Woodland Community Land Trust - History
Woodand
Community Land Trust’s founding was driven by four people that shared a
vision about mountain life. These two men and two women together had the
knowledge, intuition and imagination to assess their ability to move into
a different kind of future. The history of their community included a job
centered economy born out of the american industrial advances of the 20th
century. That shaped the dominant economic, political, religious and educational
institutions into a coherent system that produced an urban wonder world.
The leadership of Woodland knew that perseverance would be key to any movement
forward for rural Appalachia.
Rural America as a whole, and Rural Appalachia in particular continue to diminish as urban centers continue to fascinate us and the world. Rural land, its people, culture and values were sacrificed for the larger good and it is only in very recent years that a small number from among the leadership of the integrated power systems came to know that what was started in the 19th and 20th century cannot sustain itself. The connections between land and people are becoming more clear to everyone and the Woodland Community Land Trust speaks to answers that come from an inner strength and out of a lived experience with corporate ownership and exploitation of community resources. A peaceful pursuit of a positive future cannot be imagined except that the diverse interests of stakeholders come into a balance that is life sustaining..
Today WCLT can demonstrate in a positive way what local rural people can do once they are able to exercise some governance over land. In 1977 the WCLT organized as a not-for-profit organization. They would build houses, develop an economy, engage in hands on education and exchanges, and religiously revere the land as gift to humans and other than human life forms. To do all of this the group would acquire land. Once people settled on land with a life time renewable lease, they would become the majority of people on the land trust board. The lease would guide their behavior toward the land and one another.
Product results move slowly because shaping and integrating new systems is necessary and is a very slow process. Hence while people are prone to explain developments as the 400 acres of land, the 17 houses built, the income generated, education achieved and the spirit-culture activities, we can also say that from the CLT a separate development corporation now exists to concentrate on housing and small business (for more information see Woodland Community Development Web site). A separate educational institution is now in process of developing its own board. There are contractual partnerships with mainline institutions (often people on the fringe or on the cutting edge of these institutions) or from regional, national and international non-profit organizations.
The input of young students who engage with us for a week or a month, and the input from retired professionals who give days of their time over a number of years have been a source of support and hope to the land trust, the development corporation and the educational institute. The contributions can go from doing a survey to being part of a land use planning committee, from digging holes for fruit trees to learning about marketing, from sharing music to doing research on the role of music in the community. When people are amazed at how much we get done on so small a budget it is because money raised is well matched with services rendered by both local and visiting people.
The vision, concepts and support systems, while impressive, need to spread into more rural unincorporated communities if a community land trust is to be effective. Once a CLT has land it can exercise governance where government has a minimal presence. The CLT should work the most good in communities where corporate operations have negatively impacted the land and people of the community. When land is returned to the residents of a community, they can engage in development works and thus have a visible presence among other stakeholders. When stakeholders recognize one another, respect the past and present and are open to a future together, something new is bound to happen in a world where science and technology are still allowing for incredible discoveries and moving the world places that could not have been imagined a hundred years ago.
Woodland needs to mobilize the resources to overcome the major legal
and financial handicaps. They need a new kind of group consciousness, monitoring
of and fostering of the cultural 
adjustments
that will need processing over a long period of time. The timing of human
progress and earth healing need to be synchronized into a long range plan.
The task must be intergenerational. Perhaps Woodland or its educational
component needs to be endowed so that continuity in upholding basic values
can be assured. Communication technologies must be applied. The economy
must work for all stakeholders and for the land itself. For in an area
where money is made from the earth resources, that can only continue if
the earth continues to produce. Because so much of the work in Appalachia
is extracting unrenewable resources we can rejoice that we are still one
of the most diverse forested areas on earth. Shifting to a renewable economy
will constitute a major shift in ideas, systems and life styles for all.
Will Woodland Community Land Trust sustain itself as a grassroots movement? We know that as long as we sustain the work we can be part of an evolving realization of a different future for North America. But even if we can’t survive we will have contributed to the new wave of thought emerging from a new consciousness of how we and the earth are one.
A most powerful energy within the hills and hollows of Appalachia comes from those who know and live and believe that they and the earth are one. There is the human community and the more than human community that, when not disconnected, become the sacred community, the sustainable community and the community that can both demonstrate and articulate how diversity and oneness makes the world we live an exciting life.
This draft was prepared by Marie Cirillo (woodland staff), reviewed
by Lester Hatfield (board member) October 25. 2002 . for work done by Notre
Dame Students preparing Woodland’s web page.