demand it does not at all improve the case.... Our present idea of conservation and of public stewardship are not enough. Duty is not enough. Sentiment is not enough. No mere law, divine or human, could conceivably be enough to protect the land while we are using it."

- Taken from an "Private Property and the Common Wealth" an essay by Wendell Berry from the collection "Another Turn of the Crank"

Please note: I am not intending for this to become a book review blog... I wanted to share this because Wendell Berry is much more articulate than I am.