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Mass trespass on Dartmoor to highlight England's 'piecemeal' right to roam laws
- some_random 3y agoAre there any reasons other than purely historic ones for the right to roam on access lands? Because it seems like something that's pretty indefensible as is, either the public should be allowed to responsibly trespass on private land or they shouldn't.
- yummypaint 3y agoSome of the right of ways in England have existed and been in continuous use since long before recorded history. A better question is what authority does anyone have to close them?
- some_random 3y agoThe government definitely, maybe land owners, I don't know a lot about English law. The rights of way that are in continuous use aren't really the subject of this conversation, it's the ones described here that are currently inaccessible.
- fsckboy 3y ago>Are there any reasons other than purely historic ones you can't throw reasons away by labelling them historic, the same historic reasons still apply today, call them Chesterton's reasons. They need to be balanced against other reasons, and your reasons and my reasons might be different, but that's what our govts do for us, and when enough people are unhappy we change govts.
- some_random 3y agoThat's why I'm asking, what are these reasons that need to be balanced against?
- dogman144 3y agoQualifying the reasons as "purely historic" as if that's a different type of reason is a bit of a dog whistle out around shenanigans with public land access and water rights in the western US, for what it's worth. Edit - what I mean to be clearer is that when it comes to land access, "historical" (i.e. what's on paper) is the only reason that counts - as in, property rights which span both private property, and the one that many love to forget - public land. Courts consistently hold this up. Those seeking to limit public land access for more or less greed often attempt to wave away those historical records via "well it's historical, what else is there to consider today," as if their private property rights are not also protected for the same reason.
- mjh2539 3y agohttps://www.newadvent.org/summa/2097.htm#article3 https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2097.htm#article3
- some_random 3y agoI don't have the time to decode this borderline schizophrenic nonsense, what's the point and how does it relate to the right to access currently inaccessible land?
- opheliate 3y agoDismissing the Summa Theologica as “borderline schizophrenic nonsense” makes me believe you’re just trolling here.
- FooBarBizBazz 3y agoIt's saying that custom can obtain the force of law. This is relevant to the Right to Roam, because some areas are open to public use by custom, and this can challenge strict interpretations of property rights. I think mjh2539 is trying to gain a rhetorical toehold for traditional Commons rights. Since those rights are traditional and very old, it somehow seems fitting that the argument should be expressed in old-fashioned Catholic theological language. I appreciate that an intensely "conservative" cultural form is used here to make a pro-populist argument for "liberal" rights. This lines up well with the kind of stances that the Anglican Church ended up taking in theology. That Church follows both Scripture and Tradition. (By contrast, and generalizing a bit, I think an extreme Protestant stance would tend to value only Scripture.) This feels like a more secular version of same.
- seabass-labrax 3y agoOver time I've come to appreciate more the way in which the Anglican Church, as you put it, "follows both Scripture and Tradition". A single clever person can manipulate with relative ease the interpretation of a written document (for instance, scripture), but to manipulate an entire custom is much more challenging, although arguably not impossible. Thus, although evil customs can certainly emerge gradually over time, a given custom is, in my opinion, more often than not founded on an older course of reasoning that was righteous in origin. To put it more concretely: a written document from a thousand years ago is almost unintelligible to all but specialist linguists, and its accurate interpretation difficult for all but specialist social historians. Yet the customs displayed by a people that long ago would still seem very familiar today. Which would you trust to form the basis of your community's sense of justice - the faded old document in a strange language, or the equally ancient tradition passed down habitually across generations?
- hgomersall 3y agoThe right to roam movement is explicitly about responsible access rights to most of the countryside. As a whole hearted supporter, I agree that the situation is indefensible and needs fixing. We are essentially excluded from land through centuries old stitch ups intended to exclude the common man. It's stuff that goes back to the Norman conquest when the elite essentially carved up hunting lands for their own benefit, with subsequent enclosure after enclosure that destroyed commons rights. The intent of the Right to Roam movement is to reclaim some of what was taken from us as a whole.
- sevenf0ur 3y agoIgnorant question, but why is it still relevant today? Are there not public lands you can utilize and roads and transportation to get there?
- WD-42 3y agoAmericans are used to everything being compartmentalized “if you want to go for a walk drive to the park” but there are people out there that still want to exist and have a sense of real place - the ability to physically move through it is important.
- sp332 3y ago2/3 of England is owned by 0.36% of the population. Half by 0.1% https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/apr/17/who-owns-england-thousand-secret-landowners-author https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/apr/17/who-owns-engla...
- OJFord 3y agoI don't know if this counts as 'purely historic' or not, but I think the pragmatic answer is simply that it's the law. The land was bought by its present owner knowing that the public had a right of way across it. The law could change, but there's no particular reason for it to any more than there is to argue for it to exist from first principles.
- jltsiren 3y agoLand ownership is an arbitrary right created by the government. It's not a natural right, because natural property rights start from the idea that the fruits of your labor are yours. But because the land was already there before humans, it's not a fruit of anyone's labor. You can have natural rights over the land you are actively using, but you will eventually lose those rights if you stop using the land. And because land ownership is a right created by the government, the government can define the terms and change them.
- crtified 3y agoThe concept of dominance over territory is one of the foundations of social structure in most natural species. The fact humanity has formalised that dominance into our own bureaucratic forms is merely stylistic.
- jltsiren 3y agoAnd the dominant entity in human societies is the state with military and police forces. If we continue with this line of thought, the state has the natural right to decide who is allowed to use which piece of land, under which terms. And it has also the natural right to change its mind.
- crtified 3y agoThat has indeed been the outcome in many countries, e.g. authoritarian regimes and such. But I suppose there is some philosophical difference, as to whether or not human actions are part of the natural world.
- Alex63 3y agoSlightly off topic, but related: I'm always interested in the different approach to public "right of ways" in the US (and Canada) versus the UK. Given that the concept of public right of way was well established in the UK before the colonial period, why didn't the colonies recognize rights of way based on well-established use? Based on my limited knowledge of the US and Canada, I'm not aware of any State or Province that recognizes the right of the public to cross private land on established paths/trails in the way that is recognized in the UK.
- mjh2539 3y agoWell, for one, public rights of way do exist on, and adjacent to, every public road. But that's kind of besides the point. I think there's probably many reasons, but here's a few I can think of: 1. The trails and such that warrant these rights never existed in the first place. 2. The rights come from long-established customs, which again, never got the chance to get going in the United States. 3. The legal/juridical establishment in the United States tended to care more about protecting the rights of property owners than protecting the freedom to travel (in this limited respect).
- bombcar 3y agoAlso the UK is more "historically dense" than much of the US was (and is!).
- Animats 3y agoThere's a lot of legal history there. The US never had feudalism. The overthrow of feudalism resulted in reduced land rights for large landowners. There's another amusing historical accident - Blackstone.[1] Blackstone's Commentaries[2] are a self-contained four volume set on how the English legal system worked. They had a strong influence on the US legal system. Most of the drafters of the Constitution read them. There were few if any law libraries, but many copies of Blackstone. Blackstone was a property rights absolutist. He wrote: "So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the general good of the whole community. If a new road, for instance, were to be made through the grounds of a private person, it might perhaps be extensively beneficial to the public; but the law permits no man, or set of men, to do this without consent of the owner of the land. In vain may it be urged, that the good of the individual ought to yield to that of the community; for it would be dangerous to allow any private man, or even any public tribunal, to be the judge of this common good, and to decide whether it be expedient or no."[3] This is further than English law goes. US law arose from that interpretation. That's the power of writing the most widely read book on the subject. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blackstone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blackstone [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commentaries_on_the_Laws_of_England https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commentaries_on_the_Laws_of_En... [3] https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s5.html https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s5....
- gtmitchell 3y agoI’ve always been profoundly jealous of countries with right to roam laws and dream of a day when we might have some thing similar in the US. Here in the west we have so much public land that is effectively closed to access due to wealthy landowners litigating over stupidities like corner crossings so they can monopolize the use of parcels they don’t own.
- kleiba 3y agoOn the other hand, in the US you can buy a piece of forest, build your own private cabin in it if you want and put a fence around your property to keep everyone else out. In the country I currently live in (Germany), you cannot.
- ejb999 3y agowhich part can't you do? Just the fence? or did you mean something else? Is it really true that nobody in Germany is allowed to fence their property?
- kleiba 3y agoNo, you're allowed to fence your property if you're talking about a lot with a house on it. But if it's a piece of forest you can't. Even if you privately own it, access must be guaranteed for the public. Oh, and you're not allowed to build any cabins either, even if you own that piece of forest. However, I'm not certain that that's the case everywhere in Germany or only in some states.
- mrkstu 3y agoWhat’s the difference between a house on a ‘wooded’ lot and a cabin in a forest? Seems an artificial distinction.
- bitbckt 3y agoMoreover because most of Germany’s “forests” are man-made… are they not mostly “wooded lots”? The distinction maybe arises from green space preservation policies?
- jmugan 3y agoI loved roaming in England. Thinking of the US, how does this relate to squatter's rights? If have the impression that it is risky to let people hang out for too long on your land in the US. It also seems to tie into the problem of homelessness that we have in the US.
- trollerator23 3y agoOh yeah. You'd get shot.
- CaliforniaKarl 3y agoIt's more than just "hanging out for too long". You have to be clearly occupying the space, and you have to be improving it. In California, "Adverse possession" requires a lot: You have to occupy a place continuously for 5 years, like how an owner would. You have to pay all taxes on the land for that time. You have to be clearly occupying the land, so it's obvious to all (including the owner). You have to be acting like you are the owner of the land: Getting & paying for electric, water, internet, trash pickup, etc.. So, there's a high bar that has to be met.
- jmugan 3y agoPaying the taxes is a very clear bar. That makes sense. I know when I was either buying or selling my last house in Texas I had to sign all these papers that there were no squatters anywhere. Maybe in Texas the bar isn't so clear.
- lukan 3y agoHow does it work, paying taxes to a property you do not own? You go there and file out something saying, I want to pay taxes for this place, because I want to own it one day?
- eszed 3y agoIn my jurisdiction I make my payments on the county's property tax website without any authentication at all. Put in the address / parcel number, enter my email address and credit card number. They send me a receipt. Anyone could pay it! I don't know what would happen if I owned a piece of property that I didn't live on, and both I and the adverse posessor tried to pay. Maybe they'd take both payments? Maybe it's a race condition? No idea.
- balderdash 3y agoI think this is a situation of nice in theory harder in practice. Take a look at national and state parks in the US, for the most part people are pretty good, but then again they have police forces /rangers, and there is a reason. On my family’s farm, the whole place was posted: “no trespassing/no hunting” yet we’d have people out in a pasture trying to pet farm animals or horses or find deer stands and trash (mostly beer cans in the woods), or people who would help themselves to our raspberries/apples etc., not to mention the amount of trash we’d find and clean up along our road frontage. I can’t believe how much worse it would be if people felt entitled to be there. I’m generally aligned with principle of right to roam, but I think it’d be a nightmare in practice. + I can’t even think about the associated liability when some person gets kicked by horse or gets shocked by an electrical fence etc.
- tomrod 3y agoTragedy of the commons for right to roam versus the need for georgist taxation when its missing. Very interesting comment -- appreciate your input!
- WD-42 3y agoI don’t think the right to roam is necessarily the same thing as you portray as the right to “hang out”. There are many places in the US where property lines make impenetrable barriers to public land. Your farm might have fences that share a side with your neighbors, and then theirs, and so on for miles even if there is a national park behind you. Americans have such a preoccupation with “muh property” that this is seen as totally normal and acceptable but it really shouldn’t be.
- balderdash 3y agoI’m pretty sure it’s exactly that - Scotland’s right to roam includes limited commercial activities (bike tours/hiking tours) as well as camping. It’s not just cutting across someone’s field to access a park [1]https://www.skyhookadventure.com/blog/scotland-right-to-roam-camping https://www.skyhookadventure.com/blog/scotland-right-to-roam... [2] https://www.morton-fraser.com/insights/right-roam-scotland https://www.morton-fraser.com/insights/right-roam-scotland
- tomrod 3y agoA map of the islands & barriers would be very helpful to the messaging here.
- jonathankoren 3y agoFeels like Vinod Khosla’s “public” beach.[0] In unrelated news, I’m currently looking for investors to purchase a surplus LCAC[1] for midnight beach outings. [0] https://www.kqed.org/science/1955623/the-neverending-battle-over-martins-beach-explained https://www.kqed.org/science/1955623/the-neverending-battle-... [1] https://youtu.be/5Tj9KU8q8rk https://youtu.be/5Tj9KU8q8rk
- skeletal88 3y agoThese limitations are difficult to understand. I guess that lords and landowners hsd to repress the peasants in the uk with all possible means but.. this is silly. Here,in Estonia, everyone can walk on anyones land unless it is someones private home or its surrounding yard (lawn, fields, etc). You can walk, hike, collect berries and mushrooms for private use everywhere (unless it is on an industrial scale). If your piece of land is on a sea or lake side or a river, then you must provide access to it, 5 metres from the waterline must be acessible for everyone and can't be fenced off. I once saw a news item from the uk where someone from Latvia was collecting mushrooms, the land owner didn't like this and the mushroom gathrer had to pay a big fine. Even though nobody was stolen from since the people in the uk don't know anything about wild mushrooms and thry would just rot and go bad. Kind of absurd
- mc32 3y agoI think these things work till people take advantage of the assumptions of the social contract. You can have nice things like this till they get abused.
- ildjarn 3y agoMany countries have this system (Norway, Scotland, Estonia… ) and it works fine.
- frutiger 3y agoThose countries either have a low population density, immigration rate or nature there is far more remote than in England.
- dvdkon 3y agoThe Czech Republic has mostly the same system, from my understanding, and certainly doesn't have a low population density. You can't walk a few kilometres in a line without hitting a farmhouse or village. I consider this freedom a part of the local culture and haven't heard about any abuse that would warrant discussion of the system itself (as opposed to punishing individual wrongdoers).
- motohagiography 3y agoCanada has "Crown land," which is public for people to use, but maps aren't great, and I understand that much of it is not accessible. These rules will fall, as populations shift. I live in a rural area close to a city with massive immigration (we're one the highest growth countries in the world right now), and Western norms and conventions that make rural life secure and viable, which facilitated a lot of land and public space use - are absolutely not universal. To respond, I've just bought a drone that dissuades people from tresspassing, loitering, and lining the roadway in front of my house at night, but tech is just a temporary measure. These roaming and public space laws are at the cusp of the conflict of demographic change. Rural life is viable because of the norms around space and privacy, and if we introduce urban security issues to rural communities without also adapting the laws to mitigate their effects, it will destroy that way of life completely.
- garbagewoman 3y agoWho is “introducing urban security issues to rural communities“?
- motohagiography 3y agoSpecifically, we have groups of men driving 30 mins north of the suburbs to hang out on country back roads at night by the dozen because, in their words, "nobody lives here!" Some of their familiar cars were featured in a recent story about a large extortion racket bust. There has also been a dramatic increase in home invasions in the region, and when a group of ten men stand out in front of your house in the middle of the night when you are 20mins from the nearest town with a police station, one is reminded of simpler times. Let alone some of the city activists literally bussing kids out of cities to cover rural areas in crappy graffiti. I have it on drone footage and even spoke with them directly. It's very much a thing. Some nonsense about "being present." Everybody knows there is change afoot and it just needs to be managed effectively.
- garbagewoman 3y agoYou seem to be using coded language, why is that?
- crotchfire 3y agoThe US state of Washington won't allow the creation of "island" properties. A landowner (including governments) can't subdivide a parcel of land unless there is public right-of-way to all the divided parcels. Right-of-way isn't a parcel; although it theoretically belongs to the government it can't be sold. This makes it impossible for this problem to happen in the first place.