Welcome to The Center for Ethical Land Transition
The last few years have seen an upswell of movements that seek to create justice and balance. Humanity is grappling with a just transition, trying to move from extractive systems to cooperative, harmonious systems. At the literal and physical base of our relations and systems is Land. How we recover as a species from centuries of dominance over the natural world (and each other) is at the crux of our intersectional ecological and social crises.
At the Center for Ethical Land Transition, we are dedicated to supporting the multi-generational endeavor through which Land brings us together, place by place, to heal and bring the human species back into balance with our shared home. If society is able to rethink and reorient our relationship to Land, there is opportunity for deep intersectional and interdimensional shifts.
We explore ways to decommodify, rematriate, and increase accessibility to Land for Black communities, Indigenous communities, and systemically oppressed communities. We are committed to remembering and deepening our relationship to Land. We draw on our experiences of working in conventional real estate, land justice, and cooperative communities as we hold historical complexities and intergenerational harm at the heart of our work. Our work weaves together different worlds through education, convenings, and facilitation of land transitions that promote diverse land stewardship.
We organize our work inside of a compass:
We currently have four main areas of focus:
Coming into Right Relationship with Land: We support land transitions with a focus on repairing relationships. Our practices aim to lessen the harm perpetuated by conventional real estate. We innovate tools and legal approaches in order to support rematriation and cultural reunion. We transform how people view, relate with and hold title to land.
Title-Holder Relinquishment: We work with title-holders on their journey of relinquishment, which includes programmatic support, materials, and education. Through this, we learn more about the patterns, archetypes, and content needed to support this journey.
Reunion with Land & Culture: Reunion provides full spectrum support to those in the process of land reunion, navigating inherently oppressive systems and the dynamics that present themselves within land transitions. This includes shared learnings, repair, and culturally relevant support.
Convening the Ecosystem of Practitioners: Our participation in many land transitions has informed our understanding of the different roles and expertise required to support an ethical land transition. We bring together real estate agents and legal practitioners to share their experiences so that we can have a more robust collective of ethical land transition facilitators.
Through all this, we strive to be rooted in our values, which you can read more about here.
The Center for Ethical Land Transition was formed because the time for land justice has come. Dynamic support is needed for land transitions of all types. We are honored to be doing work to repair historic harms, we are close to the ground and the people, we uplift our partners and who we serve, and we are energized to serve a growing movement.
Our work has been underway for a few years and we are humbled and thrilled to share more about it. We have collaborated with Movement Generation, Sogorea Te Land Trust, and Sustainable Economies Law Center, just to name a few. You can read more about our projects here and see our 2023 Annual Report here.
We look forward to sharing more with you in the coming months. Stay connected by signing up for our newsletter or reach out to us at info@ethicallandtransition.org.
