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.