23 ms·

'Right to roam' movement fights to give the commons back to the public

340 points by Breadmaker 2y ago

reify 2y ago
The thirty people who own half of Berkshire here on Airstrip One. https://whoownsengland.org/2017/04/17/the-thirty-landowners-who-own-half-a-county/ https://whoownsengland.org/2017/04/17/the-thirty-landowners-... Loads of sychophants in that list. Airstrip One has been invaded by so many countries over many hundreds of years that those who have defeated the our poor armies have then, without any authority, given "OUR" lands to their friends, lords, ladies, and any sychophantic mendicants. These lands are not their lands! All these lands were stolen from the common people. Its called Berkshire for a reason and where the cockney rhyming "Berkshire" comes from I never gave my permission to give away my land.
- deepsun 2y ago
  UK is literally still a monarchy mostly, a limited one, but still a kingdom, no surprise there. No one says it was "stolen from common people", because they have always owned it. UK people still pay land tax to baron families from ancient times in many places, London included. AFAIR the whole House of Lords is created to protect their rights. You may say it's unfair, but I'm not sure it's productive. Good thing nowadays you can emigrate relatively easily.
  - abeppu 2y ago
    > No one says it was "stolen from common people", because they have always owned it. ... but enclosure acts were specific legislative acts which privatized land and removed common access. I.e. common people had access to the land, and it was taken away. Whether it is "stolen" is perhaps messier to decide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure#Parliamentary_Inclosure_Acts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure#Parliamentary_Inclos... Being a monarchy is orthogonal; Norway has a king and right to roam, for example.
    - arethuza 2y ago
      Scotland is part of the UK and has right to roam.
      - abeppu 2y ago
        I've heard about Scottish bothies. As an American, culturally it seems hard to imagine not only a right to walk over private land, but land owners sometimes even donating shelter for use by strangers, for free.
        arethuza 2y ago
        Bothies are awesome: https://www.mountainbothies.org.uk/ https://www.mountainbothies.org.uk/ My favourite is probably Camasunary: https://annestravelsandhikes.com/2018/02/16/a-walk-to-camasunary-bay-skye/ https://annestravelsandhikes.com/2018/02/16/a-walk-to-camasu...
    - vincebowdren 2y ago
      > I.e. common people had access to the land Only in a limited sense. The public did not have access to the land; specific "commoners" (local farmers) had specific usage rights e.g. for grazing.
  - dboreham 2y ago
    As is often the case, Scotland is different. Fue duty was abolished decades ago, for example.
  - graemep 2y ago
    > No one says it was "stolen from common people", because they have always owned it. Not true. Common land, in particular, was stolen during the agricultural revolution and enclosed. This also created the cheap labour needed for the industrial revolution. The modern world was built on theft from the rural common people. > Good thing nowadays you can emigrate relatively easily. As an immigrant (as a child) I have already done that. I even have dual nationality so one emigration option is easy. The problem is I do not know of anywhere much better.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - groby_b 2y ago
      Given that the "rural common people" were just as happy killing each other for access to land, good luck finding the "real" owner. Seriously, there are lots of things wrong with the allocation of wealth and property around the world, but "it was stolen during the agricultural revolution" is an absolutely meaningless argument. Britain e.g. has 900k years of human history. (With the first humans only visiting between cold spells). There is no "true first owner".
      - graemep 2y ago
        > There is no "true first owner". I did not claim there was a "true first owner". I said that there was ownership by the common people.
        groby_b 2y ago
        Which common people? Unless you'd like to treat "the common people" as an amorphous blob?
        hgomersall 2y ago
        The commons: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons A successful system of land stewardship for many centuries. It was maintained and looked after by the people that lived near to it.
  - otherme123 2y ago
    Funnily enough, the need to have a passport to leave your country is a relatively recent thing. Pre-World War I, people could just pack and go to another country, and passports were rarely enforced. They were more a helping document while traveling than a controling tool. Only after WWI one of the explicit objetives of the passports was to limit the emigration of skilled people. Not to menction that most countries in America were happily receiving huge amounts of people from everywhere without too much hassle. I don't think that is happening today.
  - KaiserPro 2y ago
    I think OP was referring to enclosures
    - deepsun 2y ago
      Yep, my point is that owner is owner. Owner can give some rights (e.g. to roam), but owner can take them away (to enclose). But I don't argue whether it's good or bad. I personally don't even know if land ownership is a good thing to begin with. On the other end of range is Communism, that I've experienced personally, and choosing between the two evils I'd choose Monarchy. Probably some middle ground, like land can be leased from government for max 50-99 year at a market price. Or like with the right to roam -- land is owned forever, but government highly restricts the definition of "ownership".
  - gadders 2y ago
    >>Good thing nowadays you can emigrate relatively easily. Given than 1.2m people migrated to the UK in the year ending June 2023, it doesn't seem to be putting people off.
  - helboi4 2y ago
    Blatant ignorance of history said with overconfidence. The land was literally called common land and was in common ownership until the enclosure acts.
    - deepsun 2y ago
      As I see it, the Land was in common ownership only until 1066 AD. Then William I distributed the land amongst his 180 barons. However, he promised the English people would be able to exercise their previous rights (pasture, roam etc), hence "common land". That's important -- all land was (is?) owned by 180 barons (not sure how many families survived till today), it's just the government restricted land owners to prevent people using it in some cases. Yes it was called "common land". But it doesn't mean its owner is common people.
- fallingknife 2y ago
  3 out of the 30 "people" on that list are the government, and some others are companies. And only 7 of these properties are over 3000 acres. I don't really see what the problem is with large rural properties. How many people even want to own empty land in the first place?
  - Loughla 2y ago
    >How many people even want to own empty land in the first place? My experience, based on the price of property, is that a shit ton of people want to own empty land, in the anticipation of it not being empty at some point in the future.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      Or they like the buffer space. Between my smaller amount of property and my two neighbors, we’re collectively on about 75 acres. (My house is the property’s original 1820s farmhouse.) I’m not sure the rest of the property would be buildable anyway.
    - cratermoon 2y ago
      Yeah, you never know when Wal*Mart might want to come along and buy it to put up a another big box.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
SoftTalker 2y ago
I think the main reason people get nervous about "the public" roaming their land is the liability and the personal injury lawsuit industry in the USA. If I let someone cross my land and he trips on a tree root and breaks his leg, now I'm possibly facing a lawsuit. Also, what are they allowed to do? Simply crossing the land is one thing. Around here many private landowners are dealing with homeless encampments that are not only a liability but a sanitary issue, as they tend to be full of litter, needles, food waste, and human waste and end up attracting vermin.
- oooyay 2y ago
  > I think the main reason people get nervous about "the public" roaming their land is the liability and the personal injury lawsuit industry in the USA This is somewhat a solved problem in the US, what you're describing is actually nefarious behavior by cities and counties. I'll give an anecdote and I'm sure someone will come tell me if I'm wrong :) In Texas we called these "public easements". Back then in order for the city or county to establish a public easement they had to establish that there was a reason, they had to indemnify the area and some buffer around it, and they were obligated to maintain the land that they created the easement on. Sounds simple, right? Not so much. Cities and counties would often short change the indemnification, leaving the land owner on the hook for things they shouldn't be on the hook for. Sometimes the city would also have vaguely phrased policies like, "all public easements must have sidewalks" and those sidewalks would often incur some amount of damage to the landscape. Think about, for instance, a sidewalk going from a road, through someones property, to what is a dirt trail through the woods. Doesn't really make sense - but the city has a policy it's obligated to abide by! I think in general cities and counties could benefit from some non-court oversight to these processes with the public that don't need to involve expensive things like lawyers and are frameworked to understand the perspective of both the public and people giving access. There should also be a zero tolerance policy for underindemnifying the easement. Since you mentioned homlessness - I now live in Portland. Here's the way I deal with it: If you camp on public land around my neighborhood I expect you to be a good neighbor. Clean up your trash, no feces or urination in public, no leering/jeering/being creepy etc... I've generally provided water, heating devices, medical aid, etc to people that need it - the same way a good neighbor would. Some amount of people don't care about those boundaries though and will violate every single basic human expectation you can have. City code enforcement is generally not setup to handle disputes like this and neither are the police so it puts the public in really weird spots. I don't know how to solve that, but those folks aren't using easement rights. They're using public camping rights, which are entirely different and have more to do with camping on BLM and forestry land.
elitan 2y ago
It works well here in Sweden: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam
throwaway22032 2y ago
[flagged]
- iamthirsty 2y ago
  > Right to roam works in places with no or a very small degenerate population like the Nordics. ...What? How exactly do you go about quantifying a country's "degenerate" population percentage?
  - trgn 2y ago
    You don't. You know it when you see it. Requires high trust, broad distribution of prosocial behaviors.
  - throwaway22032 2y ago
    You go there and you see it. For example - drug addicts wandering about in San Diego, tents cropping up everywhere, crazies shouting outside of Finsbury Park tube station, "travellers" fly tipping in the UK. The remote parts of Sweden and Finland don't have these issues. Maybe a few kids doing donuts in the car park after hours because they're bored. That's it.
    - iamthirsty 2y ago
      I'm born and raised in LA, so I have an extremely good understanding of what you're referring to. But there are so many other factors besides just labeling people as degenerates. For example, Sweden, a very highly developed economy, only has to support less than 11 million people. That's about half of just the state of Florida's 22m. NYC alone almost has as many people as some of the countries being referred to. They also have different laws, social structures, mental health facilities, completely different penal system, socialized healthcare — I could go on. I don't think you can truly qualify people as simply "degenerates" when there are so many other factors. For example, Switzerland had a major crime and drug epidemic in 1999, and opened centers in 2000 to assist with those issues — and homelessness encampments and crime effectively disappeared. Again — it's not always that people are innately shitty, but the system around them allowing that option. I'm sure if you packed people in Sweden, let immigration skyrocket, and take away all the socialized benefits you'd see real fast the "degenerate" population grow.
KingOfCoders 2y ago
The Bavarian constitution says: "All parts of the great outdoors, in particular forests, mountain pastures, rocks, wastelands, fallow land, floodplains, riparian strips and agricultural land, may be entered by anyone free of charge." (Though you can't camp there like in Norway)
- arethuza 2y ago
  It's pretty much access for any non-motorised activity (including camping) here in Scotland: https://www.outdooraccess-scotland.scot/ https://www.outdooraccess-scotland.scot/
- techterrier 2y ago
  all the keep out signs on picturesque parts of southern ireland (eg galway) are helpfully translated into German.
- qwertox 2y ago
  In Germany, while you can't camp with a tent in the wilderness, it's allowed to bivouac ("biwakieren", using a sleeping bag to sleep under the stars). https://www.alpin.de/sicher-am-berg/30427/artikel_darauf_muesst_ihr_beim_biwakieren_achten_.html https://www.alpin.de/sicher-am-berg/30427/artikel_darauf_mue... (article is in German)
  - lima 2y ago
    And in hammocks! They don't touch the ground and therefore don't count.
  - KingOfCoders 2y ago
    Looks like it is allowed when not planned but an emergency.
frankharv 2y ago
This authors mindset is unfathomable to me: "repairing the damage caused by centuries of private land ownership."
- ajkjk 2y ago
  Well they're writing to change minds like yours.
- g4zj 2y ago
  Could you elaborate on this?
- bigstrat2003 2y ago
  Trying to be charitable, I think maybe it's just a cultural thing. If someone grew up immersed in a culture which tells them that walking everywhere is a natural right of man, then it wouldn't be surprising if they think of private land ownership as being heinous. It's a very alien view to me, but values shaped by culture generally are. It's just how it is.
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    Many countries allow private land ownership, but also have a right to roam; the land ownership is qualified (as indeed almost all land ownership is nearly everywhere; that's how eminent domain works).
  - ajkjk 2y ago
    I think the claim is more like: "We grew up in a culture that forgot how the freedom to go everywhere ought to be something we value. I have remembered that this is a good thing to value, and you should too."
- ta1243 2y ago
  Do you not think this would start to repair the damage?
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
vincebowdren 2y ago
This article never mentions the existing access setup: 1. a really dense network of rights of way – almost entirely on privately-owned land https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_of_way_in_England_and_Wales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_of_way_in_England_and_W... 2. open access to unimproved wild land: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#England_and_Wales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#England_and_Wa... The way this article reports the campaigners, you'd be forgiven for thinking that there are no existing rights of access in law, and for thinking that private ownership of land necessarily means absolute access restrictions. This is not just a problem with this specific article; I've seen it numerous times, and it makes me think that this is a consistent pattern of this campaign; the campaigners are either wilfully ignoring the rights which already exist or are themselves woefully ignorant. Either way, they're doing the public a disservice by spreading what looks a lot like misinformation.
- vincebowdren 2y ago
  Another bit of ignorance: they refer to 'commons' as if that meant, in English, unrestricted public use or access. It doesn't. A commons is a piece of land with specific usage rights for specific people - e.g. local farmers allowed particular grazing rights. "give the commons back to the public" implies a history which this country has never had.
maeln 2y ago
I pretty much knew what I would find in the comments on this one. The right to roam, in country in which it exist in one form or another, is exactly this: the right to roam. Not the right to camp (although some allow it usually with some restriction), live, squat, pollute, destroy, ... As someone who sometime had to go from point A to point B in the countryside without a car, this was a necessity as it was the only safe way to do so (sidewalk are nonexistent in the countryside). It also avoid "trapping" some public land within private one (and effectively privatizing it), although, in my country at least, the state will usually preempt a small piece of the private land to always have a passage between public land. As for the liability, is should go without saying that there is usually laws that release you from any liability for people hurting themselves while roaming on your property (with the obvious exception that you should not put anything with the intention of hurting people, for example traps).
- bequanna 2y ago
  > As for the liability, is should go without saying that there is usually laws that release you from any liability for people hurting themselves while roaming on your property This isn't true. A person can break into your home, fall down stairs and file a lawsuit against you.
  - ryanmcbride 2y ago
    Do you have an example of such a lawsuit succeeding in real life outside of the movie Liar Liar?
    - ryandrake 2y ago
      A lawsuit still costs money to the defendant even if it doesn't "succeed" in the end. The legal system is pretty much inaccessible to laypeople, so you need to at least hire a lawyer so they can speak the magical incantations and file the right 27b/6 form to the right clerk at the right time so you don't lose due to a paperwork technicality.
      - 2y ago
Dylanfm 2y ago
Another interview with Jon Moses: https://novaramedia.com/2023/07/13/novara-fm-revenge-of-the-commoners/ https://novaramedia.com/2023/07/13/novara-fm-revenge-of-the-... Putting the 'right to roam' movement in a greater context. Coming about after de-peopling of the land, trying to counter the effects that has had on people. By returning land access to people, people will regain a connection with the land and care for it more.
surfingdino 2y ago
The right to roam ought to be given together with an obligation to restore the land to the original state after you have roamed.
__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
I want this in the US so badly. Thrice now I've had my commute double because somebody fenced off a trail and now I have to go the long way around.
- ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
  Climb the fence.
  - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
    That'll get you shot 'round these parts. Or bit by someone's dog. Although there's one fence in particular, around an apartment complex parking lot which I cut through to go to the grocery store, which I've been dismantling. They've repaired it three times so far, we'll see who gives up first.
- onthecanposting 2y ago
  I think abrogating the property rights of every property owner in exchange for some people getting a shortcut is not a very good trade. There are legal routes for public agencies to purchase portions of land to create routes for transportation, including pedestrian paths, that ensure you're at least paid for the lost property. If there is a need, then lobbying your mayor or council is the way to go about this. That's a lot less risky than letting anyone enter your property anytime for any reason as long as they say they're on a nature walk or something.
  - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
    I know my corner of the world will not embrace right to roam anytime soon. I'd settle for something that requires owners to acknowledge that when they buy land with a trail on it they have to maintain that trail. I don't mind going around, but it shouldn't take me an additional 30m.
mprovost 2y ago
There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me; Sign was painted, it said private property; But on the back side it didn't say nothing; This land was made for you and me. -- Woody Guthrie
- orthecreedence 2y ago
  I love how they cut this verse out in the presidential inaugeration.
gorbypark 2y ago
My ideal "right to roam" laws would be 1) you have the right to pass through any piece of land 2) you have to stay x amount of meters away from a house/building/etc 3) you have the right to camp for one night in a spot and you can't have a tent pitched until one hour before sunset and it must be down by one hour after sunrise. There should probably be an even further minimum distance from a house compared to the distance set for just passing by. 4) no fires / pack it in, pack it out / etc There's a bunch of places in Europe now that have a no camping policy, but allow (or tolerate) "bivouacking", which originally meant sleeping on the ground without a shelter but now kind of includes small tents. I think it's the ideal tradeoff, it still allows long distance backpackers to do their thing while discouraging the "party camping" crowds.
- sandworm101 2y ago
  So would this ideal legal framework extend to the suburbs? Do I get to roam through people's backyards? Am I allowed to hop over fences so long as I stay X meters away from buildings? How big does a property have to be before I can pitch my tent in the middle of someone's lawn? No matter what the number, 10m, 25m, 100m, I can probably find a nice neighborhood on google maps full of lawns big enough to become my next campsite.
  - antisthenes 2y ago
    The policy needs to be reasonable, unless you want home owners taking matters in their own hands (you don't). Policy or not, seeing a steady stream of strangers "roam" through your property next to your (vulnerable) family members will generally do more harm than good. Also, how would you deal with unintended property damage? > Am I allowed to hop over fences so long as I stay X meters away from buildings? A reasonable policy would probably specify at least 50-100 meters from buildings, which would outlaw roaming in suburbia.
    - sandworm101 2y ago
      >> A reasonable policy would probably specify... There is no reasonable policy, not in the US. No matter what number is picked, homeowners will install anything from doll houses to razor wire to prevent their back lot becoming the next homeless encampment.
lastofthemojito 2y ago
Without a right to roam, we end up with cases of public lands that lack any legal public access. I just read this article in the LA Times about a state park in California that there's no legal access to: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-05-20/the-state-park-on-sutter-buttes-no-one-can-visit https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-05-20/the-stat... But that's certainly not the only such case: https://www.trcp.org/unlocking-public-lands/ https://www.trcp.org/unlocking-public-lands/
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  Im with the ranchers in the case of Sutter Buttes. They pre-date the state purchase of the land, which it did without access rights, and before the state turned it into a park. It reminds me of the phrase: "Poor planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine". Maybe it will work out for the state in the long run, but it took the risk to buy land without access, with full knowledge, and cant cry foul later.
  - Clamchop 2y ago
    In some cases, the law can be used to force the sale of an easement for access to a landlocked property. So, in that sense, it can amount to an emergency for you. But it is still a sale.
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      I have read about it in some cases, but it seems to depend on the situation. I suspect (and hope) that this is not one of the cases, given that the government bought the land with full knowledge that it was land locked.
      - Clamchop 2y ago
        It can be done even in that order of events. I don't really agree with you, it's not in the public interest that property owners should be able to bogart land merely by encircling it, however the situation should arise, and it invites obvious abuses. Incidentally, the property owners in the article are doing just that, first by selling landlocked property evidently with an agreement among eachother to never sell a public right of way, and then by selling tours that wouldn't be necessary if they had, a form of rent seeking.
bilsbie 2y ago
I kind of like this idea but I’d prefer it only applied to commercial land owners or very large personal land holdings. It would suck to buy a couple acre plot to get away from the city and constantly have people camping or hiking on your land.
gadders 2y ago
I'm not sure people should have unrestricted rights to roam over private property, but where public land is fully enclosed by private land there should be an allowance made (or compulsory footpath introduced) to grant access. I think there is a similar issue in the US with land that is only accessible on touching corners. https://www.onxmaps.com/onx-access-initiatives/corner-crossing-report https://www.onxmaps.com/onx-access-initiatives/corner-crossi...
theodric 2y ago
Well here's something that will be taken as an inflammatory comment, which I nevertheless believe with absolute certainty and will hold to despite the inevitable loss of karma/banning: Anglosphere countries cannot be trusted with this level of access to another person's property. If the change gets through, people will abuse their rights, overstep, overstay, and leave a mess behind them; owners will complain bitterly, and some owner who has enough land or sway or title will complain strongly enough to the right person, and this will be dialled back. If you wait 50-70 years, it'll come back for another go. I know Anglosphere mentality. I'm American, but have spent 21 years in Europe, living in Ireland, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, and travelling extensively in Scandinavia, Germany, and the UK. Folks differ in their attitudes toward collective responsibility and respect for others and their things. Not only that, but that's what's germane to this discussion.
- Rastonbury 2y ago
  Have you ever walked in British countryside? There is already limited right to roam and people are generally courteous about walking through people's property, shutting gates etc.
  - theodric 2y ago
    Walkers are one thing; it's when people stay overnight and can't be asked to pack away everything they hauled in that a layer really begins to accumulate: plastic wrappings, bottles, butts, wads of beshitted toilet paper, and so on. But I've witnessed enough hedge-rubbish in Snowdonia to not be blown away relative to what I saw in Switzerland and Norway.
mbonnet 2y ago
Some of the best climbing in the world is in karst topography. The best known is in Central Europe. Far away from that is the Texas Hill Country, which while possessing incredible rock, is almost entirely privately owned. Central Texas could be a climbing mecca, but isn't, because of a lack of right to roam.
TurkishPoptart 2y ago
Doesn't Scandinavia have a right like this?
geff82 2y ago
The right to roam/access was so natural and ingrained to me that it took me 3 decades of my life to finally realize that it was not everywhere like in Germany/Switzerland/Austria where the entire landscape is essentially one big recreational park. Vacation away from home is great, but living in a place where I am confined to my own ground/public roads and a few select pieces of federal land? Unimaginable. Freedom comes in many forms.... the right to roam is one I exercise every day. I feel that the right to access/roam (depending on the country it is called and framed differently) hurts no one and makes everyones life better.

340 points by Breadmaker 2y ago

The thirty people who own half of Berkshire here on Airstrip One. https://whoownsengland.org/2017/04/17/the-thirty-landowners-who-own-half-a-county/ https://whoownsengland.org/2017/04/17/the-thirty-landowners-... Loads of sychophants in that list. Airstrip One has been invaded by so many countries over many hundreds of years that those who have defeated the our poor armies have then, without any authority, given "OUR" lands to their friends, lords, ladies, and any sychophantic mendicants. These lands are not their lands! All these lands were stolen from the common people. Its called Berkshire for a reason and where the cockney rhyming "Berkshire" comes from I never gave my permission to give away my land.

deepsun 2y ago
UK is literally still a monarchy mostly, a limited one, but still a kingdom, no surprise there. No one says it was "stolen from common people", because they have always owned it. UK people still pay land tax to baron families from ancient times in many places, London included. AFAIR the whole House of Lords is created to protect their rights. You may say it's unfair, but I'm not sure it's productive. Good thing nowadays you can emigrate relatively easily.
- abeppu 2y ago
  > No one says it was "stolen from common people", because they have always owned it. ... but enclosure acts were specific legislative acts which privatized land and removed common access. I.e. common people had access to the land, and it was taken away. Whether it is "stolen" is perhaps messier to decide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure#Parliamentary_Inclosure_Acts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure#Parliamentary_Inclos... Being a monarchy is orthogonal; Norway has a king and right to roam, for example.
  - arethuza 2y ago
    Scotland is part of the UK and has right to roam.
    - abeppu 2y ago
      I've heard about Scottish bothies. As an American, culturally it seems hard to imagine not only a right to walk over private land, but land owners sometimes even donating shelter for use by strangers, for free.
      - arethuza 2y ago
        Bothies are awesome: https://www.mountainbothies.org.uk/ https://www.mountainbothies.org.uk/ My favourite is probably Camasunary: https://annestravelsandhikes.com/2018/02/16/a-walk-to-camasunary-bay-skye/ https://annestravelsandhikes.com/2018/02/16/a-walk-to-camasu...
  - vincebowdren 2y ago
    > I.e. common people had access to the land Only in a limited sense. The public did not have access to the land; specific "commoners" (local farmers) had specific usage rights e.g. for grazing.
- dboreham 2y ago
  As is often the case, Scotland is different. Fue duty was abolished decades ago, for example.
- graemep 2y ago
  > No one says it was "stolen from common people", because they have always owned it. Not true. Common land, in particular, was stolen during the agricultural revolution and enclosed. This also created the cheap labour needed for the industrial revolution. The modern world was built on theft from the rural common people. > Good thing nowadays you can emigrate relatively easily. As an immigrant (as a child) I have already done that. I even have dual nationality so one emigration option is easy. The problem is I do not know of anywhere much better.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - groby_b 2y ago
    Given that the "rural common people" were just as happy killing each other for access to land, good luck finding the "real" owner. Seriously, there are lots of things wrong with the allocation of wealth and property around the world, but "it was stolen during the agricultural revolution" is an absolutely meaningless argument. Britain e.g. has 900k years of human history. (With the first humans only visiting between cold spells). There is no "true first owner".
    - graemep 2y ago
      > There is no "true first owner". I did not claim there was a "true first owner". I said that there was ownership by the common people.
      - groby_b 2y ago
        Which common people? Unless you'd like to treat "the common people" as an amorphous blob?
        hgomersall 2y ago
        The commons: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons A successful system of land stewardship for many centuries. It was maintained and looked after by the people that lived near to it.
- otherme123 2y ago
  Funnily enough, the need to have a passport to leave your country is a relatively recent thing. Pre-World War I, people could just pack and go to another country, and passports were rarely enforced. They were more a helping document while traveling than a controling tool. Only after WWI one of the explicit objetives of the passports was to limit the emigration of skilled people. Not to menction that most countries in America were happily receiving huge amounts of people from everywhere without too much hassle. I don't think that is happening today.
- KaiserPro 2y ago
  I think OP was referring to enclosures
  - deepsun 2y ago
    Yep, my point is that owner is owner. Owner can give some rights (e.g. to roam), but owner can take them away (to enclose). But I don't argue whether it's good or bad. I personally don't even know if land ownership is a good thing to begin with. On the other end of range is Communism, that I've experienced personally, and choosing between the two evils I'd choose Monarchy. Probably some middle ground, like land can be leased from government for max 50-99 year at a market price. Or like with the right to roam -- land is owned forever, but government highly restricts the definition of "ownership".
- gadders 2y ago
  >>Good thing nowadays you can emigrate relatively easily. Given than 1.2m people migrated to the UK in the year ending June 2023, it doesn't seem to be putting people off.
- helboi4 2y ago
  Blatant ignorance of history said with overconfidence. The land was literally called common land and was in common ownership until the enclosure acts.
  - deepsun 2y ago
    As I see it, the Land was in common ownership only until 1066 AD. Then William I distributed the land amongst his 180 barons. However, he promised the English people would be able to exercise their previous rights (pasture, roam etc), hence "common land". That's important -- all land was (is?) owned by 180 barons (not sure how many families survived till today), it's just the government restricted land owners to prevent people using it in some cases. Yes it was called "common land". But it doesn't mean its owner is common people.
fallingknife 2y ago
3 out of the 30 "people" on that list are the government, and some others are companies. And only 7 of these properties are over 3000 acres. I don't really see what the problem is with large rural properties. How many people even want to own empty land in the first place?
- Loughla 2y ago
  >How many people even want to own empty land in the first place? My experience, based on the price of property, is that a shit ton of people want to own empty land, in the anticipation of it not being empty at some point in the future.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Or they like the buffer space. Between my smaller amount of property and my two neighbors, we’re collectively on about 75 acres. (My house is the property’s original 1820s farmhouse.) I’m not sure the rest of the property would be buildable anyway.
  - cratermoon 2y ago
    Yeah, you never know when Wal*Mart might want to come along and buy it to put up a another big box.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

SoftTalker 2y ago

I think the main reason people get nervous about "the public" roaming their land is the liability and the personal injury lawsuit industry in the USA. If I let someone cross my land and he trips on a tree root and breaks his leg, now I'm possibly facing a lawsuit. Also, what are they allowed to do? Simply crossing the land is one thing. Around here many private landowners are dealing with homeless encampments that are not only a liability but a sanitary issue, as they tend to be full of litter, needles, food waste, and human waste and end up attracting vermin.

oooyay 2y ago
> I think the main reason people get nervous about "the public" roaming their land is the liability and the personal injury lawsuit industry in the USA This is somewhat a solved problem in the US, what you're describing is actually nefarious behavior by cities and counties. I'll give an anecdote and I'm sure someone will come tell me if I'm wrong :) In Texas we called these "public easements". Back then in order for the city or county to establish a public easement they had to establish that there was a reason, they had to indemnify the area and some buffer around it, and they were obligated to maintain the land that they created the easement on. Sounds simple, right? Not so much. Cities and counties would often short change the indemnification, leaving the land owner on the hook for things they shouldn't be on the hook for. Sometimes the city would also have vaguely phrased policies like, "all public easements must have sidewalks" and those sidewalks would often incur some amount of damage to the landscape. Think about, for instance, a sidewalk going from a road, through someones property, to what is a dirt trail through the woods. Doesn't really make sense - but the city has a policy it's obligated to abide by! I think in general cities and counties could benefit from some non-court oversight to these processes with the public that don't need to involve expensive things like lawyers and are frameworked to understand the perspective of both the public and people giving access. There should also be a zero tolerance policy for underindemnifying the easement. Since you mentioned homlessness - I now live in Portland. Here's the way I deal with it: If you camp on public land around my neighborhood I expect you to be a good neighbor. Clean up your trash, no feces or urination in public, no leering/jeering/being creepy etc... I've generally provided water, heating devices, medical aid, etc to people that need it - the same way a good neighbor would. Some amount of people don't care about those boundaries though and will violate every single basic human expectation you can have. City code enforcement is generally not setup to handle disputes like this and neither are the police so it puts the public in really weird spots. I don't know how to solve that, but those folks aren't using easement rights. They're using public camping rights, which are entirely different and have more to do with camping on BLM and forestry land.

elitan 2y ago

It works well here in Sweden: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam

throwaway22032 2y ago

[flagged]

iamthirsty 2y ago
> Right to roam works in places with no or a very small degenerate population like the Nordics. ...What? How exactly do you go about quantifying a country's "degenerate" population percentage?
- trgn 2y ago
  You don't. You know it when you see it. Requires high trust, broad distribution of prosocial behaviors.
- throwaway22032 2y ago
  You go there and you see it. For example - drug addicts wandering about in San Diego, tents cropping up everywhere, crazies shouting outside of Finsbury Park tube station, "travellers" fly tipping in the UK. The remote parts of Sweden and Finland don't have these issues. Maybe a few kids doing donuts in the car park after hours because they're bored. That's it.
  - iamthirsty 2y ago
    I'm born and raised in LA, so I have an extremely good understanding of what you're referring to. But there are so many other factors besides just labeling people as degenerates. For example, Sweden, a very highly developed economy, only has to support less than 11 million people. That's about half of just the state of Florida's 22m. NYC alone almost has as many people as some of the countries being referred to. They also have different laws, social structures, mental health facilities, completely different penal system, socialized healthcare — I could go on. I don't think you can truly qualify people as simply "degenerates" when there are so many other factors. For example, Switzerland had a major crime and drug epidemic in 1999, and opened centers in 2000 to assist with those issues — and homelessness encampments and crime effectively disappeared. Again — it's not always that people are innately shitty, but the system around them allowing that option. I'm sure if you packed people in Sweden, let immigration skyrocket, and take away all the socialized benefits you'd see real fast the "degenerate" population grow.

KingOfCoders 2y ago

The Bavarian constitution says: "All parts of the great outdoors, in particular forests, mountain pastures, rocks, wastelands, fallow land, floodplains, riparian strips and agricultural land, may be entered by anyone free of charge." (Though you can't camp there like in Norway)

arethuza 2y ago
It's pretty much access for any non-motorised activity (including camping) here in Scotland: https://www.outdooraccess-scotland.scot/ https://www.outdooraccess-scotland.scot/
techterrier 2y ago
all the keep out signs on picturesque parts of southern ireland (eg galway) are helpfully translated into German.
qwertox 2y ago
In Germany, while you can't camp with a tent in the wilderness, it's allowed to bivouac ("biwakieren", using a sleeping bag to sleep under the stars). https://www.alpin.de/sicher-am-berg/30427/artikel_darauf_muesst_ihr_beim_biwakieren_achten_.html https://www.alpin.de/sicher-am-berg/30427/artikel_darauf_mue... (article is in German)
- lima 2y ago
  And in hammocks! They don't touch the ground and therefore don't count.
- KingOfCoders 2y ago
  Looks like it is allowed when not planned but an emergency.

frankharv 2y ago

This authors mindset is unfathomable to me: "repairing the damage caused by centuries of private land ownership."

ajkjk 2y ago
Well they're writing to change minds like yours.
g4zj 2y ago
Could you elaborate on this?
bigstrat2003 2y ago
Trying to be charitable, I think maybe it's just a cultural thing. If someone grew up immersed in a culture which tells them that walking everywhere is a natural right of man, then it wouldn't be surprising if they think of private land ownership as being heinous. It's a very alien view to me, but values shaped by culture generally are. It's just how it is.
- rsynnott 2y ago
  Many countries allow private land ownership, but also have a right to roam; the land ownership is qualified (as indeed almost all land ownership is nearly everywhere; that's how eminent domain works).
- ajkjk 2y ago
  I think the claim is more like: "We grew up in a culture that forgot how the freedom to go everywhere ought to be something we value. I have remembered that this is a good thing to value, and you should too."
ta1243 2y ago
Do you not think this would start to repair the damage?
- s1artibartfast 2y ago

vincebowdren 2y ago

This article never mentions the existing access setup: 1. a really dense network of rights of way – almost entirely on privately-owned land https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_of_way_in_England_and_Wales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_of_way_in_England_and_W... 2. open access to unimproved wild land: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#England_and_Wales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#England_and_Wa... The way this article reports the campaigners, you'd be forgiven for thinking that there are no existing rights of access in law, and for thinking that private ownership of land necessarily means absolute access restrictions. This is not just a problem with this specific article; I've seen it numerous times, and it makes me think that this is a consistent pattern of this campaign; the campaigners are either wilfully ignoring the rights which already exist or are themselves woefully ignorant. Either way, they're doing the public a disservice by spreading what looks a lot like misinformation.

vincebowdren 2y ago
Another bit of ignorance: they refer to 'commons' as if that meant, in English, unrestricted public use or access. It doesn't. A commons is a piece of land with specific usage rights for specific people - e.g. local farmers allowed particular grazing rights. "give the commons back to the public" implies a history which this country has never had.

maeln 2y ago

I pretty much knew what I would find in the comments on this one. The right to roam, in country in which it exist in one form or another, is exactly this: the right to roam. Not the right to camp (although some allow it usually with some restriction), live, squat, pollute, destroy, ... As someone who sometime had to go from point A to point B in the countryside without a car, this was a necessity as it was the only safe way to do so (sidewalk are nonexistent in the countryside). It also avoid "trapping" some public land within private one (and effectively privatizing it), although, in my country at least, the state will usually preempt a small piece of the private land to always have a passage between public land. As for the liability, is should go without saying that there is usually laws that release you from any liability for people hurting themselves while roaming on your property (with the obvious exception that you should not put anything with the intention of hurting people, for example traps).

bequanna 2y ago
> As for the liability, is should go without saying that there is usually laws that release you from any liability for people hurting themselves while roaming on your property This isn't true. A person can break into your home, fall down stairs and file a lawsuit against you.
- ryanmcbride 2y ago
  Do you have an example of such a lawsuit succeeding in real life outside of the movie Liar Liar?
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    A lawsuit still costs money to the defendant even if it doesn't "succeed" in the end. The legal system is pretty much inaccessible to laypeople, so you need to at least hire a lawyer so they can speak the magical incantations and file the right 27b/6 form to the right clerk at the right time so you don't lose due to a paperwork technicality.
    - 2y ago

Dylanfm 2y ago

Another interview with Jon Moses: https://novaramedia.com/2023/07/13/novara-fm-revenge-of-the-commoners/ https://novaramedia.com/2023/07/13/novara-fm-revenge-of-the-... Putting the 'right to roam' movement in a greater context. Coming about after de-peopling of the land, trying to counter the effects that has had on people. By returning land access to people, people will regain a connection with the land and care for it more.

surfingdino 2y ago

The right to roam ought to be given together with an obligation to restore the land to the original state after you have roamed.

__MatrixMan__ 2y ago

I want this in the US so badly. Thrice now I've had my commute double because somebody fenced off a trail and now I have to go the long way around.

ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
Climb the fence.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  That'll get you shot 'round these parts. Or bit by someone's dog. Although there's one fence in particular, around an apartment complex parking lot which I cut through to go to the grocery store, which I've been dismantling. They've repaired it three times so far, we'll see who gives up first.
onthecanposting 2y ago
I think abrogating the property rights of every property owner in exchange for some people getting a shortcut is not a very good trade. There are legal routes for public agencies to purchase portions of land to create routes for transportation, including pedestrian paths, that ensure you're at least paid for the lost property. If there is a need, then lobbying your mayor or council is the way to go about this. That's a lot less risky than letting anyone enter your property anytime for any reason as long as they say they're on a nature walk or something.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  I know my corner of the world will not embrace right to roam anytime soon. I'd settle for something that requires owners to acknowledge that when they buy land with a trail on it they have to maintain that trail. I don't mind going around, but it shouldn't take me an additional 30m.

mprovost 2y ago

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me; Sign was painted, it said private property; But on the back side it didn't say nothing; This land was made for you and me. -- Woody Guthrie

orthecreedence 2y ago
I love how they cut this verse out in the presidential inaugeration.

gorbypark 2y ago

My ideal "right to roam" laws would be 1) you have the right to pass through any piece of land 2) you have to stay x amount of meters away from a house/building/etc 3) you have the right to camp for one night in a spot and you can't have a tent pitched until one hour before sunset and it must be down by one hour after sunrise. There should probably be an even further minimum distance from a house compared to the distance set for just passing by. 4) no fires / pack it in, pack it out / etc There's a bunch of places in Europe now that have a no camping policy, but allow (or tolerate) "bivouacking", which originally meant sleeping on the ground without a shelter but now kind of includes small tents. I think it's the ideal tradeoff, it still allows long distance backpackers to do their thing while discouraging the "party camping" crowds.

sandworm101 2y ago
So would this ideal legal framework extend to the suburbs? Do I get to roam through people's backyards? Am I allowed to hop over fences so long as I stay X meters away from buildings? How big does a property have to be before I can pitch my tent in the middle of someone's lawn? No matter what the number, 10m, 25m, 100m, I can probably find a nice neighborhood on google maps full of lawns big enough to become my next campsite.
- antisthenes 2y ago
  The policy needs to be reasonable, unless you want home owners taking matters in their own hands (you don't). Policy or not, seeing a steady stream of strangers "roam" through your property next to your (vulnerable) family members will generally do more harm than good. Also, how would you deal with unintended property damage? > Am I allowed to hop over fences so long as I stay X meters away from buildings? A reasonable policy would probably specify at least 50-100 meters from buildings, which would outlaw roaming in suburbia.
  - sandworm101 2y ago
    >> A reasonable policy would probably specify... There is no reasonable policy, not in the US. No matter what number is picked, homeowners will install anything from doll houses to razor wire to prevent their back lot becoming the next homeless encampment.

lastofthemojito 2y ago

Without a right to roam, we end up with cases of public lands that lack any legal public access. I just read this article in the LA Times about a state park in California that there's no legal access to: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-05-20/the-state-park-on-sutter-buttes-no-one-can-visit https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-05-20/the-stat... But that's certainly not the only such case: https://www.trcp.org/unlocking-public-lands/ https://www.trcp.org/unlocking-public-lands/

s1artibartfast 2y ago
Im with the ranchers in the case of Sutter Buttes. They pre-date the state purchase of the land, which it did without access rights, and before the state turned it into a park. It reminds me of the phrase: "Poor planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine". Maybe it will work out for the state in the long run, but it took the risk to buy land without access, with full knowledge, and cant cry foul later.
- Clamchop 2y ago
  In some cases, the law can be used to force the sale of an easement for access to a landlocked property. So, in that sense, it can amount to an emergency for you. But it is still a sale.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    I have read about it in some cases, but it seems to depend on the situation. I suspect (and hope) that this is not one of the cases, given that the government bought the land with full knowledge that it was land locked.
    - Clamchop 2y ago
      It can be done even in that order of events. I don't really agree with you, it's not in the public interest that property owners should be able to bogart land merely by encircling it, however the situation should arise, and it invites obvious abuses. Incidentally, the property owners in the article are doing just that, first by selling landlocked property evidently with an agreement among eachother to never sell a public right of way, and then by selling tours that wouldn't be necessary if they had, a form of rent seeking.

bilsbie 2y ago

I kind of like this idea but I’d prefer it only applied to commercial land owners or very large personal land holdings. It would suck to buy a couple acre plot to get away from the city and constantly have people camping or hiking on your land.

gadders 2y ago

I'm not sure people should have unrestricted rights to roam over private property, but where public land is fully enclosed by private land there should be an allowance made (or compulsory footpath introduced) to grant access. I think there is a similar issue in the US with land that is only accessible on touching corners. https://www.onxmaps.com/onx-access-initiatives/corner-crossing-report https://www.onxmaps.com/onx-access-initiatives/corner-crossi...

theodric 2y ago

Well here's something that will be taken as an inflammatory comment, which I nevertheless believe with absolute certainty and will hold to despite the inevitable loss of karma/banning: Anglosphere countries cannot be trusted with this level of access to another person's property. If the change gets through, people will abuse their rights, overstep, overstay, and leave a mess behind them; owners will complain bitterly, and some owner who has enough land or sway or title will complain strongly enough to the right person, and this will be dialled back. If you wait 50-70 years, it'll come back for another go. I know Anglosphere mentality. I'm American, but have spent 21 years in Europe, living in Ireland, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, and travelling extensively in Scandinavia, Germany, and the UK. Folks differ in their attitudes toward collective responsibility and respect for others and their things. Not only that, but that's what's germane to this discussion.

Rastonbury 2y ago
Have you ever walked in British countryside? There is already limited right to roam and people are generally courteous about walking through people's property, shutting gates etc.
- theodric 2y ago
  Walkers are one thing; it's when people stay overnight and can't be asked to pack away everything they hauled in that a layer really begins to accumulate: plastic wrappings, bottles, butts, wads of beshitted toilet paper, and so on. But I've witnessed enough hedge-rubbish in Snowdonia to not be blown away relative to what I saw in Switzerland and Norway.

mbonnet 2y ago

Some of the best climbing in the world is in karst topography. The best known is in Central Europe. Far away from that is the Texas Hill Country, which while possessing incredible rock, is almost entirely privately owned. Central Texas could be a climbing mecca, but isn't, because of a lack of right to roam.

TurkishPoptart 2y ago

Doesn't Scandinavia have a right like this?

geff82 2y ago

The right to roam/access was so natural and ingrained to me that it took me 3 decades of my life to finally realize that it was not everywhere like in Germany/Switzerland/Austria where the entire landscape is essentially one big recreational park. Vacation away from home is great, but living in a place where I am confined to my own ground/public roads and a few select pieces of federal land? Unimaginable. Freedom comes in many forms.... the right to roam is one I exercise every day. I feel that the right to access/roam (depending on the country it is called and framed differently) hurts no one and makes everyones life better.