While exclusive, unitary land ownership by a human or entity (e.g., government, church, or corporation) may seem like a universal concept that has always been a fact of life, it is not. In fact, land ‘ownership’ in the form most of us are accustomed to nowadays is a European concept that was imposed on almost all peoples of the world through European imperialism beginning in the late 1400s. 

Before the Europeans began to colonize others, in most places around the world, land — with all its ecological resources, such as, rivers, trees, grasses, animals, minerals, etc. — constituted commons, to be used sustainably and equitably for the benefit of all members of a community. The commons were used for sustainable activities, including grazing by animals, household and small-scale agroecological use of river water, timber felling for building houses and making commodities, harvesting of parts of plants for medicinal purposes, gathering tubers and fruits for food security, etc.

Humans were stewards of land, not owners. 

However, in the mid-1400s in England, a process of enclosure began; enclosure being the ‘legal’ mechanism that expropriated the commons from England’s peoples, aggregating them and putting them to new (not necessarily local) use.^[1] It is the enclosure of the commons that led to the possibility of private property and the conceptualization of land as a commodity that could be ‘owned’ by humans, not a complex living ecological web (ecoweb) that has inherent dignity and value, deserving to exist without being harmed or destroyed. Through the widespread use of this ‘legal tool’ of private property, along with other legal and religious concepts delineating a hierarchy of human worth, European imperialists and colonizers felt justified to ‘own’ the lands of their peoples and those of other peoples across the world, and therefore, to have the ‘right’ to exploit without replenishing the living and non-living components of these lands (extractivism).^[2]

Enclosure of the commons over the past almost six centuries has caused the loss of self-reliance of communities who used to be able to generate the commodities they needed to live from their local ecological webs (ecowebs) (see Box 2 in [3]). This loss of self-reliance has led to widespread food and livelihood insecurity, loss of ecoweb-linked identities and Knowledge-Technologies-Practices (KTP), poverty and ill-health, and the mass exodus from rural areas to increasingly overcrowded cities and towns. In short, the enclosure of the commons has led to inequity on a scale not hitherto experienced. 

In addition, because the enclosure of the commons has ‘legally’ enabled the irreversible extractivism of living and non-living resources on, under, and above land, progressively worsening ecocide plagues our planet, leading to the climate crisis, species loss, drastic changes in weather patterns, and the droughts, floods, hurricanes, fires, and rising sea levels that have ensued.

FiveBecomings (Pañchabhūmi) projects aim to reverse the enclosure of the commons by creating abundantly resourced commons once more, so that communities can re-establish their ecology-rooted self-reliance.^[4]  

What Constitutes a FiveBecomings Commons?

For the FiveBecomings projects, a commons (or samudāyikā) is defined as land that has the following characteristics:

• The land — and the ecological and other resources on it — serves a beneficiary community (i.e., all members of all households of 10-30 villages within a 5-10 km radius of the land (the Community (or samudāy)).
• All members of the Community have access to the land, as long as they follow the mutually agreed upon guidelines of FiveBecomings, namely (a) collaborative work, (b) cooperative benefit, and (c) regenerative and equitable use. 
• Every household in the Community has stewardship and decision-making capability over the land (note: the Community may not have legal ownership over the land, e.g., government land, but may instead have long-term lease rights to the land).
• Every member of the Community has a responsibility to maintain the ecological health of the land, ensuring that present and future generations can rely on the land for their wellbeing and survival.

How Does FiveBecomings Work?

Every FiveBecomings project begins with a site (land that is degraded and does not have ecological abundance, i.e., little water, few plants, poor soil quality, etc.) that is located within 5-10 km of a cluster of 10-30 villages (the Community) (Fig. 1). Because of the scarcity of local ecological resources needed for self-reliance, villagers of the Community are forced to leave their villages to look for work in nearby cities (as daily migrant laborers) or elsewhere (e.g., Villager 1 in Fig. 1).

Figure 2. Original art by Kakoli Mitra: 'Implementing a FiveBecomings project by collaboratively transforming an unresourced commons into a FiveBecomings resourced commons,' digital art (2025).

Once a FiveBecomings project begins, the Śramani Institute — together with a local nonprofit organization (LNPO) and the Community — ensures that the site comes under the stewardship of the Community, thereby becoming an unresourced commons for the Community. Figure 2 shows how the Community, guided by the Śramani Institute and the LNPO, collaboratively work to transform the unresourced commons into a FiveBecomings resourced commons. 

As the unresourced commons gradually becomes transformed into a FiveBecomings resourced commons, Community members are able to rely progressively more on the ecological resources being generated on the commons, leading to significant changes in Community choices. For example: (a) fewer villagers leave to find work, instead helping to transform the commons (e.g., Villager 2, Fig. 2); (b) villagers implement aspects of the FiveBecomings model in their own villages through learnings gleaned from the commons (i.e., KTP transfer from the commons to each village via villagers, e.g., Villager 3, Fig. 2); and (c) members of the same and different villages begin working collaboratively on the commons (e.g., Villagers 4, Fig. 2).

When the FiveBecomings commons becomes fully and abundantly resourced, Community members are able to locally generate a large majority of the commodities and services they need by regeneratively using the ecological resources on their FiveBecomings commons and in their villages, thereby re-establishing self-reliance.

[1] C. Harris, Enclosing the English Commons: Property, Productivity and the Making of Modern Capitalism, Global History of Capitalism Project (Oxford Centre for Global History, University of Oxford): November 2022 (2022).

[2] K. Mitra, 424 Years and Counting: the Global System of Corporate Extractivism (1 of 3), Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh092024-010a (24 Sep., 2024) (https://ecosymbiont.org/earth/content/systems/systems-reform/424-years-and-counting-the-global-system-of-corporate-extractivism-1-of-3).

[3] K. Mitra, Local-Global Benefits of Rural FiveBecomings Projects Designed for Community Self-Reliance (1 of 2), Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh032025-022 (18 Mar., 2025) (https://ecosymbiont.org/earth/content/systems/ecoweb-rooted-framing/local-global-benefits-of-rural-fivebecomings-projects-designed-for-community-self-reliance-1-of-2).

[4] K. Mitra, Reestablishing Integrated Self-Reliant Wellbeing for Communities: Implementing FiveBecomings, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh012025-001 (9 Jan., 2025) (https://ecosymbiont.org/earth/content/regenerative/human-ecoweb-integration/reestablishing-integrated-self-reliant-wellbeing-for-communities-implementing-fivebecomings).