From Ownership to Stewardship
Invitation to join us in a conversation on how to move from Land Ownership to Land Stewardship.
Let’s come together to do this; we need people who want to be a part of this transition, which is happening all around the world.
Join us if you have land that you want to transition in this way, join us if you know lawful approaches to this, join us if you know the legal aspects, join us if you understand how to use crypto to facilitate this transition, join us if you know how to use AI to support this shift, and join us if you have the funds to help make this a reality.
This is our full devotion and dedication at SoilDAO.
Hristiyan Atanasov
Hi everyone, I have one very simple antithesis that is not even that controversial: nothing will change until we change our relationship to land.
I have met many of you here proposing the same idea, sharing, and teaching it on a spiritual, emotional, and mental level. I am curious to find a way to do it on a practical, tangible level. Again, I am not pretending that I know the way or have the answer; I just feel responsible for trying a new way of doing things.
The idea of ownership works for the most part, but it has never made sense to me when it comes to nature. How do you own your mother? How do you own the thing that gives you life, something that was here long before I arrived and will be here long after I am gone? That idea is hard for me to process; I can’t make it make sense in my head. Maybe you can show me something I’m missing.
How do you explain to a bird that it cannot eat the fruit of a tree because it does not own it? How do you tell a buffalo or an elephant that it cannot migrate because it doesn’t own the land? Forget explaining it to an animal—try explaining that to a child and see if they can understand the concept. Speaking of children, do you feel that you owe them, or do you feel responsible for providing the best environment in which they can thrive?
So I got curious about the definition of ownership, and here is what I found:
Ownership is traditionally defined by three fundamental rights:
1. The Right to Use (Usus)
The ability to utilize the property as desired
2. The Right to Benefit (Fructus)
The right to enjoy any benefits or income from the property
3. The Right to Dispose (Abusus)
The power to sell, transfer, alter, or destroy the property
The right to destroy is often considered the ultimate expression of ownership, as it demonstrates complete control over the property.
Of course, like everything else in life, it is more nuanced in our modern days, but that is the essence.
Don’t you think it’s time we redefine this definition?
What if we replaced the right of Abusus with the privilege to steward?
And do you think that we, the people, should make this decision in a decentralized manner, or should it be the central entities of the world that we have to beg and convince to make this change?
Living in a world of blockchain technologies and witnessing the power of decentralization, as we’ve seen with BTC, and witnessing how the largest and most powerful centralized authority had to bend to the will of the people—what if we could do the same with land?
You don’t have to give me countless examples of how crypto and DAOs haven’t worked, but I have heard from many of you that the idea and the vision behind them are noble if done correctly and with the right relationship. Don’t we owe it to ourselves to try to make them work?
After all, what else am I going to be doing with the short amount of time I have in this place? Join us on this humble mission, and let’s DAO this.
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