I want to return to last week’s conversation about paths, and to this beautiful comment from Sara Mahlum who wrote to say,
‘I also love the path as an image of our ideal relation with the environment; our mark is there, but it can be gentle and pleasing to the eye.’
I love this idea, and it is one that I have been exploring in my art. The path is our way into nature, very literally. Public footpaths are a right of access that criss-cross this county, leading us to amazing places. They are beautiful and seductive to look at, and even more seductive and transformative to walk.
I have always loved walking, growing up in London I spent my days traipsing across Hampstead Heath until there wasn’t a blade of grass or patch of earth I haven’t walked upon. But when I began hiking the South West Coast Path I experienced a different sort of walking, and a new connection to the natural world I was walking through. The ups and downs of the path, from towering cliffs to long beaches, requires balance to hike. One must tread carefully, consciously, and with an awareness of one’s gravitational centre. It genuinely felt like learning to walk all over again. Watching the birds of our coastline, the swifts and swallows, the buzzards and gulls, I could not help but be jealous of the harmony between them and the air. I want that harmony, that balance, with the land upon which I walk.
To me, that is where rewilding comes in. Rewilding is an approach to conservation and protecting our environments that encourages humanities own wildness, our need to reconnect with nature. Hiking public footpaths and national trails has begun an extraordinary alchemy in my own personally process of rewilding. I have found myself wanting the learn the names of plants and trees, wanting to understand what the hedgerows have to offer, to know what is below the surface of the sea. Being out in nature day after day made me realise how little I knew about something I thought I loved, and how much more I could fall in love with it as I began to understand.
This process, and the paths I followed to get here, are why I am so angry and horrified by a ruling from the High Court ending the right to wild camp on Dartmoor. For those of you who don’t know, Dartmoor was the only place in England where one could legally wild camp. However, a man named Alexander Darwell bought a piece of Dartmoor, and then went to court to have the right the wild camp banned. Despite opposition from the likes of Dartmoor National Park, the Duke of Edinburgh Award, and the Dartmoor Preservation Association, he won.
One man has been given priority over our collective right to roam and camp on one of the nations national parks. If that horrifies you, it should. If it upsets you, good. But it shouldn’t surprise you. 92% of England is off limits to the public. 92% of this country is fenced off, walled away, locked behind laws that protect landowners and the wealthy.
As I write this, protests against this ruling are being organised. However, as I write this, protests are also being made illegal by this Conservative government. They are being banned because protest is powerful, it is a united voice, and it works. You might be familiar with these words from Margaret Mead, an American cultural anthropologist,
‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.’
From the suffragettes, to segregation, to apartheid, protest has changed the world time and time again. That is what this Conservative government is afraid of, it is why they are passing laws that allow the police to arrest people before they protest. Think on that for a moment. They can be arrested before they protest, before they’ve done anything but plan and believe in something.
In 1932, the Mass Tresspass of Kinder Scout was organised, with hundreds of people arriving on April 24th to walk the Kinder Scout. It is arguably one of the most successful examples of civil disobedience in British History. It was one of the factors that led to the National Parks legislation of 1949 and paved the way for the establishment of the Pennine Way, one of England’s incredible national trails.
We are going backwards, and with this latest High Court ruling, that has never been clearer. Our public footpaths are for everyone, they lead us into the natural world in a way that protects us and the land we tread upon. Banning our right to camp in Dartmoor it is a very public move in an insidious movement that is trying to ban our right to these paths.
This might seem small in comparison to some of the protest movements I mentioned, but it isn’t. The result of spending time in nature is that we become connected to it. The more people who feel that connection will only increase the voices shouting out in protest of the wilful destruction that has led to the climate crisis. Preventing climate collapse is the most important issue of our age and protecting our right to roam is a step towards it.
The path is a powerful metaphor, and it is a compelling image, but it is also a very real thing that must be protected. If you can, I urge you to support Right to Roam today, they are fighting back.
And if you are interested, here is some further reading on the camping ban and what it means. Now I return to my applications in the hopes of making art that lends my voice to this fight.
The Dartmoor wild camping ban further limits our right to roam. It must be fought
‘Something beautiful has been taken away’: campaigners vow to fight ban on Dartmoor camping