This is a ransom note,
taking away our right to wild camp on the moor
and replacing it with a system of permissive access
that can be removed by them at any time.
Camping's gonna become a rich person activity,
here, fork up £15, £20 for a campsite.
Young people, especially young people from poorer backgrounds,
aren't going to be able to do that.
This is something that deserves to be used by the nation,
it's far more than the rights of a few individuals.
We're here today to defend Dartmoor
and it's wild camping rights.
So today we will come together to contest
and overthrow this unjust ruling,
but today is only the beginning.
We cannot and we will not accept this erosion
of the public's right to access nature.
We're in Dartmoor National Park
and we're just driving up to an area where we have a right to roam
and we had a right to wild camp,
but now we no longer have a right to wild camp,
because of the court case brought by a wealthy Dartmoor landowner, Alexander Darwall,
so I want to show you what we've lost.
You only have a right to roam over 8% of England,
that means you only have a right to really access, freely,
8% of the country in Scotland.
People have had a right, a full right to roam and a right to wild camp
over pretty much all of Scotland for 20 years now
and actually it makes Scotland a much more welcoming place.
So it became a national park in 1951.
For centuries it's always been, you know, kind of treated as common land
and at least for a century you're camping on it as well.
This little bright orange fungus here,
it's called the Witch's butter.
Yeah, that's beautiful little orange fungus that grows on leggy gorse, here.
I've mapped the biggest landowners
and only 15 landowners own half of the national park.
The Darwalls are major Dartmoor landowners,
they own an estate that's at least 4,000 acres in size.
He brought this court case to try and essentially challenge the right
to wild camp on Dartmoor.
They were claiming that wild camping has a detrimental environmental impact.
They've seen some instances of what's called fly camping,
which is to leave your tent or to leave rubbish
or the remains of a fire.
None of that is actually the spirit of wild camping.
I'm not really sure why they were so concerned about it,
because Stall Moor, which is the bit of moorland that they own,
it's really remote it gets hardly
really any visitors compared to some of the,
you know, more popular sites on Dartmoor.
It's a very long way from their big mansion house,
it's not like, we're kind of putting tents on their front lawn or anything like that.
He's doing good, isn't he?
Do you know gorse flowers are edible?
But at this time of year it's not the tastiest thing,
however if you can get it when it's good,
tastes of coconut and it makes a really, really nice tea.
Do you want to try some?
I am a teacher,
but I'm also currently working at a school for students with individual needs
and on the weekends I take students up to Dartmoor.
Oh, they're all right actually.
Being able to show young people
the importance of being outdoors
and how they become leaders, but also team players
and these skills that you don't get really in the classroom.
I don't know, it's just so good for them,
it's just amazing, you see these young people change
and grow and develop.
Oh, this is perfect.
Whoa, who's going to find a pitch there?
I teach a lot of outdoor education to children on the autistic spectrum
using areas like Dartmoor for educational purposes.
Dartmoor was one of the few places that I can actually legally
take a group onto a moor and not use a campsite, to wild camp in nature,
to experience how to use compasses to assess the risks
and actually learn skills that actually those young people can take safely
and use at other areas.
After the court case I came up here to sort of process what had happened
and it just felt like something beautiful had been absolutely ripped from inside me.
Floods of tears, I couldn't even bring myself to camp that night.
This is the most important bit of equipment,
the doggy sleeping bag, there we go.
She's not been in it yet,
I literally made it this morning.
All right Pip, come here.
What's in there, what's in there?
Good girl.
Sit, sit.
Happy in there?
Gonna be happy tonight at minus five, yeah?
Hopefully.
My big concern is that at the moment it's sort of an agreement
and it's a very short-term agreement where we're being given permission
now from landowners, which is really lovely,
but that can be taken away at any point.
Just don't step backwards, all right?
Anything could happen for them to want an increase in payment
or reduce the land further that we're allowed to camp on.
The students that I take up up on to Dartmoor now
to do 10 tours and D of E training might be the last generation that can do that
and that's really quite scary for me.
Because you've seen it in education the lack of outdoor activities,
students don't really get to access the outdoors as much as they could.
You've got the marshland down in the valley over there, so yeah.
People have just had enough,
not just about wild camping,
but the way that, you know, your average person is getting marginalised
in this country.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's part of a bigger issue, isn't it?
Because at the time where no one's got any money,
everything's been ruined in the country, the NHS has been destroyed,
mental health is going up, all these sorts of things
and camping's the remedy for a lot of that.
You know, when you're out on the moors there's no class, there's no status,
there's none of that.
Our protest here is symbolic of a bigger malaise throughout the country almost.
Yeah, yeah,
The fact that the people, who during Covid and lockdown,
yet we were out there clapping.
I think these are the saviours of our country
and having to go on strike for a living wage.
I think it's all part of the same thing I really do.
There's so many psychological articles
documenting the impact of the outdoors on mental health.
For me like, my own mental health and sense of calm,
I really need that, because my day job is quite challenging.
Today is the public rising up to say
we want our right to wild camp on Dartmoor back.
I think this is really struck a chord, people are angry,
they're upset at losing these rights,
but they know that together this is the way to change things.
Those who have any rubbish just put it in the bag
so it doesn't go on the floor, thank you.
Put it in the bag, it's better there then on the tree, isn't it?
Well I wasn't going to do that.
No, I know you won't, but, you know?
The turnout is absolutely amazing there's been so many people
all with the same cause.
All to come here and promote how amazing wild camping is
for our social, emotional, mental health and well-being
and to hopefully protect that opportunity for future generations.
Really what's needed now is a new law,
a new right to roam act that would cement
people's right to wild camp, not just on Dartmoor but in other national parks as well
and to extend the public's right of access to nature
and right to roam over the countryside.
The huge outpouring of support that we saw,
I think is a taste of what's to come on this.