Communal land ownership and Doughnut Economics

An initial peer-to-peer exploration of communal land ownership through a social justice and Doughnut Economics lens

Summary image background photograph: Shaun Ferguson
Summary image foreground graphic: Yblin Roman Escobar

Introduction

In March 2025, a group of people from the global DE grassroots community came together to explore the topic of communal land ownership through a social justice and Doughnut Economics lens.

This story is a summary of the peer-to-peer discussions, including the questions we asked, the insights we shared and the links to information and examples that we were aware of.

This is the start of an ongoing inquiry into communal land ownership through a social justice and Doughnut Economics lens, and we welcome you, the reader, to be a part of the dialogue, to share your questions, insights and examples as well.

You can add a comment at the bottom of this story, and if you'd like to connect with others on this topic, we invite you to join the DEAL Communities in Action Slack and the channel called 'the-commons'.

How does communal land ownership connect with Doughnut Economics?

There were two main ways that we found that communal land ownership connect with Doughnut Economics 1) implications for meeting the social foundation of the Doughnut and 2) designing to be distributive.

Meeting the social foundation of the Doughnut


The Doughnut


Relating to meeting the social foundation of the Doughnut, at the heart of our collective inquiry was the question: "What is the minimum access to land that people need to live well and to meet the social foundation?"

This then led to the follow-up question: "What rights do people need in order to be able to meet their basic needs in community, whether that’s housing, food or energy generation?"

There was (and is) an urgency to these questions in our conversation given the level of inequality now, and the action that needs to happen now in communities where people's basic needs are not being met as a result of current rights to land.

Designing to be distributive


This then connected directly to the topic of distributive design (chapter 5 of Doughnut Economics) as we asked "Who is the arbiter?" essentially asking "Who gets to manage and determine how land rights are distributed within a community?"

And from the UK context it was shared that "In theory this is the local authorities. There are statutory obligations, but these all too often yield to the power of private property law that is held as more important [than equitable rights to land]."

'Be distributive by design' from chapter 5 of Doughnut Economics


There was and is a real thirst for examples of where distributed access to land is working well at the moment? And especially in contexts where people have countered the pressure from market power (property developers) and institutional power (such as local authorities).

If you, the reader, knows of examples, please share them in the comments below or here in the DEAL Communities in Action Slack channel called 'the-commons'.

We spoke about balancing rights and needs - "How do we meet social needs in shared spaces without making those spaces exclusive through specific usage? E.g. community food growing spaces may not be suitable community dog walking spaces."

And we also spoke about well how we might maximise community benefits - "How can you maximise health equity benefits of 800 acres of publicly owned green space in our neighbuorhood area (in partnership with a network of local doctors)?"

Many complex challenges

One of the threads of our conversations were the many and complex, interrelated challenges that relate to ownership of land.

To name a few...

The challenge of land ownership in Ireland was raised around the lack of legacy plans among older farmers, but that there was the emergence of charities to manage donated land.

There is also a housing crisis in Ireland (and a common story around the world) and the need for communal ownership of housing structures within a circular economy model.

The challenges of land ownership in Kenya was raised where indigenous communities do not have the power to own their land and are often displaced by mining and development.

There is also a challenge and importance of decolonizing the mindset in Kenya around land ownership was also raised, and the need for legal frameworks that support communal land stewardship.


How do we make conversations about land accessible and compelling?

One of the biggest topics of conversation was how do we make conversations about land accessible and compelling.

Raising awareness


One of the examples of land rights awareness that was shared was from Scotland in the 1970s when a theatre company toured a play called 'The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil'. The play powerfully connected with audiences and sparked a greater awareness and discourse around land rights and land rights reform.

Another play that was mentioned, that's currently touring the UK is 'Three Acres and a Cow'

Where you have the conversation


The topic of where you have the conversation was also raised. For example, "how might people have conversations where people talk as equal citizens?" This acknowledges that we all have power and this varies according to where we are. And depending on where a conversation happens, a power dynamic may deeply impact the quality of the conversation.

A powerful insight that was shared was that "having conversations on common land enables people to talk with people not like ourselves as it flattens the usual power dynamics." This could be on the pavement, verge, street, public library. All these are good. Indeed, a street party creates a ‘temporary autonomous zone’ where ‘anything becomes possible’. And as one person shared "Our hyperlocal commons, verges provide the ideal setting to bring diverse people together in a shared, highly-contested space to explore and learn how we might work together to create more sustainable and equitable cities. "

You can read lots about this at https://shadylanesproject.substack.com/

But having conversations on common land not only enables conversations across societal diversity, flattening power dynamics, but it also cultivates the collective imagination, to be able to see and feel how we might relate with land use and land rights differently.


Dreaming big

Something we began to explore was the change in language from ownership to stewardship. And with this came a question: "How might the rights of access to land relate to the quality of stewardship of that land?"

In this way, if a person, group, community or organisation stewarded land so that it cultivated social and ecological benefit, it would be rewarded with improved land rights. Similarly, if they stewarded land so that social and ecological benefits were eroded, this would be reflected in diminished land rights.

This may be the case in some law, but we fully acknowledge we are not the experts, and welcome people to share where this may be the case.


Also, in one of our discussions we looked at motivations for stewardship wondered whether we might transform the mainstream economic mindset of 'inheritance' in western societies, such that might become about the quality of stewardship of place (for all future generations) rather than just about accumulating and passing on capital wealth for one generation.

This thinking was inspired Biomimicry thinker Janine Benyus:

"In the natural world the definition of success is the continuity of life. You keep yourself alive, and you keep your offspring alive. But it's not [just] the offspring in this generation. Success is keeping your offspring alive 10,000 generations and more. And that presents a conundrum, because you're not going to be there to take care of your offspring 10,000 generations from now. So what organisms have learned to do, is to take care of the place that's going to take care of their offspring. Life has learned to create conditions conducive to life. And that's really the magic heart of it. Life creates conditions conducive to life."


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A list of all questions, insights and links shared

Questions asked


  • A fundamental question is around social justice, the level of inequality now, and the action that needs to happen now - What’s the minimum access to land that people need to live and to meet the social foundation?
  • What rights do people need in order to be able to meet their basic needs in community, whether that’s housing, food, energy generation? And who’s the arbiter - who gets to manage and determine how those rights are fairly distributed within the community? (In theory this is the local authorities and there are statutory obligations, but these all too often yield to the power of private property law that is held as more important than social justice).
  • What are the examples of what works at the moment? (where people have countered the pressure from developers and institutional power)
  • How do we meet social needs in shared spaces without making those spaces exclusive through specific usage? E.g. community food growing spaces may not be suitable community dog walking spaces.
  • How can you maximise health equity benefits of 800 acres of publicly owned green space in our neighborhood area (in partnership with a network of local doctors)?
  • Is health the outcome, or the foundation? Is land / nature access a source of health / wealth creation?
  • How do we make the conversation of land accessible?
  • How do we make the invisible elephant in the room (of ownership, wealth, inequality and power) visible again?
  • How do you open conversations up for more imaginative things?
  • How do we open conversations where people talk as equal citizens?
  • How might we use Theatre of the Oppressed techniques to generate conversations?
  • Social foundations and social justice: how do we explore ownership / rights of access at a local level?
  • How do we help people to live communally again and how do we cultivate trust in our ability to do so amongst those who currently don’t trust that it’s possible?
  • How might we connect and relate our experiences of engaging with and managing hyper-local commons (of our streets, footpaths and verges) to the scale of the planetary commons?
  • How do we work within the existing model of land ownership to return land to community ownership?
  • Why should we have people paying for rent, which keeps on going up, for generation after generation?
  • Land Use - economic conversion of land, wild nature & biodiversity how do we balance the development, can we hold it in the commons or does it always convert to ownership. Meaning the community owns rather then it going into the commons? Who manages the commons, and ownership clarifies management.   
  • How can we create community agency around local forests that are in municipality managed (indirect ownership), they start selling to private commercial businesses.  but need to come back into community stewardship/ownership? 
  • How do we create community agency and skill around protecting existing land (and forests) in public ownership?
  • How do we protect our marine commons?



Insights shared


  • Legally no one owns land, you own rights of access, and over time these rights have become exclusive and people have the power to exclude.
  • It’s amazing just how little conversation there is around ownership and wealth, but then maybe not, considering who owns the media outlets.
  • Having conversations on common land is different - a different quality - where we can talk with people not like ourselves - and it opens the imagination. Flattens the usual power dynamics. And public libraries are good for this too. Indeed, a street party creates a ‘temporary autonomous zone’ where ‘anything becomes possible’
  • When residents, the council and nature collaborate, it will set you up for a lot more than working individually. It’s all about building relationships and trust between people and organisations.
  • There is community power in knowing a local authorities statutory obligations around equality relating to the social foundation. There is enough legislation there for the community to be enabled if they know how to use it (if they’re willing to fight for it).
  • In the UK there’s a huge deficit of trust between the public sector and the community sector, owing to the history of privatisation and enshrining private ownership in property law, and therefore trusted more.
  • Scotland activists were bold - ‘we are transforming land rights - and had success. A theatre group in the 1980s went round with a story (The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil), and it lit a match that led to land rights reform.
  • There is not a housing crisis - there is an affordable housing crisis
  • When you have things in the commons (wind, energy) and that’s when communities need to come together to manage those.
  • Wellbeing as Interbeing


Links and resources shared


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