Inter-generational assets - 1

At the heart of my discussion is the concept of inter-generational assets. These are assets that get passed down or across generations and contribute to the well-being of the recipients. They may be measured in financial terms, but if we are talking about environmental services then they are more likely to be sustained processes of some importance, such as carbon sequestration. Where I live there is much emphasis on private ownership of land, i.e. 'this' land is 'mine' (There is a very common sign on fences or in windows: Hands off Government, this land is mine). This is an indicator of the very simplistic idea of what we think we are, and what we think we control. 'This' land was here long before 'me', and will be long after. 'I' am therefore no more than a temporary occupant, one more sedentary than your average mammal, but one even more damaging than the beaver (I have a friend with a particular dislike of the beaver, for the damage that particular individuals of the species do to some of his young maples, which he views as inter-generational assets. 'What bloody use are they?' he asks of the beaver. After some thought the answer is clear - to make more beaver). We are beaver to the power of ten, given how we have stripped the land to grow something that we, rather than the beaver, can eat. Our agriculture has largely reduced environmental services from long-term cycles of naturally-sustainable processes to annual cycles of chemically-catalyzed rapid carbon flows, effluents, and other consequences which gradually impoverish the soil's ability to withstand our onslaught. We are really just stewards of the land, during our ownership, but what sort of stewardship is this? Another friend says 'We must leave this land in better condition than we found it'. That is a far better concept of stewardship, and one which can lead to the asking of the key question of 'What is land?' Land is not just the physical 20 acres of real estate. Land is processes, biodiversity, the functional interface between a gaseous atmosphere and a solid mineral base which sustains all beings (seas excepted) in their physical existence, and if we do not come to the realization that these sustain us as well, we are pretty well doomed. This 'land' therefore is the ultimate inter-generational asset.