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Seize It Back - Land Reform in Britain
George Monbiot
1996 Schumacher Lecture
Resurgence Magazine, No 181, March/April 1997
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In this 1996 Schumacher society lecture George Monbiot commences by illustrating
how indigenous peoples in SE Asia, East Africa and the Amazon are being
dispossessed of their livelihoods, land rights and cultures by multi-national
corporations, private businesses, large proprietors and corrupt state
bureaucracies.
He goes on to illustrate how similar forces which are at work overseas causing
devastation, misery and impoverishment are also at work in Britain. He makes the
case that vast numbers of British people have no rights, whatsoever, to land and
argues that the time has come to liberate land from developers, big farmers and
large commercial companies.
He concludes by advocating that the land must begin to
serve all people rather than simply those who control it and that development
must become the tool of those who need development most - the homeless and the
dispossessed - rather than benefiting only the developers. He unfurls a triple
land reform policy banner - land for homes; land for livelihoods; and land
for living.
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