Abstract
The land is a precious resource, vital for humanity’s survival, yet it is under threat from deforestation, climate change and biodiversity loss. Despite awareness and acknowledgment of the need to tackle these issues, little truly effective has been implemented to-date. This research proposes property theory synthesised with sustainability as the mechanism to affect the change needed to protect the land, as part of the environment. Two clear limbs form the framework of this research: the theory of property and sustainability. Property theory provides an already acknowledged mechanism for change and private property has been selected to reflect humanity’s resistance to modify its behaviour (most notably our reluctance to restrict consumption); to facilitate a new approach using a familiar and recognisable paradigm; and to create a modified model (described as the Land Model) implemented through legislation Sustainability then forms the basis of this new restriction, developed through a critical analysis of sustainability and sustainability indicators (the means of measuring sustainability), ultimately placing a restriction (described here as the Sustainability Restriction) on the rate of biodiversity loss, change in land use and tree cover loss. Strong sustainability, with its emphasis on the land as part of the environment, underpins the ethical approach taken in this research. Finally, post-devolution legislation in England and Wales (together Britain, the geographical area selected for this research) is analysed to propose that Wales would best support the use of the new paradigm. This research advocates pro-active change but, acknowledging that good intentions rarely reach fruition through radical change, a series of incentives are proposed to encourage reactive change. The proposal is for slow, but steady, ground-up change: a velvet property revolution.