Thanks to an anonymous donation, 3E has been able to buy three additional lots contiguous to the seven it purchased in the past year. The new lots, added to the core 3E land, will consolidate the 3E holdings to form a continuous stretch of forest that will be preserved in perpetuity for the 3E mission as part of the planned land trust (fiducie d’utilité sociale, FUS). With the new additions, the 3E land will cover 110 acres 44.5 hectares) representing all of the local biomes, stretching from an old growth maple forest on the side of a mountain through a tapestry of mixed deciduous and conifer forest to low-lying wetlands, and including a crystalline trout stream and a small stretch of lakefront. The newest lots contain an ecologically significant marsh. In just the first few days after the purchase, an otter, a mink, deer, and a snapping turtle were sighted there, as well as signs of beaver and bear. The area is prime habitat for the endangered wood tortoise (although we have yet to verify its actual presence).
Unfortunately, against our entreaties the sellers made some gashes into the forest just before we signed, with the aim of demonstrating to potential buyers where homes might be built. They illegally bulldozed through a peripheral area of wetland. The Landcare Affinity Group will look into regeneration techniques for these cuts, as part of its activities exploring collective approaches to forest stewardship on unowned land – land that has not only been withdrawn from the property market but, once it has attained the status of an FUS, will fall entirely outside the legal category of property. The FUS, according to legal scholars, constitutes a “gap” in Québec property law.
In the coming days, 3E will hold an on-site event with remote participation on the concept of “giving the land back to itself” that we have been developing to explore how to creatively occupy the gap. This will be the second iteration of the fall “Perceptual Ferment” event dedicated to constructing this concept. This year’s iteration is organized around the composition of an upcoming special issue of the journal Inflexions: A Journal for Research Creation. Inflexions is a pioneering journal – the first worldwide dedicated to research-creation – that was founded by SenseLab in 2007. It has been dormant since Covid. 3E is recontinuing the journal. The form of the journal has always been not only about research-creation, but an embodiment of it. With upcoming issue 12, the active research-creation element will take the form of exploring how the participatory 3E “anarchive” (fuit.es) can serve as a publishing platform while retaining its experimental edge.
