Thread by @MoleyMole01

A 🧵 on the awful High Court decision to effectively end the common right to wild camp on #Dartmoor, and a backward step for the #RightToRoam and access for #WildCamping that now puts power back in the hands of wealthy landowners inside a designated UK National Park…

Wild camping (i.e. short stay, small group, carry everything there and back, leave no footprint) has historically been understood to permitted on #Dartmoor in designated areas without needing the land owner’s permission

https://twitter.com/moleymole01/status/1602201529745907712?s=21&t=3Wp_cbxZ7jqWd1-GiUw6yg

Wild camping is the realm of hikers and backpackers. The rules ensure that the use is temporary, unobtrusive and untraceable once they move on. #Dartmoor has been the *only* UK National Park to allow this freedom and is seen as a role model to help widen access in other NPs…

…until today’s decision to withdraw the right which now removes #Dartmoor’s unique selling point. The common enjoyment of the moor for outdoor recreation has long been established, but this legal ‘clarification’ now removes wild camping from that interpretation.

Lockdown unfortunately illustrated the worst side of freedom. The undeniable health and mental well-being benefits of access to the great outdoors became essential, but limited travel brought large groups in big tents pitched right next to the roads, leaving rubbish behind them.

Lockdown camping was not wild camping. It was just inappropriate fly-camping without any infrastructure to support it. (There are proper campsites with toilet blocks and wheelie bins for that sort of camping, but you do have to pay, and most were closed for the pandemic)

Increased lockdown footfall overwhelmed ecologically sensitive places like Wistman’s Wood and Bellever Forest. Too much freedom of access by large numbers of people in highly accessible areas threatened to destroy the very places they’d come to see.

#Dartmoor may look ‘natural’ but, like much of the UK countryside, there is no true wilderness and it has been managed by humans and changed gradually over millennia - layers of history affected by felling, dwelling, farming, grazing, burning, planting, enclosure and now leisure.

Leisure is admittedly part of the problem. Efforts of the #RightToRoam campaign to rightly widen access are often undermined by increased visitor footfall not following the rules: freedom to visit also comes with the responsiblity to tread lightly - and to clear up afterwards.

https://twitter.com/dartmoormag/status/993483289762713601

It’s not just visitors’ rubbish - unfettered access brings uncontrolled dogs off leads wrecking bird nesting sites and killing livestock. Birds like Curlews are in decline and while farming practices are a major factor, the increase in dog ownership also poses a genuine threat.

https://twitter.com/dartmoornpa/status/973974644331032581

It is true that major conservation successes have occurred on private land, protected away from the hoi polloi. It is equally true that some of the worst environmental breaches happen unseen on private land. The impact of an increased #RightToRoam needs to be finely balanced.

https://twitter.com/WWTworldwide/status/1556913172199653376

The negative side of an increased #RightToRoam provides a useful smokescreen for land owners, but they do have legitimate concerns. They actively manage the landscape and livestock. Hunting may be abhorrent, but deer populations - even foxes- still need to be controlled *somehow*

Take moles for example - you don’t often see molehills on enclosed land for a reason… although stringing them along a fence for show is a particularly grisly tradition, they are usually kept in check.
(Nice view towards Tavy Cleave from just below Bagga Tor if you’re asking)

I’m no fan of hunting, any more than I’m a fan of abattoirs, but associated traditional country employment and skills are dwindling and venison will still end up on the plate much like lamb or beef. City folk associate game with posh food; to country folk it’s often just food.

So we are now in the situation where historical common access rights to land for wild camping is now to be restricted due to the actions of a wealthy land owner. It sets a terrible precedent and will doubtless be ‘doubled down’ upon as other restrictions, signs and fences go up.

The principle at stake is not the wider roundabout countryside issues explored in the thread above. We are talking about open moorland inside a UK National Park that was previously accessible but is now increasingly restricted at a time when access is needed more than ever.

The removal of #WildCamping rights from an increasingly hard to reach part of #Dartmoor targets only responsible visitors seeking solitude off the beaten track. This might be why they can get away with it. The Cadover Bridge picnic crowd won’t care -and will still drop litter.

This is a backward step with echoes of the C18th Enclosure Acts, depriving commoners of their rights in favour of new wealthy land owning elite. Darwall bought the land in the knowledge of extant wild camping rights and his ‘clarification’ challenge is disingenuous.

When you realise proposed Freeports include other UK National Parks as well, this starts to look like more than just #WildCamping making way for hunting rights. This looks like a precursor to monetising #Dartmoor and our National Parks for the landed gentry, not the people.

https://twitter.com/moleymole01/status/1613931452739252224

The long and short of all this is that despite my concerns over the potential harm of an unfettered #RightToRoam, and despite my sympathies with those skilled country folk that manage the beautiful landscapes and livestock we take for granted, this awful ruling is a step too far.

When you consider the proposed Freeports (with fast track planning and tax exempt zones) include large areas of our National Parks at a time when funding for National Parks is being withdrawn it all points in the same direction - wilful dismantling of valuable public assets.

https://twitter.com/tavistocktimes/status/1590370445504774147

Its time @KensingtonRoyal took a lead for the people of #Dartmoor
1) declare #Wildcamping to be permitted on Duchy land (in the spirit of things before Darwall challenged it)
2) donate the visitor centre building to Princetown
3) make the Plume of Feathers pub viable asap.

What has a #Dartmoor pub closure got to do with access for #RightToRoam? The Plume has an indoor bunkhouse and a camping field that provided an important base for longer hiking and #wildcamping trips deeper into the National Park. The pub is another casualty of the pandemic.

Up until this point, I was very uncomfortable with the idea of ‘mass trespass’ as a protest, mindful of the potential for accidental damage to property and sensitive habitat. However, this #Dartmoor #Wildcamping ruling means I understand active protest now seems inevitable.

However disappointing, I don’t doubt the legal interpretation proves correct to the letter, if not the spirit, of the law. Darwall seeking a ‘clarification’ targeting extant #wildcamping was disingenuous and the spotlight is now firmly resting on his acquired corner of #Dartmoor

https://twitter.com/dartmoorarchive/status/1585577793055858688