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Land Study Kit
Publisher: Ten Days for World DevelopmentYear Published: 1988 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX3381 Abstract: "Our Legacy in Land: Perspectives on Global Land Disorder" is the title of the overview essay by Gary Kenny in this Ten Days study kit. "Why are so many people without land and living lives of poverty and hunger?" he asks. "Why does humanity seem to value land less as a God-gifted resource for human sustenance and survival, and more as a commodity for trade, making profits and ultimately accumulating power?" In answering these questions, Mr. Kenny concludes that "land ownership emerges today as essentially a moral, not an economic problem. We need new models of land conservation and tenure and the political will to follow them, and we need them now." Case studies in the kit include agrarian reform in Brazil and Cuban alternatives in land use and tenure. Other perspectives from Swaziland and Nicaragua are supplemented by a letter from Chief Seattle of the Duvanish Tribe, addressed in 1985 to the president of the United States. The role-play game, "Bananas--and Me?" is based on an actual incident in the Phillipines when farmers, whose families had cultivated land for generations, were driven off by a large American fruit company. With full co-operation from dictator Marcos, the company turned the land into a banana plantation, producing for export. The game is taken from a high school curriculum in San Francisco and is probably best suited for that age group. Another game and puzzle sheet, "Partners on God's Earth," seems designed for a still younger audience. Guidelines for Biblical reflection and a bibliography complete the kit. FREE TRADE OR SELF-RELIANCE: Report for the Ecumenical Conference on Free Trade, Self-Reliance and Economic Justice, held Feb. 26 - Mar. 1, 1987 at Orleans, Ontario. Subject Headings |