Care for land or other resources held in trust for a community and for later users. The steward may use the resource but may not sell it or use it up.
Extended definition
A steward holds a resource on behalf of others. The rights that come with the role are rights of use, often called usufruct: the steward may work the land or draw on the resource, provided it passes on undiminished to those who come after.
The wiki uses the term in two places. In the account of PROUT, humanity holds collective stewardship over natural and industrial resources, and individuals hold usufructuary rights to use them without abusing them (PROUT and the BioConomy). In Ryan Orbuch’s proposal for Natural General Intelligence, stewardship of the planet is the purpose the model is built for.
Contrast with adjacent terms
- Ownership. Ownership in the market sense includes the right to sell what is owned and the right to use it up. A steward holds neither.
- Commons. A commons is a resource together with the community that governs it. Stewardship is the obligation carried by whoever holds or uses the resource.
Related terms
Provenance
Stub entry created 27 September 2026 in the Quartz Sanitation run, to give a page to links from the PROUT essay and the Ryan Orbuch page that pointed at no page. Written from general reference knowledge and the wiki’s own uses of the term. First-pass entry: sections require enrichment from the underlying project documents.