I agree this is a travesty, but then England is locked into an essentially feudal politics of land ownership (as well as a feudal political system). But don’t confuse England with Britain. In Scotland we have some of the most enlightened access legislation in Europe, including the right to “wild camping”.
Wild habitats are being degraded, there's a 70% decline in native species, some are endangered. Moorlands need less pressure, not random camping, they are a fragile habitat, moorland bird and animal species are shy and subject to disturbance, nutrient enrichment from human waste degrades the moors further, non moorland plant seeds are introduced from peoples clothing, dogs fur, boot and tyre treads. Some of the degradation can be prevented if people keep to recognised paths and there are restrictions as to where they can camp.
All wild campers want are freebies, they don't want to contribute to an area, just take, if they want to camp go to a campsite, where there are toilets, parking places and rubbish bins, they won't because they have to pay.
I'm someone who supports a number of conservation organisations with deeds not words, for the last 50 plus years I've taken part in surveys, of all types of wildlife and plants. I do not subscribe to the weirdos who regard the countryside as a boost to their ego entertaining a lot of tourists with myths and legends
My politics are well left of centre and I can't be bothered about the royal soap opera, the lacky of hedge fund managers, I'm not.
Some will not want to pay, no doubt, Jim. Is that so bad? However, I hear your conviction - and appreciate your commitment to conservation. The wider point for me is the corralling of our culture into defined and more restrictive 'approved' zones of operation; this inevitably leads to reduced imagination and fewer possibilities: surely these very qualities of imagination and radical possibility are what we need to bring to bear on our current concerns - seen by most of us (as resigned or righteous followers, I assert) as intractable problems. Other freer, more flexible minds may - or may not - want to camp freely on the moors. But restricting this privilege by a minuscule minority will harden attitudes and divide us even more from our creative, solution seeking nature loving selves.
Unfortunately some people who visit the countryside are anti social louts, parking on private land, driving off road, lighting fires, lighting disposable barbecues on picnic tables scorching them, leaving litter and excrement, letting dogs run loose.
Having worked as a countryside ranger most of my life, I've had to deal with such behaviour on a regular basis, I've been assaulted, spat at, and sworn at,just for asking people to behave in a reasonable manner.
With the right to roam comes the responsibility of behaving properly. If people go out in a town and drop litter, or generally behave in an anti social manner, then you would expect consequences.
I support access to the countryside, I have lived in the countryside most of my life, I'm a reasonably competent field naturalist and spend a lot of time out and about. However some areas are at bursting point and anti social behaviour by some is causing problems, it is not just up to rangers and wardens to make sure people behave, rangers would much prefer to "help and enhance" peoples visit.
There are some people, as it says in the article, who will see this only as a conflict between The People, who are being unjustly excluded, and The Rich, who are taking everything for themselves. If you care about something non-human, and complain about the destruction that 'The People' can do to it, then they'll accuse you of being wedded to a colonial ideal of untrammeled wilderness that has never truly existed anyway. They think you want to keep people out because you just irrationally don't like people.
I don't know about you, but I find those people incredibly irritating. I want to say 'no, I don't care about 'untrammeled wilderness', I just want there to be animals in the forest and for those animals to not be dead and the forest not to be on fire. All those unjustly excluded people are incredibly dangerous and maybe it is hypocritical and unfair to say so but it's still true.
For background I have been working on conservation in another country where restricting people's access to the forest is about their material livelihoods as well as just balm for their souls but where it really does look like those same people really are going to go in with a bunch of snares and trap all the animals until there aren't any animals left.
The thing is, though, we're not in charge. It's easy to think how we might manage things if we were but we're not. So if you say, right now, 'the problem is that wild campers drop litter' I don't think you're actually supporting 'nature', you're supporting this hedge fund manager and his pheasant-shooting friends and customers and people like him. And they will treat Dartmoor how they want also, like it's theirs to do with as they like because, according to the law, it is. Sure there are protections from the goverment on what they can do in the National Park (or even outside it) but if you stop people going in there then the people don't care so much what happens there. So then they can lobby the government to remove the protections and, slowly over time, are more likely to succeed. And them maybe they decide that they don't like pheasant shooting any more and they can put the land to some more economically productive use. Then it will just be "the rangers vs the world" and - well - how many of you are there and do you have any weapons?
I mean, I'm sure you know this. It's just that everybody who has a voice in this debate seems to like pretending that part of the problem will just go away so you come to expect that. Either they ignore the problems with having wild places belong to all the people, or they ignore the problems with having them belong to a few powerful people, or they pretend that they can just belong to nobody because they say that they can. Like just about every other issue, you're supposed to pretend it's a no-brainer and it's easy to choose a side.
Now on Dartmoor you have people appealing to something that isn't human at all - some old spirit of the moors. I've been reading about that kind of thing in Latin America and wondering if it can possibly work. It's bewildering to see it in England. Of course it's easy to respond that it's all a fantasy: Old Crockern doesn't exist and that's that. But if there was the slightest chance that there was anything at all more to it, then it would make so much difference. If you care about nature, you wouldn't have to be aligned just with a big group of humans, or with a small group of powerful humans who can do whatever they like. It would actually be possible to have some power on our side that wasn't human at all. That would be a big deal. Of course wishes aren't horses, but perhaps its worth a try when everything else seems so long-term impossible.
I agree this is a travesty, but then England is locked into an essentially feudal politics of land ownership (as well as a feudal political system). But don’t confuse England with Britain. In Scotland we have some of the most enlightened access legislation in Europe, including the right to “wild camping”.
Wild habitats are being degraded, there's a 70% decline in native species, some are endangered. Moorlands need less pressure, not random camping, they are a fragile habitat, moorland bird and animal species are shy and subject to disturbance, nutrient enrichment from human waste degrades the moors further, non moorland plant seeds are introduced from peoples clothing, dogs fur, boot and tyre treads. Some of the degradation can be prevented if people keep to recognised paths and there are restrictions as to where they can camp.
All wild campers want are freebies, they don't want to contribute to an area, just take, if they want to camp go to a campsite, where there are toilets, parking places and rubbish bins, they won't because they have to pay.
I'm someone who supports a number of conservation organisations with deeds not words, for the last 50 plus years I've taken part in surveys, of all types of wildlife and plants. I do not subscribe to the weirdos who regard the countryside as a boost to their ego entertaining a lot of tourists with myths and legends
My politics are well left of centre and I can't be bothered about the royal soap opera, the lacky of hedge fund managers, I'm not.
Some will not want to pay, no doubt, Jim. Is that so bad? However, I hear your conviction - and appreciate your commitment to conservation. The wider point for me is the corralling of our culture into defined and more restrictive 'approved' zones of operation; this inevitably leads to reduced imagination and fewer possibilities: surely these very qualities of imagination and radical possibility are what we need to bring to bear on our current concerns - seen by most of us (as resigned or righteous followers, I assert) as intractable problems. Other freer, more flexible minds may - or may not - want to camp freely on the moors. But restricting this privilege by a minuscule minority will harden attitudes and divide us even more from our creative, solution seeking nature loving selves.
Unfortunately some people who visit the countryside are anti social louts, parking on private land, driving off road, lighting fires, lighting disposable barbecues on picnic tables scorching them, leaving litter and excrement, letting dogs run loose.
Having worked as a countryside ranger most of my life, I've had to deal with such behaviour on a regular basis, I've been assaulted, spat at, and sworn at,just for asking people to behave in a reasonable manner.
With the right to roam comes the responsibility of behaving properly. If people go out in a town and drop litter, or generally behave in an anti social manner, then you would expect consequences.
I support access to the countryside, I have lived in the countryside most of my life, I'm a reasonably competent field naturalist and spend a lot of time out and about. However some areas are at bursting point and anti social behaviour by some is causing problems, it is not just up to rangers and wardens to make sure people behave, rangers would much prefer to "help and enhance" peoples visit.
There are some people, as it says in the article, who will see this only as a conflict between The People, who are being unjustly excluded, and The Rich, who are taking everything for themselves. If you care about something non-human, and complain about the destruction that 'The People' can do to it, then they'll accuse you of being wedded to a colonial ideal of untrammeled wilderness that has never truly existed anyway. They think you want to keep people out because you just irrationally don't like people.
I don't know about you, but I find those people incredibly irritating. I want to say 'no, I don't care about 'untrammeled wilderness', I just want there to be animals in the forest and for those animals to not be dead and the forest not to be on fire. All those unjustly excluded people are incredibly dangerous and maybe it is hypocritical and unfair to say so but it's still true.
For background I have been working on conservation in another country where restricting people's access to the forest is about their material livelihoods as well as just balm for their souls but where it really does look like those same people really are going to go in with a bunch of snares and trap all the animals until there aren't any animals left.
The thing is, though, we're not in charge. It's easy to think how we might manage things if we were but we're not. So if you say, right now, 'the problem is that wild campers drop litter' I don't think you're actually supporting 'nature', you're supporting this hedge fund manager and his pheasant-shooting friends and customers and people like him. And they will treat Dartmoor how they want also, like it's theirs to do with as they like because, according to the law, it is. Sure there are protections from the goverment on what they can do in the National Park (or even outside it) but if you stop people going in there then the people don't care so much what happens there. So then they can lobby the government to remove the protections and, slowly over time, are more likely to succeed. And them maybe they decide that they don't like pheasant shooting any more and they can put the land to some more economically productive use. Then it will just be "the rangers vs the world" and - well - how many of you are there and do you have any weapons?
I mean, I'm sure you know this. It's just that everybody who has a voice in this debate seems to like pretending that part of the problem will just go away so you come to expect that. Either they ignore the problems with having wild places belong to all the people, or they ignore the problems with having them belong to a few powerful people, or they pretend that they can just belong to nobody because they say that they can. Like just about every other issue, you're supposed to pretend it's a no-brainer and it's easy to choose a side.
Now on Dartmoor you have people appealing to something that isn't human at all - some old spirit of the moors. I've been reading about that kind of thing in Latin America and wondering if it can possibly work. It's bewildering to see it in England. Of course it's easy to respond that it's all a fantasy: Old Crockern doesn't exist and that's that. But if there was the slightest chance that there was anything at all more to it, then it would make so much difference. If you care about nature, you wouldn't have to be aligned just with a big group of humans, or with a small group of powerful humans who can do whatever they like. It would actually be possible to have some power on our side that wasn't human at all. That would be a big deal. Of course wishes aren't horses, but perhaps its worth a try when everything else seems so long-term impossible.