My non native friend is asleep and I don’t wanna disturb him so y’all get my thoughts on #LandBack instead

So this was spurred by a convo on rivers and land conservation in the US and trading childhood stories of inland lakes

I was appalled to learn that the Great Lakes are polluted to hell and beyond

Like c’mon. I swam here as a child

It’s pristine. You can drink it.

Photo is mine.

In the summer I went to Snåasen Jaevrie and we could drink and swim in there too

Both places are freshwater

Gah something went wrong with the last@image upload. The image description is a collage of a lot of different nature. Some is fresh water. Some is flowers. I can’t actually see it myself - I just know some has the lake in question in it.

It didn’t occur to me that land and water protections were so bad that that is impossible in the grand lakes

They’re huge bodies of water. I heard they have their own weather eco systems for crying out loud

So if you’ve listened to Indigenous people or care about nature conservation you know something about this

So did I.

But what I wasn’t prepared for was the fact when it comes to your personal relationships -

If you care about the land you live on, people will call you a “pussy” for doing so

Or other gendered insults

On a personal level this is awful

Because a lot happens if you’re pressured to change your opinion by people you have personal relationships with

i had to eat dinner in the middle of this

its been a slow going day for sure

anyhow: So my ideas of land ownership was shaped by freedom to roam laws

the public's right to access certain public or privately owned land, lakes, and rivers for recreation and exercise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam

Note: I haven't read up on Sami land rights vs Norway's freedom to roam laws, so I will NOT be opining on that

bottom line is, I found land ownership weird

like, we had a cabin

ok, I could get down with owning that patch of land

but the land surrounding it? that we walked on to get there? someone else owning that has always been incomprehensible to em

this inability to grasp why it should be necessary for a landowner / the municipality / the state to own the larger landscape just ???

this has since spiraled into kind of an obsession, further spurred on by my interest in arcade flying game Ace Combat Zero's plot line

in short: our comrade defects to A World With No Boundaries, a paramilitary org which aspired to eliminate national borders, which the group believed to be the root cause of war

Coincidentally, A World With No Boundaries is an org Ive written fanfic about

... needless to say, this + my confusion on why we are told we NEED to own land to survive has had a huge influence on me

(Image is the ideology for A World With No Boundaries)

And so when I went to visit friends in Canada and we went to a nature reserve

I met a park ranger and got into a discussion with her

Reacting to her saying she owned 80 acres of land and I was like "..but why"

Conclusion was is that freedom to roam laws "sound Indigenous" and she just... wanted the land and wanted no one to trespass on it

so that was a convo I thought about an entire year

Until I met my non-native friend, that one I talked rivers/lakes conservation with

fwiw, we are both _pissed_ at the environmental pollution and lack of governmental action

the important diff was that their opinion of owning land ... got me thinking

would land ownership for the sole purposes of conservation work?

is that the closest a settler colonial state can get to "responsible stewardship"?

I don't imagine land rights being returned to us Indigenous folks anytime soon.

@xodanix3 and @lilrednacho has written excellent pieces on all these topics over on their Patreons, go check that out

And it IS a fact that the UN has said that Indigenous stewardship of land protects the environment

So here's a case that last time I heard the EU wants to overturn: https://www.highnorthnews.com/en/girjas-sami-village-won-swedish-supreme-court-case-may-have-consequences-other-countries

I'm just saying, if the UN has said, as loads of Indigenous people have said -- that we are the best stewards and caretakers of the natural world -- honor. your. damn. treaties.

science calls you to. youth everywhere calls you to action.

so here's the thing also.

land back is also tied to this (read the thread!): https://twitter.com/xodanix3/status/1350824853780090882

we need to mainstream a counter narrative that doesn't separate housing/resources/land ownership in favor of capitalism

bc rn, the story I grew up with, as a Norwegian, was "own a house or an apartment to secure your future".

bc "owning you're investing in yourself and not someone else"

as housing becomes less and less affordable and the Norwegian model of ownership becomes more unattainable, following the rest of the world, this narrative is used to shame ppl

if you can't own your house, then fail, shame

Failure and shame are the antithesis of the capitalistic success

and people who get hit by this are made to feel as though they are lesser, undeserving of community, and capitalistic policies go full force to ensure they stay down and outta sight

idk, it's almost like....... there are direct links to being stewards of land and to the wellbeing of global communities

So, @Maadtoe pointed this out to me:

"being unsettled is bad bc nomadic huntresses and gatherers are Bad. Watching their free and uninhibited life is unsettling - it temps people to leave the settlement."

https://www.instagram.com/p/CEhvuMejZon/ 

dïhte has a point -- "settling", and all similar such words, have positive connotations

"settling down" as in marriage, w a steady partner = safety, for instance.

and "unsettling" = eerie, unknown, kind of feel.

so it has also occurred to me that while #landback makes sense to me

there is a huge gap to close, as I return to this earlier tweet: https://twitter.com/gullvinge/status/1350829495134150658?s=20

Many can't see how this relates to themselves personally

Or if they can, are powerless to act - by design

maybe you, like me, lived in housing which could never be taken for granted

maybe you, like me, are acutely aware of the fact you live or die at the mercy of your government