Tending the Land
Tending the land constitutes the most basic occupation of people in the Fifth World. They grow or hunt, and gather food as they tend the land, but they generally consider tending the land — not harvesting from it — their primary occupation and responsibility. With little to no division of labor, this defines just about every individual’s life.
#Implementation
The specifics of what this means vary widely from one community and territory to the next, but common practices include deeply intentional hunting (for example, of over-abundant animals), harvesting of plants that are over-competing, cautious and skillful burning that opens up mosaics of meadow and forest, planting the seeds of trees, and creating or expanding small landscape features such as channels and pools. They do this in small, incremental ways that most of their civilized ancestors would not recognize. They speak to specific places, ask them what they need, and in fulfilling these wishes they expand their resilience and natural abundance. Following this practice over generations helped the world recover from mass extinction and ecological collapse, creating a world of abundance which, if diminished compared to the ancient past, still seems like paradise to the humans living in it.
Every community seems to have a slightly different system for apportioning the responsibility for this all-consuming task. Nomadic communities wonder how the land fares “over there,” looking after their country in great looping journeys, while communities that grow gardens and live in villages tend to assign responsibility for a particular grove or garden to specific persons or small groups.
#The Wild
Most communities designate certain places as “off-limits.” In some ways, these places might resemble the wilderness areas of old, or what permaculture defines as “zone 5.” People in the Fifth World often speak of them as larders and seed jars of the imagination and spirit. In such places other-than-human persons find the space to live, sleep, and dream in private, ensuring their health, abundance, and survival — and so the health, abundance, and survival of the human community as well.