Dear commoners,

we plan to edit an ambitious successor of The Wealth of the Commons.

This will take time and we still don’t know how exactly it will look like.

But we know two things: Commons are better described with a verb, than with a noun: commoning and 2. commoners are better story-teller than we are. So, we wish to include (at least) 30 brilliant commons in the book and create a much longer list! That is: We are looking for social innovations or long lasting processes that can teach us to what extend sharing is caring, how stewarding and enhancing the commons works and what can be done to produce first and foremost commons instead of commodities.

Please, help us sharing with a broader public the state of commoning today, by sharing with us projects/ ideas/ initiatives and processes that make the idea of the commons visible. Wherever in the world.

Thanks a lot!

Silke (for the editing team)

Here are some of my favorites so far:

• CECOSESOLA, Venezuela
• PROTECTING OUR SEED COMMONS /SEED COPYLEFT (ongoing process)/ Germany
• WIKIHOUSE or JACK IN THE BOX (need to thing about it)
  
• TERRE DE LIENS, SECURING ACCESS TO LAND TO NEW FARMERS, FRANCE, Véronique Rioufoul, Sjoerd Wartena (tags: land, property/ownership/ use rights)
• OSE
• PROTEI or even PREMIUM COLA (quite different, I know, still need to think about it)
• KAKULA HEALERS (Bushbuckridge, South Africa, collective of over 300 healers from 2 provinces in South Africa, they pool their knowledge and resources)
• LIBRE OFFICE ( community successfully took back key product that was bought by Oracle (OpenOffice) LO & Wiki Voyage: the software/content was open source, the for-profit controlled only the trademarks and domain names, and employed some of the people working on the projects; still it was a real struggle for the community to rebuild successful projects around the open parts)
• GUASSA COMMUNITY-BASED CONSERVATION AREA, Menz Community; Ethiopia „Guassa area is managed by the Menz as a common property resource area that can be used for grazing. A 400 year+ old grazing commons helps protecting the world’s most endangered carnivore (firewood and grass collection) (grasslands, Africa, property regimes)

… to be continued