Stories from an Appalachian Community

The collection of lectures and publications from the Schumacher Center for a New Economics represents some of the foremost voices on a new economics.

When asked by Vice President Gore what she would do if elected President, Marie Cirillo said she would introduce a program of land reform. For thirty-three years she has lived and worked in Clairfield, Tennessee, located in a valley hemmed in by two big mountains and made up of a network of twelve unincorporated communities, most of which are former coal camps. Her goal has been to gain some measure of economic self-sufficiency for the Appalachian people whose land and livelihood were wasted as a consequence of the extractive practices of absentee corporate owners. Cirillo's first task was to regain control of the land for human settlement and restoration by establishing the Woodland Community Land Trust. Her struggle for and with the people of the region to achieve that purpose makes her one of the true heroes in the effort to reverse the patterns of globalization.