While it is one thing to acknowledge that shifts to plant-based agriculture could allow for the conservation of over a third of all arable land globally while actually increasing food production, it is an entirely different one to imagine how this transition might play out within current capitalist economies which encourage extraction and economic productivity. 

 

One strategy to encourage the necessary transitions towards plant-based systems in conjunction with increased conservation can be found in the land trust model. Land trusts are often non-profit organizations that hold land on behalf of place based communities to serve as long term stewards for social and environmental purposes. In the case of agricultural land trusts, nonprofits assume ownership of agricultural land in service of community in place of speculative private ownership. Pairing this model with an emphasis on shifting livestock-based systems to plant-based ones with an added ethos of conservation has the capacity to address environmental and social crises plaguing society today, from increasing climate change and biodiversity loss to the egregious levels of consolidation and inequality. 

 

To this end, Global Roots works to establish land trusts which shift privately held land used for livestock production into communal land trusts focusing on plant-based systems thereby increasing conservation and opportunities for farmers while explicitly working to expand on a global commons for biodiversity more broadly. Below is a simplified model for transitioning 100 acres of livestock producing land to plant-based systems and conservation as well as a model being applied in the Dominican Republic at the RAÍCES Institute.