Unfencing the land
Pathways to Land organises towards true agroecology through systemic land redistribution, shifting power from private wealth to collective stewardship.
We work towards a future of thriving and multifaceted rural, urban, and peri-urban communities. A future where barriers to land stewardship and land tending are eradicated, for the good of people and planet.
Beyond polite conservation
Recreational access to land is crucial, but we have to go further. True justice requires a structural transformation of land ownership, healing the violence of wealth accumulation on marginalised and working-class communities and returning stewardship back to the people.
Monopolised land
Collective stewardship
The UK’s land monopoly concentrates power in inherited estates and large institutions. Conservative estimates show that almost 60% of all the land in England is privately owned. This locks out communities who sustained the soil - both in the UK and beyond - for thousands of years before land was stolen, privatised and enclosed.
We support non-hierarchical collective governance models where land is managed as a shared resource, shifting power towards true equity and building towards reparations. There are many different ways to distribute and care for the land in the service of all beings - we just have to make them happen.
We want to...
Return the land
Resist private development
Support campaigns and grassroots work resisting developers buying up land that could be used for the common good (rather than for lining the pockets of the wealthy through astronomical rent rates)
Return acreage to the people! We will facilitate and support bringing more land into community ownership.
Create policy frameworks
Support local and regional governing bodies through producing legal frameworks in favour of community land stewardship.
Stewardship in action
Rooted in community
Our projects are led and designed by skilled and passionate communities facing systemic barriers to land access. From peri-urban farming collectives to strategic land transfers, we provide the training and frameworks to support marginalised farmers and stewards to access land for long term community benefit.
The land monopoly in numbers
50%
Only 9%
100%
Of England is owned by less than 1% of the population. This includes aristocrats, city bankers, oligarchs and gentry. This land ownership is often secured through a history of extractive industry, aristocratic inheritance and the violence of enslavement.
Of land is currently under public or charitable use, meaning millions of people do not have access to land for their livelihoods or wellbeing.
Of our training and advocacy is guided by the needs of racially marginalised and low income groups reclaiming their relationship to the soil.
Join us
Systemic change is built collaboratively, from the ground up. Find out what we do and partner with us to shift the balance of land ownership and reclaim the right to collective governance.