Land Commons
Seeking to reimagine the relationship between people and the land that sustains our communities, Land in Common gathers land into a cooperatively-stewarded trust. Through community land trust holdership, the land is permanently decommodified – removed from the market and placed into reciprocal community care.
Our resident members, or land stewards, live on the land and tend to the long-term use and care of the land. They are guaranteed long-term, secure land tenure through a 99-year ground lease, and can build affordable housing on the land. Land in Common encourages the growth of solidarity economies, networks of mutual support and resource sharing, among the different parcels of land.
The Commons in Greene
Land in Common currently holds and protects 214 acres of agricultural and wild land in Greene, Maine, home to four land projects: The Presente! Farm, Full Circle Willow, Wild Mountain Cooperative, and Wild Mountain Nursery.
Presente! Maine stewards agricultural lands in Greene, where they cultivate food for free community distribution. Presente! is led by and for Afro/Indigenous-Latine people, organizing survival programs, community power building, cultural celebration, and transformative healing practice. Presente!’s Collective Farm offers regular opportunities for community members to grow, enjoy, and be nourished by traditional foods, flowers, herbs, and practices. Presente! creates space for landless people to step back into their power, and return to the land as a sanctuary.
Adinah Barnett and her Full Circle Willow project are growing a perennial agroforestry wonderland of diverse willow varieties, and weaving them into living willow structures – baskets, cradles, and especially caskets for natural burial. Adinah is a 2023/24 Braiding Seeds Fellow.
From Adinah: “Willow is a friend to all. Hundreds of species live and thrive on willow. The flowers of willow left to grow for more than one year are early season food for pollinators, so willow beds are a great crop to have growing near veggie and fruit production. Willow sequesters carbon, provides a wind break, prevents erosion, and is downright beautiful!”
Wild Mountain Cooperative leases a portion of the agricultural and residential lands in Greene. Wild Mountain is a multigenerational and cross-class cooperative living community, a cooperatively-run subsistence farm, a gathering place for transformative organizing, teaching, and learning, and an open space for imagining new land-based collective projects and ways of living.
Wild Mountain Nursery is a worker-owned tree and plant nursery specializing in cold-hardy, fruit-bearing trees and shrubs. Their goal is to supply our communities with high-quality, perennial food sources to build local resilience, to increase food access for all, and to share the joys of fresh, Maine-grown fruit.
The Commons in Porter
La Finca Cooperative stewards a 15.4 acre off-grid farm in Porter, Maine, surrounded by 200+ acres of conserved wildlands. La Finca is a worker-owned cooperative grounded in BIPOC leadership and majority stakeholder ship. Their farm produces halal meat and fresh vegetables. They are committed to healing the mind, body, and soul of the individual and the collective, and seek to represent underrepresented communities while providing a pathway for connecting with plants, animals, and one another.
The Commons in Durham
Celebration Tree Farm and Wellness Center is the long-term land steward of 110 acres of beautiful forest land in Durham, ME. They are activating the land into a space for community and cultural connections, ecological forestry, outdoor recreation and education, wellness, and social change.
Celebration Tree Farm & Wellness Center is a multi-stakeholder cooperative founded in 2015. They are run by community-owners and worker-owners who benefit from the forest, the land, the barn, the garden, and the shared infrastructure. The farm provides MOFGA-certified celebration (Christmas) trees, grown with carbon-sequestering practices of ecological forestry, and offers yoga, reiki, farm stays and educational workshops to the community.