Land Care
The Principles of Land Care:
While definitions may continue to evolve, these are the eight principals that we feel best describe the practice of land care at the moment:
- Getting to know the life and ecosystem of the land we are partnering with before altering it
- Working to shape human activities to the land before shaping land to human activities
- Seeking always to strengthen the network of life of any place that we interact with
- Assisting displaced life to return to the land being worked with
- Respecting and supporting the right of an ecosystem to progress toward complexity
- Understanding where the materials or energy we work with are drawn from and where they will go if, or when, they move beyond the site.
- Seeking to always return more than we take and to never take beyond a system’s capacity to regenerate.
- Acknowledging that humans are heterotrophs; we cannot photosynthesize so we must draw our energy from the life of other beings.
We owe respect and reciprocity to all those we rely on for our survival. Part of that responsibility is to not ignore or dismiss the costs of our actions.
Introducing Land Care
A presentation on the eight Land Care Principles: