Reinventing the Common Cross-boundary farming for a sustainable future

About this book

Across Australia, farmers and rural communities are seeking ways to salvage ailing land and struggling communities. Many farms are too small to be economically viable and region's environmental issues cannot usually be resolved within a single farm's boundaries.

This book suggests a potential solution, a possible means of achieving better land care, more sustainable and profitable production, and greater community. It argues that common property resource systems, where neighbouring landowners make decisions together to manage their land as a common region, should be set up, and shows how this can be done.

The authors, a scientist and specialist property lawyers, explain how the old idea of "commons" works and how it fits into modern Australian real property law. They recount the experience of four grazing families in the New England Tablelands who got together to form Tilbusters Commons on their adjoining properties. They finish with two chapters discussing the major legal issues, particularly business structures and leases, and including precedents.

Contents

Part I The Potential of Modern Agricultural Commons Australia's rural landscape crisis: The need for a different approach A grazing commons in rural Australia A future for contemporary commons Part II Historical and Contemporary Principles of Commons From the common fields of England to the rural Australian real property system: Applying common principles Principles of Common Property Resource Systems Part III Property Law for Commons Property law arrangements to support a Common Property Resource System Use and development of leases for a Common Property Resource System Bibliography/ Table of Cases/ Table of Statutes/ Index

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