[HN Gopher] Mass trespass on Dartmoor to highlight England's 'pi...
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Mass trespass on Dartmoor to highlight England's 'piecemeal' right
to roam laws
Author : chippy
Score : 89 points
Date : 2024-02-22 10:17 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| some_random wrote:
| Are 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 wrote:
| Some 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 wrote:
| The 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 wrote:
| > _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 wrote:
| That's why I'm asking, what are these reasons that need to be
| balanced against?
| dogman144 wrote:
| Qualifying 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 wrote:
| https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2097.htm#article3
| some_random wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| Dismissing the _Summa Theologica_ as "borderline
| schizophrenic nonsense" makes me believe you're just
| trolling here.
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| It'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 wrote:
| Over 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?
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| Very interesting; thank you for linking to it. I quite agree
| with Thomas that "...by actions also, especially if they be
| repeated, so as to make a custom, law can be changed and
| expounded". This is essentially the same foundation as the
| English Common Law for the trial by jury - that a group of
| 'twelve men good and true' have as much justification for
| determining right and wrong as does a written document. The
| jury must be drawn from the community of the accused;
| otherwise, they would not necessarily be of the same custom
| as the accused and would, therefore, effectively not be
| making a judgement in the correct jurisdiction.
| hgomersall wrote:
| The 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 wrote:
| Ignorant 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 wrote:
| Americans 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 wrote:
| 2/3 of England is owned by 0.36% of the population. Half by
| 0.1% https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/apr/17/who-
| owns-engla...
| OJFord wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| Land 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 wrote:
| The 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 wrote:
| And 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.
| Alex63 wrote:
| Slightly 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 wrote:
| Well, 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 wrote:
| Also the UK is more "historically dense" than much of the US
| was (and is!).
| Animats wrote:
| There'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
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commentaries_on_the_Laws_of
| _En...
|
| [3] https://press-
| pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s5....
| zdragnar wrote:
| This is an argument against eminent domain (which the US
| still has), not free access to private property.
| Animats wrote:
| That's the short version. Blackstone on trespass:
|
| _" (Trespass) signifies no more than an entry on another
| man's ground without a lawful authority, and doing some
| damage, however inconsiderable, to his real property. For
| the right of meum and tuum, or property, in lands being
| once established, it follows as a necessary consequence,
| that this right must be exclusive; that is, that the
| owner may retain to himself the sole use and occupation
| of his soil: every entry therefore thereon without the
| owner's leave, and especially if contrary to his express
| order, is a trespass or transgression. The Roman law seem
| to have made a direct prohibition necessary, in order to
| constitute this injury: "qui alienum fundum ingreditur,
| potest a domino, si is praeviderit, prohiberi ne
| ingrediatur." But the law of England, justly considering
| that much inconvenience may happen to the owner, before
| he has an opportunity to forbid the entry, has carried
| the point much farther, and has treated every entry upon
| another's lands, (unless by the owner's leave, or in some
| very particular cases) as an injury or wrong, for
| satisfaction of which an action of trespass will lie; but
| determines the quantum of that satisfaction, by
| considering how far the offense was willful or
| inadvertent, and by estimating the value of the actual
| damage sustained."_[1]
|
| Except for the carve-out for fox-hunting: _" In like
| manner the common law warrants the hunting of ravenous
| beasts of prey, as badgers and foxes, in another man's
| land; because the destroying such creatures is profitable
| to the public."_
|
| [1] https://lonang.com/library/reference/tucker-
| blackstone-notes...
| gottorf wrote:
| > Blackstone was a property rights absolutist
|
| For good reason, one can suppose. Wealth flows downstream
| from the concept of private property whose rights are
| strongly guarded by law. An "ideal" amount of property
| rights, if one exists at all, is likely much closer to
| absolute than zero.
| dylan604 wrote:
| There is the concept of easements. Probably not as familiar to
| the suburban person, but out in the boonies, it is allowed for
| you to use another person's property to get to your property if
| there is no other access to your property. For example when
| your property doesn't have direct access to a road unless using
| your neighbor's access. Lots of country properties "share" a
| dirt road
| Alex63 wrote:
| Noted (I'm actually rural, and have an easement on my own
| property), but an easement is quite different from a public
| right of way in the UK. An easement does not create a public
| right, and (at least in WA state) must be negotiated between
| the landowners.
| dylan604 wrote:
| There's also easements into greenbelts. There are some
| places around lakes where you can only access the publicly
| accessible areas by crossing private property. Usually,
| there is a designated path for that access, and the
| property owner cannot block it from public use.
| myself248 wrote:
| Then you get into the peculiarity of "corner crossing",
| where four parcels meet at an infinitesimal point. Can
| you cross the corner and not be considered to have
| trespassed onto one of the other pieces? It's.... tricky.
| dylan604 wrote:
| you must be a really really bad neighbor for anybody to
| get to "how many angels can dance on a pin head" levels
| your proposing.
|
| or you can make it a national park and put a surveyor's
| mark for people to come and visit.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| https://www.themeateater.com/conservation/public-lands-
| and-w...
|
| TIL this is a real thing. I thought it was a HN thought
| experiment.
| nativeit wrote:
| It only gets tricky when there are wealthy landowners
| seeking to monopolize public game lands they have
| surrounded by private property, otherwise it's pretty
| clearly acceptable to cross.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah. I live in at least exurban area and I have some
| specific easements I negotiated when I bought. And, in
| practice, I have more. But if the neighboring owner really
| wanted to put up some barbed wire fences or the one or two
| owners along the river walk I often take outside of
| conservation land really wanted to clamp down, I'm pretty
| sure I wouldn't have legal options.
|
| Per another comment, some of it at least is that many
| people really don't want hunting (or destructive off-road
| vehicles) on their land but have no problem with the
| occasional person taking a walk on a more-or-less
| established path.
|
| Even in the UK, I've had an issue with something basically
| identified as an item of interest on an OS map and getting
| yelled at for sticking my nose in a gate.
| toast0 wrote:
| WA state has a private way of necessity [1] (edit: i had
| the wrong word here). If my land has no access except
| through your land, you may not deny me access. Although
| you're welcome to attempt to negotiate with me to get to
| something that works well for both of us, but if not, I can
| do something reasonable.
|
| WA also has easements by traditional access, but it seemed
| pretty limited and easy for property owners to avoid, when
| I was looking into it.
|
| [1]
| https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=8.24&full=true
| dylan604 wrote:
| Most people I know in these situations that are
| neighborly will chip in to the neighbor that "owns" the
| access to help maintain that access.
| ghaff wrote:
| Although my understanding (through some personal
| experience) is that e.g. in Maine it's OK to have only
| water access. May not still be true but seemed to be in a
| case I was familiar with.
| cogman10 wrote:
| It's a little more tricky than that. There are implicit
| public easements that get created merely by a path being
| open and commonly used. That's pretty close to the right in
| the UK.
|
| If you can show that you've been using a specific path for
| years the owner of that path can lose rights to block
| access. This is why you see some land owners putting up no-
| trespassing signs and jealously guarding their land and
| access. They don't want to lose the ability to effectively
| control their paths. IIRC, this is a common law thing. It's
| a bit like trademarks in the sense that land owners need to
| guard their land otherwise they lose a chunk of it.
|
| The squishiness here is I don't think there's a specified
| amount of time before the public easement is granted.
| crtified wrote:
| The fundamental difference between the private and public
| R'sOW is who the 'agreement' is between.
|
| With private, the agreement is by - or between - private
| landowner(s).
|
| With public, it's between every applicable private
| landowner, and the governing authority.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Suburban resident here. We have easements for local hiking
| trails as they cross through private property :)
| wesleyd wrote:
| Maine has right to roam, kind of, in a very american way: you
| can assume you have permission, unless clearly indicated
| otherwise. This preserves property rights, but only if you want
| them. Also there is a strong presumption of zero liability for
| the landowner (AFAIK!), so landowners aren't particularly
| incentivized to close off their land.
|
| All thanks to the hunting lobby, I expect.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Yea, I think the liability thing is key, at least in the USA.
| I have no problem in concept with allowing the public to roam
| on my property (as long as they're not taking or damaging
| things), but I wouldn't want to allow it if they could sue me
| and win because they tripped on a rock or something.
| ghaff wrote:
| Anyone can sue anyone for anything. I assume that if you
| trip on a rock or a tree root on a trail on someone's land,
| suing would be a man bites dog thing--but so could any
| number of events. Obviously if you deliberately put some
| hazard of a trail crossing your property, that could be
| different. (Though probably edge cases--tricky natural
| hazard on a well-established trail you didn't do anything
| about.)
| volkl48 wrote:
| Also the case in New Hampshire and Vermont. And at least in
| NH there's some tax incentives for leaving your land
| unposted/open to that kind of access.
| lozenge wrote:
| It's in the name isn't it? Colonies. There were already people
| there who shouldn't have any rights to the land.
| strictnein wrote:
| Which group of people who were in the Americas had the
| "right" to the land? The groups that were on the land when
| Columbus landed? Or the groups that were there when the
| Pilgrims landed? Or the groups that were there in 1776?
|
| For large swaths of the Americas, these are all different
| groups, many of which seized the land through violence.
|
| It's something people like to throw out as an argument, but
| it falls on its face under the most basic of scrutiny. The
| entire earth was "stolen" many, many times by this
| definition, making it nonsensical.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > why didn't the colonies recognize rights of way based on
| well-established use?
|
| Because that would have been at odds with colonists' goals of
| seizing the land from the people whom it previously belonged
| to, and who were using it.
| bbarnett wrote:
| In Canada, there are so many streams and rivers, lakes, that
| these are the 'right to roam' areas. There are all sorts of
| laws for access, and the country was explored by canoe.
|
| And in the winters of 200 years ago, the lakes became frozen
| roads.
|
| Yet part of it may also be, that land wss apportioned in large,
| organized chunks in many cases. Given to settlers, with spaces
| for roads as part of the plan.
|
| Europe had many places where there was no way to get around,
| for there were no roads!
| alistairSH wrote:
| And in the US, access to waterways isn't guaranteed. I'll
| have to look up the details, but there are sections of the
| James River in Virginia which are private and the right to
| privacy was granted in the colonial era.
| gtmitchell wrote:
| I'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 wrote:
| On 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 wrote:
| which 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 wrote:
| No, 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 wrote:
| What's the difference between a house on a 'wooded' lot
| and a cabin in a forest? Seems an artificial distinction.
| bitbckt wrote:
| Moreover because most of Germany's "forests" are man-
| made... are they not mostly "wooded lots"? The
| distinction maybe arises from green space preservation
| policies?
| kleiba wrote:
| I don't think there are any wooded lots in Germany, at
| least not in the way you're thinking. If your lot is at
| least a quarter acre big and some 30 feet wide, it counts
| as a forest.
| lukan wrote:
| It is mainly artificial. A bit like the zoning codes in
| the US I think.
|
| There is property where you can build a proper house and
| live there (requirement is, that there is infrastructure,
| like water and electricity). Then there are gardens,
| where maybe a small cabin is allowed (but you may not
| officially live there). And then there is everything
| else, where you normally cannot build anything.
| pleasantpeasant wrote:
| California has some strict laws about beach access for
| everyone and you still see beach-side homeowners trying
| to fence off the public's access to the beach or putting
| up illegal signs that say "Private Property, No Beach
| Access" or something like that
| justrealist wrote:
| > 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. reply
|
| I just want to note that even with these annoying carveouts,
| the US has far more federal land than other European countries.
| There's not really an equivalent to the vast national forests
| in the US west in Europe. Those countries are essentially 100%
| allocated and settled.
| ghaff wrote:
| As a practical matter, you may not be able to live in those
| vast federal lands given the need to eat, but they certainly
| exist and--to the degree there's car access--you can probably
| spend a lot of time there if you want to. Probably more than
| a lot of European countries if you want to.
| bagels wrote:
| I'm not saying it's wrong that some of the federal land is
| inaccessible, but there is so much BLM land that is
| accessible that it would take you a lifetime to exhaust
| visiting all of it.
|
| But also, the corner crossing thing is really dumb. Why did
| the federal government establish a checkerboard pattern?
| Either way, they should just eminent domain 20 feet off the
| corners and call it a day.
| bitbckt wrote:
| In the US, it's a legacy of railroad grants.
| WD-42 wrote:
| By land mass for sure but by practicality of access unlikely.
| Near urban or small towns going on a daily walk in the US is
| usually limited unless you are willing to get shot at because
| "muh property"
| jmugan wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| Oh yeah. You'd get shot.
| CaliforniaKarl wrote:
| It'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 wrote:
| Paying 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 wrote:
| How 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?
| balderdash wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| Tragedy of the commons for right to roam versus the need for
| georgist taxation when its missing. Very interesting comment --
| appreciate your input!
| WD-42 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| I'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...
|
| [2] https://www.morton-fraser.com/insights/right-roam-
| scotland
| lukan wrote:
| People do not want to trespass on private land here - they are
| upset that they have to trespass private land, to reach the
| land where they have the right to roam. But they are usually
| surrounded by fences of private land.
|
| "In 2000 the Countryside and Rights of Way Act gave people a
| right to roam over certain landscape types, such as mountains,
| moorland, heathland, downland and commons.
|
| However, the campaign group Right to Roam argues that this
| landscape - known as "access land" and covering about 8% of
| England - is often surrounded by farmed fields and other
| privately owned landscapes, creating inaccessible "islands" of
| free-to-roam land."
| balderdash wrote:
| My point is not about trespassing but rather "responsible
| access" - people still feel ok not acting responsibly (while
| trespassing) if you increase the number of people accessing
| land you are by definition going to increase the number of
| people acting "irresponsibly" (there is a zero percent chance
| that 100% of people act responsibly)
| actionfromafar wrote:
| I feel the same way about money.
| tomrod wrote:
| A map of the islands & barriers would be very helpful to the
| messaging here.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Feels 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-...
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/5Tj9KU8q8rk
| skeletal88 wrote:
| These 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 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| Many countries have this system (Norway, Scotland, Estonia...
| ) and it works fine.
| frutiger wrote:
| Those countries either have a low population density,
| immigration rate or nature there is far more remote than in
| England.
| moses-palmer wrote:
| I, personally, think you can have nice things like this and
| they will not get abused. If the right to forage mushrooms on
| a non-industrial scale, or to walk along the shore next to a
| house without disturbing the inhabitants is given, in my
| experience people will respect the limitations.
|
| It appears that the laws where I live are quite similar to
| those in Estonia in this aspect, and I have never heard of
| any real abuse.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Depends where you live, optimistically. Many public lands
| in the US have a policy that you can camp there for free.
| I've used a lot of these sites. Very often, they're fucking
| gross. Styrofoam and beer cans overflowing from the firepit
| is common. At one site I cleaned up a turd that could have
| been from a big dog, but was suspiciously human-sized. This
| happened all over the country. Many national forests now
| make their own exceptions to the free camping rule, and I
| have little doubt it's in response to this rampant abuse.
| The abusers are out there.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > I, personally, think you can have nice things like this
| and they will not get abused.
|
| Really? I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's much easier
| for me to think of counterexamples than supporting
| examples. Hikers leave garbage on trails all the time. Even
| dog owners let their pets leave little presents for other
| people to take care of. I love right to roam laws, but I
| can see the other side too. I think we have to weigh the
| tradeoffs and accept that there's a cost--one that may be
| outweighed by the benefits, surely--not deny that any costs
| exist.
| Throw494955 wrote:
| Except the barbed wire fence, you put on your border, so
| refugees from Africa and Arab countries can not get into your
| country. With labels like "No Vacancy".
|
| Estonia is a white ethno state full of racist people!
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Do you mean the border to Russia? If they wanted to be in a
| white ethno state full of racist people, maybe _not_ crossing
| could also be a good-enough solution. Not perfect, but close
| enough.
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