After decades of being involved in boundary conflicts I have developed a somewhat cautious optimisim to the possibility of resolution, although recently hearing the Dalai Lama referred to as a terrorist gives me some pause. Property line issues are generally analagous to more personal conflicts because people are emotionally tied to the earth that they inhabit. My room, my house, my yard, my forest... my world. All these spaces are felt as extensions of our physical body, and trespasses are perceived as blows. Wars and natural catastrophes are dramatic reminders of how we are not our real estate, but in peaceful times some of us are able to acquire personal spaces and build our dreams in wood and stone.

The land was here long before we arrived to claim it, and it will be here long after we are gone, but while we are able to serve the earth and allow it to support us, we can build well, with a good foundation and understanding of geography and structure and of the multiple diverse communities that share our living spaces.

Inevitably I consider Robert Frost

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulder in the sun,
And make gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there,
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Perilous times for Surveyors in India - I've been attacked by llamas and run off by drunk miners with shotguns, but never had to eat my shoes.

Jharkhand villagers beat up land surveyors sent by steel company

The war for land surfaced with a vicious intensity in Jharkhand when angry
villagers first thrashed Bhushan Power and Steel Company's surveyors, then
blackened their faces and made them chew their shoes before garlanding them
with slippers and parading them at Sarmohuda village in East Singhbhum
district.

The incident forced Bhushan Power and Steel Company Ltd to announce
suspension of its acquisition drive for its Rs 12,000 crore greenfield steel
plant in Potka block of the district. Apart from the three million tonne
greenfield steel plant, Bhushan also proposes to set up a 900 mw power
plant.

The three land surveyors, Yusuf Ahmed, Sahdeo Singh and Sheetal Kumar were
stopped by villagers who had gathered under the banner of Gram Ganraj
Parishad and Bhoomi Sudhar Andolan, and, after the thrashing, bound and
dragged them to the police station, a Bhushan Steel spokesperson said.

Bhoomi Sudhar Andolan convenor Ramesh Hansda alleged that the company was
conducting the land survey without permission from the district
administration, a charge denied by Bhushan Steel. This is the third and the
most vicious attack on Bhushan Steel's employees, with the last such assault
having taken place in June this year.

Reacting to the incident, Bhushan Steel's executive director for Jharkhand,
Paras Singh, said that the company has decided to suspend its land
identification and acquisition drive. "We will take up the issue with the
government which has assured us of all help to set up the plant," said
Singh.


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Jharkhand_villagers_beat_up_land_surveyors_sent_by_steel_co/articleshow/3477973.cms

Lost Surveyors?