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#1 Natural Commons and #2 Cultural Commons
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#1 Natural Commons
What's shared by all, and owned by none? The Commons. I'm Jan Edwards and this is the Tapestry of the Commons.
What do you think of when you hear the word Commons? Maybe a town square, or the dining hall on campus. You could think of the House of Commons, or the woods in the Robin Hood story. Or even a phrase like "Common Sense."
Some Commons are gifts of Nature, like water, land, plants and animals. We share these Natural Commons with all the other living creatures on the planet. This Natural Wealth comes to us free -- just for being born. And we depend on it to live, the same as every other living thing.
The Natural Commons are interconnected. Science is showing us more and more, you can't have one without the others. Though Nature is very resilient its not infinite...it can be used up and destroyed, as we are finding out.
We all depend on this Common life support system. So, how can we pass it on healthy and intact to the future generations of all the creatures of the earth? Where do we begin to save our natural world? It starts with understanding the relationship between human beings and the other parts of the natural world. How do we really fit together? What is the human role in the bigger plan?
Like all of nature, we humans are a part of the Commons. We owe our very life to them. But we don't own them. The Commons are not Property. They are much more than merely raw materials or resources. The Commons are the shared gifts of life.
The Tapestry of the Commons is made possible by the Alliance
for Democracy.
To learn more about the Commons visit our website at www.TapestryoftheCommons.org
I'm Jan Edwards
More Information on the Natural Commons
#2 Cultural Commons
If you're listening to the radio or on the internet, you can
thank the Commons.
I'm Jan Edwards and this is the Tapestry of the Commons.
When someone mentions the Commons, often what comes to mind is a place in nature like a forest or wetland. But people also create Commons. Our human ancestors built a rich culture for us to share and add to. This is our Cultural Commons. And it's free to all human beings on the planet.
Language, music, cooking and art; from the wheel to the internet, these Commons are the building blocks of human Culture. Our culture has been able to develop in all directions, because of this shared treasure trove of ideas, skills, inventions and inspiration.
But there is danger ahead for the Cultural Commons. Here's
one example:
For generations, farmers in India selected grains to produce
a specific type of rice. It was called Basmati for the region
where it was grown. These farmers never tried to patent the rice.
It was their contribution to the cultural commons of all humanity.
But that didn't keep Rice Tec, an American Corporation from filing a patent to claim Basmati rice as its own private property. The farmers would have to pay to grow the rice and could not save the seed from year to year. To stop the corporation, the Indian government had to step in and file protections for the rice.
When you hear people say that more and more parts of our public domain are being privatized, this is what they mean. Its called Intellectual Property, but is it a smart idea to take our Cultural Common Wealth and turn it into Private Property?
The Tapestry of the Commons is made possible by the Alliance
for Democracy.
To learn more about the Commons visit our website at www.TapestryoftheCommons.org
I'm Jan Edwards
More Information on the Cultural Commons
More Information on the Basmati Rice Patenting