David Osbiston, of Nattadon Road, Chagford, writes:

In support of Steward Community Woodland at Moretonhampstead.

As a permaculturist you learn to understand what supports life on this planet. Soil, and the organisms that inhabit it, are essential to life. Microbes, the micro-fungal layer, earthworms, insects, bees etc provide a symbiotic relationship to create healthy soil that release nutrients to plants which in turn feeds back to the soil.

Under our economics systems, soils have no quantifiable value, and are known as peripheries, and yet, without them, there is no life on this planet.

Our topsoil which takes 1,000 years to create 3cm, is fast disappearing, and it is estimated that in some parts of the world we only have 60 harvests left. The UK estimate fares slightly better, at 100 harvests.

As I look out of my window everything looks green, however, this masks the fact that farming practices in this country use the soil to hold plants upright while feeding them with oil based fertilisers. The pesticides, and nitrates, are killing the soil components, and then the top soil gets blown and washed away until there are no trace nutrients/minerals left. I own land on Dartmoor and the soil is degraded.

Organic farmers and growers know the value of the soil, and feed it, rather than the plants. Ploughing destroys the soil, releases carbon, and then it has to recover and reconnect. Yet we still plough on. Nature attempts to heal the scars.

True sustainability, means working with nature rather than against it, as it is nature that has enabled the planet and therefore humans to exist thus far. It’s the only model of sustainability we have.

Once our countryside was full of people working the land sustainably. Now it’s just empty fields with a lone tractor going back and forth.

The Steward Community Woodland embody all of the above and are sensitive and pro-active in maintaining contact with their land. The land that brings us all the resources, that we all need. They are pioneering living together cooperatively, as the soil does, so that we can remember how to live sustainably.

However, they are being judged according to the economic laws that have got the planet into such a mess. Instead of being lauded for their determination, sensitivity, intuition and vision, of what it is to be sustainable humans on this planet, they are constantly being threatened with eviction and have spent enormous amounts of money, time and energy, jumping through hoops, and defending their right to be there. This, despite having an assessed carbon footprint of 1/3 of the rest of us. Please recognise that living a simpler, more connected to land life, has intrinsic value in itself. Living simply, takes time. Imagine boiling a kettle without using fossil fuels. Growing, cutting, seasoning, storing and drying the wood takes a lot of time and organisation.

They are also integrated into our local communities, and the depth of feeling for them to remain is extremely high. Their successful crowdfunding and media coverage has connected their cause the length and breadth of the country.

They are a community, with different and complementary skills, and spend much time resolving how to live together, as not so long ago, we all did. This in stark contrast to isolated socio-economic units of family, with all its separate necessary inputs, pushing up resource use, and helping to make loneliness the disease of the 21st century.

I do not understand why a national park, which is here to conserve our landscape, is not more engaged with actively supporting an exemplar that they could help co-create, to learn better how to live together with the land. Simon Fairlie and George Monbiot were part of a group that I was a member of, called The Land is Ours, where we learnt about historical land use and its ownership and how we got to the ‘distribution’, and the disconnect that we have today.

After the Enclosures Act, it became no longer possible to live on Common Land, and subsequently, land you own. It is in this context that you can see the unnatural opposition to an educational project such as this. Simon came up with ‘15 Criteria for Sustainable Living’ which for me, are an exacting set of rules that helps to couch a project such as this.

These rules have been used in other land-based projects and are as relevant today, as the day they were written and could form part of DMD30, a policy for low-impact development in the countryside.

As Kevin McCloud, from Grand Designs, a keen advocate of sustainable housing and lifestyles, said of llamas, a similar community in mid-Wales, and I paraphrase, ‘this is a way of life for the 21st century that is pertinent; more than that it is a clarion call’. The planet just cannot sustain everyone living a lifestyle as we do here in the West.

If we are serious about sustainability, and the DNP would seem to be an advocate, given its local plan, working with Steward Community Woodland would represent a much-needed step forward. Restriction without innovation has no vision.

Our future can be a new possibility rather than a version of our past.

I wholeheartedly support the residents of Steward Community Woodland to remain and thrive for all our sakes.