Land and Liberty

‘Land’ is all the earth’s resources: the physical surface of the earth, both land and water, urban and rural, what lies beneath, and the atmosphere above. Land is also more than its physical attributes. Land is home to people and other species. It contains history, memories, stories, dreams and aspirations. It is a ‘place’ that people are rooted in, the context in which their lives are played out.
Land inequality goes back into history. With the advent of class society, linked to the rise of farming and the production of a surplus, an elite has managed to grab the lion’s share of the land and therefore wealth. This has continued to the present day with land ownership increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few. Taking control of the land meant that this class would have a monopoly of the wealth. In different societies and different systems through-out history, this complete monopoly was limited. Indigenous societies even today do not have one class that owns the land. And for centuries, peasants have had a range of rights to land. However, with the advent of capitalism, land ownership has become increasingly centralised and, with that the expropriation of wealth, such that the working class and peasantry has become dependent on these land owners for their very existence. This aspect of capitalism, in which capitalists own land and then extract profit from what is done on the land they own, is often called rentier capitalism.
According to Ian Angus: “For five centuries, the development of capitalism has been inextricably connected to the expropriation of working people from the land they depended on for subsistence. Through ruling class assaults known as enclosures or clearances, shared common land became privately-owned capital, and peasant farmers became propertyless laborers who could only survive by working for the owners of land or capital.” “Contrary to many accounts that treat the reorganization of agriculture as a purely domestic matter, Angus shows that there were close connections between the enclosures in Britain and imperial expansion. The consolidation of some of the largest estates in England and Scotland was directly financed by the forced labor of African slaves and the colonial plunder of India.”
https://monthlyreview.org/product/the-war-against-the-commons-dispossession-and-resistance-in-the-making-of-capitalism/
In Britain, the Norman Conquest is often cited as a key moment in the acceleration of the centralisation of land ownership, though In Anglo Saxon times only 4,000 Thanes owned the land. With the Norman Conquest, this land was divided between two hundred Norman Barons and clergy and the rest subsumed by the King.
Very small and small landholders owned 4% and 18% of land (by value) before the conquest, afterwards they represented only 0.2% and 2% respectively. In contrast, the proportion of land held by large landholders increased from 43% to 64% over the same period, and the monarch’s holdings increased from 12% to 23%. King William radically altered the distribution of land in England.
Enclosures
There are many factors that have led to such extreme levels of land concentration, but the most blatant and most contentious has been enclosure — the subdivision and fencing of common land into individual plots which were allocated to those people deemed to have held rights to the land enclosed. As medieval England progressed to modernity, the open field system and the communal pastures came under attack from wealthy landowners who wanted to privatize their use. The first onslaught, during the 14th to 17th centuries, came from landowners who converted arable land over to sheep, with legal support from the Statute of Merton of 1235. Villages were depopulated and several hundred seem to have disappeared.
By the end of the 18th century the incentive to convert tilled land in England over to pasture was dying away. There were a number of reasons for this. Firstly, the population was beginning to rise rapidly as people were displaced from the land and ushered into factory work in towns, and so more land was required for producing food. Secondly, cotton imported from the US and India, was beginning to replace English wool. And thirdly, Scotland had been united with England and therefore could be used for sheep.
The fact that these lands were populated by Highland clansmen presented no obstacle. In a process that has become known as the Clearances, thousands of Highlanders were evicted from their holdings and shipped off to Canada, or carted off to Glasgow to make way for Cheviot sheep. Others were concentrated on the West coast to work picking kelp seaweed, then necessary for the soap and glass industry, and were later to form the nucleus of the crofting community. Some cottagers were literally burnt out of house and home by the agents of the Lairds.
The final and most contentious wave of land enclosures in England occurred between about 1750 and 1850. Whereas the purpose of most previous enclosures had been to turn productive arable land into less productive (though more privately lucrative) sheep pasture, the colonization of Scotland for wool, and India and the Southern US states for cotton now prompted the advocates of enclosure to play a different set of cards: their aim was to turn open fields, pastures and wastelands — everything in fact — into more productive arable and mixed farm land. Their byword was "improvement". Their express aim was to increase efficiency and production and so both create and feed an increasingly large proletariat who would work either as wage labourers in the improved fields, or as machine minders in the factories. The end result was even more concentration of land in the hands of a few, c0ntinuing the process of dispossession.
For more detailed information see: https://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/articles/short-history-enclosure-britain
Corporate Landowners, Carbon off-setting and Environmental Payments
In recent years, ownership of land has continued to be centralised. The small family farm is now disappearing.
“The number of US-style mega farms in the UK has increased by 30% in the past 5 years alone. This collapse in family farms has in part been driven by the rise of concentrated animal feeding operations; CAFOs. In these industrial farming units, pigs, cows and chickens are crammed by the thousand into rows of barns. Many units are semi-automated, with feeding run by computer, with periodic visits by workers.

Industrial farming dominates animal production and has an outsized influence on crop growing and land usage. The UK is now home to at least 789 mega-farms classed as CAFOs. Most highly geared industrial farms are not far off the CAFO status, and there are thousands of industrial farms taking up huge swathes of British land - once home to a tapestry of smaller farms.” https://pipersfarm.com/blogs/journal/the-slow-disappearance-of-small-british-family-farms
Statistics from 2019 estimate that corporations own 18% of the total (in England). With the money to be made from carbon credit trading and environment payment schemes, many more corporations are joining the land grab, especially in Scotland. Examples of corporate owners are Brewdog, Shell and Standard Life.
“Scotland’s increasingly valuable rural land is only available to a limited few as high demand from forestry, natural capital investment, and corporate estate buyers continues to drive high prices, according to a new report by the Scottish Land Commission.”
See: https://www.landcommission.gov.scot/news-events/news/high-demand-and-rising-prices-continue-to-limit-access-to-scotlands-valuable-rural-land?p_slug=news
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/scotland-is-on-the-global-frontlines-of-the-great-net-zero-land-grab/
Land Ownership and Inequality Today
It is hard to know exactly who owns the land as there is a lack of transparency. Unless land changes hands, there is no need to the owner to reveal what they own, which applies largely to the aristocracy. However, research by people such as Guy Shrubsole in England and Andy Wightman in Scotland gives us a picture of the situation.
Who owns the land
• Government: 8.5%
• Crown: 1.4%
• Church: .5%
• Conservation: 2%
• Companies 18% (2% overseas)
• Private 69%

Inequality
• 69% of land in the UK is owned by 0.6% of the population.
• 70% of land is agricultural land and 150,000 people own all of it.
• UK housing is concentrated on 5% of the country’s land mass so people owning their own home represents a small amount of total land ownership.
• 1/3 of British land is still owned by aristocrats.
• 432 people own half the land in Scotland.
• The property wealth of the top 10% of households is nearly 5 times greater than the wealth of the bottom half of all households combined.
London
To give an idea of land ownership in urban areas, here are some statistics from a 2017 report: https://www.propertyweek.com/data/who-owns-london/5088280.article?/5088280.article. The article gives the top 100 biggest land owners. Here are some examples according to type of landowner with their ranking.
Corporations
1. Canary Wharf Investment Holdings Qatar and Brookfield (Canadian origin but headquarters in Bermuda)
4. Aviva- British Insurance- various properties across London
The Crown and Aristocracy
6. The Crown Estate, Regent St and St James
20. Grosvenor Estate- Mayfair
Foreign Governments
16. Kuwait- City Hall
51. Qatar- The Shard, 20% of Heathrow, 10% of London Stock Exchange, Harrods, Olympic Village, Chelsea Barracks Development
Much of the investment comes from offshore tax havens, e.g. Jersey.
Public
2. City of London
3. Transport for London (1.5% of London landmass) properties all over London, e.g. Earl’s Ct development
10. Network Rail
13. The UK government
14. GLA
15. Newham Council

Benefits of land ownership: Capitalism, wealth creation and working class exploitation
The most obvious way capital makes money out of land is by extracting resources that are crucial to the rest of industrial system. Mining and logging are two of the main examples. The dominance of the food system through agribusiness is another key way that profits are extracted, whether that be through large plantations of crops such as coffee, bananas and palm oil in the Global South or the large industrial farms in the UK with the focus on livestock and growing crops to feed that livestock. Together with their links to the large supermarkets, food prices continue to increase.
Another source of huge profits is owning land for housing. House prices are crucially linked to the value of land on which the properties are built such that the same property could be worth 100 times as much in central London as on the outskirts, far from transport links. Anyone who owns a home, and the land it is on (as opposed to being a leaseholder) will be in a position to make money without doing anything. The building of the Elizabeth line in London has led to rising house prices anywhere near a station. This has helped a number of both middle and working class families enhance their income, creating a big divide between homeowners and renters. However, firstly, many of these ‘owners’ don’t actually own their home; it is owned by the banks and financial institutions. Secondly, it doesn’t help when you can’t really use the value of the house as you need to live in it.
However, the buy to let market has meant that buying up a second property has become quite common amongst the middle class and even sections of the working class. The banks are only too willing to lend to anyone who owns property because they know they can always repossess the property in case of default on the mortgage.
The main winners are those that own large tracts of urban land that either has housing on it or has planning permission to build. These include traditionally aristocrats and other extremely wealthy individuals, universities and the Church but increasingly corporations and financial institution have become the main landowners. Billions have been made from property development, both residential and commercial. Meanwhile, the working class has to fork out a large part of their wages to pay a mortgage or rent.
There are many other ways in which landowners negatively affect the lives of people. Rents for all sorts of different premises continually increase, making a place unrecognisable to those who have lived there for years. This process of gentrification has caused the closure of local shops, community spaces, and favourite pubs and cafes. Green spaces are also under threat. During Covid, it was noticed how valuable these places are for people’s mental health, especially low-income groups who may not have access to a garden. Though usually owned by the local council, with the financial difficulties many are in, green spaces are now a target of developers and others. Whether it is getting permission to build, or holding big ticketed events such as concerts, corporations see any space that is not used to make money as an opportunity for them.
The climate emergency has led to capitalism finding more ways of making money out of rural land that was not considered valuable because it was too remote or no good for agriculture. This can be seen all over Scotland with the proliferation of windfarms, benefits going to the landowner and the corporation who owns the windfarm. Another way is through carbon offsetting and carbon credit trading. In a previous issue of Stormy Petrel we discussed this at length. Scotland in particular is seeing a new land grab as corporation rush to buy up land. Companies include Shell, Standard Life and Brewdog. This has caused the price of land to go up, making it impossible for communities to embark on their own development projects through community buy-outs.
These actions of landowners are exacerbating climate change and the ecological crisis. The carbon offsetting scheme means that corporations do not actually reduce emissions in their own industry. Instead of working to conserve energy, capitalism needs to have continual growth, thus the expansion of wind farms and the development of coal mining and North Sea oil production.
Landowners directly exploit the working class through employment, whether this be as agricultural workers, foresters, miners, or sporting estate staff. Wages are notorious low and working conditions poor. Agricultural workers are often migrants with temporary contracts and living in caravans on site. We cannot forget that most of our fruit and veg come from abroad, and workers in countries like Spain face a similar situation to workers in this country, if not worse. Those working for the big sporting estates and farms often are given tied cottages so that when they leave the job they are without housing. Though many now look back with nostalgia at working in a mine, largely because of the sense of community, we cannot forget that mining jobs are difficult and dangerous. Employers in all these land-based industries aim for maximum profit and therefore maximum exploitation of workers.
Landownership gives the right to restrict access. In London, there are private, gated parks dotted around the wealthiest boroughs. Canary Wharf and large swathes of the Olympic Park are privately owned and private security guards come down heavy if you do something apart from spending money. Liverpool 1 shopping district is also private land and expels the homeless and other ‘undesirables’. In the countryside large estates vigorously guard their ‘right’ to do what they want (usually hunting and shooting) and keep others out. The fight for access has a long history with urban dwellers desperate to enjoy nature as a respite from hard working lives and poor living conditions.
Much land is owned by the Crown, estimated to be 1.4% of total land area, though its value is very high. As of mid-2022, the Crown Estate reported £15.6bn in assets across the UK, including more than 115,000 hectares of agricultural land and forests, retail properties, most of Regent Street and about 55% of UK foreshore (beaches). Then there are the royal residences, plus another six palaces, seven castles, 12 homes, 56 cottages and 14 ancient ruins. See: https://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/en-gb/what-we-do/asset-map/.
Apart from Balmoral Castle in Scotland and Sandringham House in Norfolk, which King Charles now personally owns, the vast majority of the monarchy’s real estate assets are held by the Crown Estate. Although the royal family owns the Crown Estate in name, it is not actually its private property. The monarchy surrenders 25% of its revenue from the estate to the Treasury each year, said to average about £3 billion each year, in exchange for the ‘sovereign grant’ worth £86.3 million in 2022. This funding arrangement dates back to 1760, when George III reached an agreement to surrender his income from the estate in return for an annual fixed payment. That still leaves 75% of the income in the hands of the monarchy. The other issue is why should the monarch be able to decide what large parts of the country are used for. Currently, Charles is trying to apply environmental and biodiversity principles to the management of the estate but the public has very little knowledge or control of what actually goes on.
The State also owns large tracts of land: 8.5% of total, most managed by the MOD and the Forestry Commission. Local authorities own large tracts of land as does Network Rail and Transport for London. As with the Crown the ‘public’ as little say in how this land is used and managed. Whole swathes of places like Northumberland are off limits to the public because of military manoeuvres, supporting ruling class wars. Land in the cities is being sold off to private developers. Even when it embarks on public building projects, such as council housing, tenants themselves have no say in what kind of housing is being built. Therefore, like private ownership of land, State and Crown ownership serves the interests of capitalism, not the general public.
The system of land ownership is an integral part of capitalism and must be a target of our struggles. There is much overlap with other aspects of capitalism, with corporations such as Dyson buying up large tracts of farm land and the State as a major landowner.
Resistance
“The popular resistance to enclosures took many forms over the centuries. There were large armed revolts involving thousands. There were physical attacks on unpopular landlords or their property. Some repeatedly levelled and burned the enclosers hedges, dykes and fences. Other commoners engaged in long-lasting guerrilla-style campaigns to steal or kill the livestock that had been placed on former common lands.
The landlords were brutal in defense of their stolen property. During the 1700s, England’s landlord-dominated parliament passed numerous laws that legalised enclosure and criminalised dissent against enclosure. The Black Acts of 1723 created more than 200 new capital offenses. The death penalty applied even to stealing a sheep, felling a tree, killing a deer or poaching from a rabbit warren.”
https://monthlyreview.org/press/on-the-commons-and-enclosure-a-story-to-be-retold-the-war-against-the-commons-reviewed-in-green-left/
One notable group of popular resisters in England was the Diggers. On 1st April 1649, two months after the execution of Charles I, the Diggers, a group of poor radical agrarian protesters, arrived to farm unused land at St George’s Hill in Surrey, England. Prominent Digger Gerrard Winstanley wrote, “England is not a Free People, till the poor that have no Land, have a free allowance to dig and labour the Commons, and so live as Comfortably as the Landlords that live in their Inclosures.” Charles I’s death, interpreted by many as the end of the divine right of kings, opened the floodgates for previously inconceivable claims to land access. Diggers took the former Crown Land and surrounding wastes to collect wood, grow beets, carrots and corn, and to house and clothe those in need. Their acts of care were met with ongoing violent assaults.
Winstanley rallied adamantly against the ‘buying and selling of the Earth’ calling for the abolition of money, private property, imperialism, and enclosure. He declared, “Those that Buy and Sell Land, and are landlords, have got it either by Oppression, or Murther, or Theft”. The backlash from local landlords was systematic. The Diggers faced beatings and arson, forcing them to move from St George’s Hill to a second site in Cobham, until they were finally driven off the land entirely.
For 200 years after the Diggers were forced from St George’s Hill, the land continued to be the site of various disputes over gathering wood and other commoning practices. St George’s Hill went from a prominent site for resistance against enclosures and imperialism to some of the most expensive acreage in the world. All the while, anti-enclosure protestors in England were routinely deported to Barbados, as vast amounts of plantation wealth from the Caribbean flowed into landed estates in Surrey.
https://www.stirtoaction.com/articles/imperialism-and-the-diggers
https://monthlyreview.org/press/on-the-commons-and-enclosure-a-story-to-be-retold-the-war-against-the-commons-reviewed-in-green-left/
https://monthlyreview.org/product/the-war-against-the-commons-dispossession-and-resistance-in-the-making-of-capitalism/
Scotland also has its tradition of resistance. One example is the Highland Land Wars.
“On the 25th July, 1970, a memorial cairn was unveiled at Colbost Hill on the Isle of Skye. The legend on that cairn reads: ‘To Commemorate the Achievements of the Glendale Land Leaguers, 1882–1886’, and it marks area of the celebrated ‘Battle of the Braes’, where the crofters of Glendale fought a pitched battle with police over the issue of land. The Skye protests were only part of a widespread movement that covered most of the Highlands and Islands, and that lasted long after the implementation of the 1886 Crofters’ Act. The Highland Land War saw the mobilisation of the community in rent strikes, land raids, and deer killings. The perceived threat to ‘law and order’ was so great that the government despatched gunboats, marines, soldiers and extra police to the area. But the solidarity of the Highland community, including its expatriate members in Glasgow, Edinburgh and London, was such that only the creation, and favourable operation of, the Crofters’ Commission was enough to undermine the protest. However, a substantial proportion of that community, the cottars, were left unsatisfied by the 1886 Act. The cottars’ struggle was for land itself, but once their erstwhile allies, the crofters, had achieved their primary aims of tenure and fair rent, the cottars found themselves alone to continue their land struggle. Similarly, the Crofter MPs, returned as genuinely popular representatives of the people in the 1885 and 1886 General Elections, had, by 1892, lost themselves in the mire of parliamentarianism, taking the remains of the popular movement into the Liberal Party. Action through parliament proved, in the end, to be no real answer, and landless ex-servicemen were, in the late 1940s, still being imprisoned for land seizures; whilst ownership patterns in the 1990s are little changed from those of the 1880s.”
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/stephen-cullen-the-highland-land-war
Resistance Today in Scotland
The fact that the resistance in Scotland is more recent than in the rest of the UK explains to some extent why the movement for land reform is so much stronger. The main impetus for land reform comes from the sense that Scotland is an unequal society, especially in the rural areas- backed up by anti-landowner ideologies dating back to the Clearances. Scotland has one of the most concentrated patterns of ownership in the world. 432 people own 50% of Scotland’s rural land.
The idea is that land reform will help to regenerate, repopulate and address issues of inequality in the rural areas of Scotland. The Scottish National Party has taken the lead, in keeping with their nationalist ideology- many of the large landowners are not Scottish- part of the anti-English rhetoric. It is also a way to establish their radical credentials. However, in practice, though important reforms have been made, they have not addressed the fundamental inequalities.
There have been three Acts relating to land reform- 2003, 2015 (a Community Empowerment Act) and 2016. The main reforms include the aim of increased transparency in land ownership, the right of access which gave everyone the right to access Scotland’s land and inland waters, even without an owner’s prior consent, provided such access is taken responsibly and subject to certain exclusions relating to the character of land (deer stalking and grouse shooting), a right to buy for communities in both rural and urban areas and for crofters, and requirements for landowners to involve communities in decision-making.
Much rhetoric in the 2016 Act referred to creating a more “diverse pattern of land ownership” and set up a Land Commission to provide an overview of policy and keep momentum going.
Land Reform Bill 2024
(There may be amendments introduced as this Bill goes through the Scottish Parliament. It may also be impacted by the fact that the Greens are no longer in the government.)
This bill was introduced into the Scottish Parliament in March, delayed from 2023. It is largely relates to reform of agricultural tenancies but 25% relates to land reform. It does not include urban Scotland as other legislation did. Land reform campaigners are very disappointed. Andy Wightman:
“Given the scope of coverage of the proposals, the nature of the land market in Scotland, the complexities of the Right to Buy and the absence of a Public Interest test, the Bill is unlikely to have any meaningful impact on the pattern of landownership in Scotland.”
https://andywightman.scot/2024/03/land-reform-scotland-bill-1-2/
Community Land Scotland’s Summary and Critique
Community Land Scotland is the organisation representing community land owners, now almost 3% of Scottish land. They have been closely following the Bill’s development and offered comments during the consultation. Like Wightman, they have found the Bill severely lacking in any substance.
Land Management Plan
Owners of landholdings larger than 3000 ha (4,688 football pitches) need to deliver a land management plan every 5 years which includes community consultation. Failure to do so will incur a single fine of £5,000. However, CLS argues that responsible landowners are already doing this and that 5,000 is a worthless fine and will not have any impact on the landowners who don’t want to comply.
Transfer Test
When land over 1,000 ha goes up for sale the government has the ability to assess whether the sale will support ‘community sustainability’, with the potential of splitting up landholdings. However, ‘community sustainability’ is a narrow measure of how good or bad landownership is, e.g. there may not be a community near the estate, there is no oversight on who the landowner is and what the plans are for the land, and the test only occurs at the point of transfer- we should be able to assess whether landownership is working at any point during transfer. As the test only applies to landholdings over 1,000 ha, most sales will not be included (about 8 a year). The test will not apply to land which is passed on through inheritance or sold to a partner company under the same company.
Prior Notification of Sale
Scottish Ministers must be informed of any sales over 1000 ha. Ministers will then alert any community bodies in the area so they can do a ‘late application’ for Community Right to Buy if they want. CLS supports this proposal as the majority of sales and transfers of estates happen off market and in secret, making it difficult for communities to buy the land. However, this still won’t give communities enough time to register interest and submit an application and the size of the holding is still so large that it will not make much of a difference.
Their main critique of the bill is that it fails to address the central issue:
“As it stands, the drafted Bill focuses on land management rather than land ownership, although as it stands it risks making no meaningful difference to either. Ownership is the most important factor in deciding how land is used.”
What should be included
CLS argued for a much more robust bill. Some of their suggestions include:
• A public interest test rather than a transfer test. The landowner could be assessed at any stage of ownership on whether that are working in the overall interest of the public.
• Compulsory purchase on landowners who fail a public interest test and/or fail to complete a land management plan with the community.
• Needs to include urban Scotland so that communities can address the issues of vacant and derelict land and the housing crisis
• Limit to land ownership: no company, organisation or individual should be able to own more than 500 ha of land unless they can show it is in the public interest.
Source: https://www.communitylandscotland.org.uk/land-reform-campaign/
The legislation depends on the political will to implement it. The Scottish government has not shown this will. It all looks good on paper, as if they are challenging the concentration of private ownership, but very little is likely to happen.
Private landowners have a huge amount of power, and that includes the new ‘green’ lairds. They can easily argue that they are managing land for the public good. For example, Seafield and Strathspey Estates argued that land concentration is not a bad thing, as it may lead to more efficient management. Seafield and Strathspey Estates is a 35,000 ha (86,000 acres) enterprise which includes salmon beats on the River Spey, and is managed on behalf of the family of the Earl of Seafield. It said landowners were being blamed for the inefficiencies of local and central government. "There is a myth presented by individuals sponsoring land reform in Scotland that 'too many acres are owned by too few individuals.' It may be true that 'many acres are owned by few individuals' but there is very little evidence presented to show that this is a bad thing".
The organisation representing Scotland’s private land owners pays lip service to compliance with the spirit of the reforms. On the website of Scottish Land and Estates, they have set out a Landowners’ Commitment, setting out “good practice for landowners on how they can continue to operate their businesses, while contributing to the public good. It is flexible according to the nature and scale of individual situations, and can be used for all types and sizes of landholding.” See: https://www.scottishlandandestates.co.uk/about-us/landowners-commitment
The Scottish government, including the Greens, seem happy to believe the landowners, trusting them to do the right thing by the public. This can be seen in the watered down proposals in the 2024 Bill as well as the lukewarm implementation of the reforms so far.
Who owns the land matters!
Community Land Scotland is highly critical of the government’s land reforms initiatives and has launched its own campaign for radical land reform. “Scotland’s experience of land reform is often described as a journey, if that is the case then our journey is stalling and all but ground to a halt. Community ownership of land has flat lined since 2016/17 when the last piece of Land Reform legislation was introduced – only 16 hectares of land went into community ownership in 2021/22. Less than 3% of Scotland’s land is in community ownership and patterns of private landownership remain highly concentrated. Progress has slowed dramatically because the existing legislation is not working and soaring land prices make ownership the preserve of a privileged elite.” https://www.communitylandscotland.org.uk/scotlands-land-reform-journey-is-stalling/#:~:text=Less%20than%203%25%20of%20Scotland's,private%20landownership%20remain%20highly%20concentrated.
They have no time for the rhetoric of landowners who claim to be operating in the public interest when in fact profit is their main motive and everything they do is a public relations exercise. Who owns the land matters! Only community ownership will ensure that land is managed for the public god- both the community and the environment.

https://www.communitylandscotland.org.uk/land-reform-campaign/
Anarchist Communism and Land
Anarchist communists have a long history of fighting for land rights. They have much in common with the community land movement in Scotland with its rejection of private property and profit-motivated land management. However, the aims of nothing more than a complete revolutionary transformation of society.
The slogan ‘Land and Liberty’ has long been an anarchist slogan. It was the name of the Russian revolutionary organisation ‘Zemlya i Volya’ in 1878 and was used by the peasants in the Russian Revolution. When women marched in St Petersburg on the 8th of March, 1917, helping to kick off the revolution, the slogan was Bread, Land and Peace. ‘Tierra y Libertad’ was prominent in the Mexican and Spanish Revolutions and is still used today as the name of the Iberian Anarchist Federation paper.
It is not surprising that land is a key demand. Rural land workers represented the majority of the working population well into the 20th century in much of the world. Land ownership was concentrated in the hands of a few large landowners and people struggled to survive under this semi-feudal system. And it is still an important demand for many peasants and agricultural labourers around the world.
The anarchist communist Ricardo Flores Magon explains why land is crucial to anarchism:
“We want bread for all. We consider it absurd that a few people should possess the earth, and the many not have a place to lay down their heads for rest. We want, then, that the land be accessible to all, just the same as the air, the light, the warm sun rays are there for all creatures on earth. We consider it absurd that those who neither toil nor produce should enjoy all at the expense ‘of those who till and toil and have a life of misery...”
However, Magon made it clear that land was directly linked to liberty:
“We think that political liberty is a beautiful lie so long as it has not for its basis economic liberty and towards the conquest of that liberty our steps are directed... We demand that the proletariat of Mexico organize and by doing so enable itself to take part in the tremendous struggle that alone will liberate the proletariat of this world, the struggle which someday — maybe in the near future-will place all the goods of this earth within the reach and power of all human beings.”
Kropotkin also explained why a demand for land is so important. Land is basically part of the means of production. If workers do not have access to land they are unable to support themselves and must sell their labour to the capitalist/landowner. The revolution is therefore about expropriation of land and other means of production.
“We do not want to rob any one of his coat, but we wish to give to the workers all those things the lack of which makes them fall an easy prey to the exploiter, and we will do our utmost that none shall lack aught, that not a single man shall be forced to sell the strength of his right arm to obtain a bare subsistence for himself and his babes. This is what we mean when we talk of Expropriation; this will be our duty during the Revolution, for whose coming we look, not two hundred years hence, but soon, very soon.”
Expropriation is essential if the workers are to be free. Magon:
“In short, I see a society of workers economically free; owning themselves, because, at every step, they own the material on which they work; the land where the potatoes grow; the trees they fell and strip; the timber they fashion into limber; the houses into which the lumber goes, and so "ad infinitum." A society purged of tribute to the parasite.”
The Spanish Revolution: Expropriation and Collectivisation
The 1936-39 revolution in Spain provides one of the best examples of what can be achieved by workers when they take over the land. The revolution on the land was more extensive and more radical than that in the urban areas. Not only were Spain’s landowners rich and powerful but they were also notoriously conservative and authoritarian. They had opposed reform in every way, and had over the decades had financed violent suppression of both the CNT and the UGT. Collectivisation of the land was extensive covering almost two thirds of all the land in the Republican zone. In all, between five and seven million peasants were involved, the major areas being Aragon where there were 450 collectives, the Levant (the area around Valencia) with 900 collectives and Castile (the area surrounding Madrid) with 300 collectives. In the villages workshops were set up where the local trades-people could produce tools, furniture, etc. Bakers, butchers, barbers and so on also decided to collectivise. (Source: Kevin Doyle www.struggle.ws/talks/spain_feb99.html)
The essential features of collectivisation were:
• Large landowners expropriated.
• Voluntary participation in the collective.
• Different from Popular Front: land managed as a collective rather than dividing land up into many plots.
• Run on libertarian communist principles, from each according to their ability and to each according to their needs.
• Individuals and families still independent in the collective with own personal possessions.
Anarchist Communists in the land struggles today
We need to be centrally involved in these struggles, arguing strongly against private land ownership and for community and co-operative alternatives, both in urban and rural areas. However, we need to be wary of the whole use of the term ‘ownership’ which could mean that land is still exclusively owned but just with more people as owners. We also need to be wary of calls for State ownership. The aim has to be turning all land into a Commons, used and managed for the benefit of all- stewarded, rather than owned. Decision-making needs to involve everyone who has an interest in a place, even if they do not live there. Like in workplaces, we need to develop community self-organisation. Community ownership in Scotland, community gardens and housing co-operatives, are all examples of steps in the right direction. But they will remain nothing but steps with little impact on the overall system, if these struggles aren’t linked to a general revolutionary working class movement for anarchist communism.