Opinion: Right to roam at odds with other government goals
© Roger Ashford/Adobe Stock Lord Smith of Finsbury (the former culture secretary) recently weighed into the extremely sensitive debate about right to roam, giving his two penneth in a comment piece in The Times.
Lord Smith, quite rightly, stresses the importance of being close to nature for our mental health and wellbeing.
He writes: “We should strive to make it possible for everyone to have that opportunity to breathe the fresh air, to walk in the countryside, to explore the riverbanks and woodlands.”
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I couldn’t agree more. But the “right” to roam and its crude adoption would be outdated and out of step with the new Environment and Agriculture Bills.
The language implies the “right” belongs to the person roaming – without necessarily understanding the needs and protection of habitats or valuing the physical boundaries of the landscape.
The campaign’s all-access approach is at best detrimental, and at worst could destroy the very nature it is trying to give access to.
Lord Smith supports a right to roam act in England, similar to that already in place in Scotland – as indeed does the Labour party which, if elected, has pledged the implementation at the next election.
But before we can promote opening up more nature, we must understand the root of the current disconnect with nature, and ask if there is a need for more beyond what is already available.
The Harvard professor Edward O Wilson popularised the hypothesis of “biophilia”, acknowledging the uplifting sensation we experience when we get closer to nature.
I can attest to the spontaneous “high” children from inner cities experience when they visit our farm, having spent life surrounded by concrete.
But what would this mean for habitats under stewardship?
What of the COP15’s commitment to 30×30 (30% of land devoted to biodiversity by 2030 without impact from humans)?
Have Lord Smith and Labour considered this?
A counter “philia” is the boom in – and our addiction to – screen media.
This has been a far greater barrier to society accessing and interacting with nature than the virtual barbed wire some suggest surrounds the countryside.
According to the gov.uk website, “a right to roam would allow anyone to walk on land including mountains, moors, heaths and downs that are privately owned.
It also includes common land… and some land around the England Coast Path”.
Private “excepted land” is excluded, such as land used to grow crops, parks and gardens, golf courses and racecourses.
But what if stewardship or biodiversity net-gain land is no longer deemed to be growing a crop? And what of the embedded value?
A report released last year by the London School of Economics found that mental health problems cost the UK economy at least £117.9bn annually.
Farmers and landowners are perfectly placed to deliver biophilia programmes, monetising partnerships with healthcare providers as solutions to the UK’s health and wellbeing crisis.
Imposing a right to roam removes those opportunities. The government would effectively be imposing a compulsory purchase tax of that biophilia value.
Lord Smith says that access “should not be determined at the whim of someone who happens to own the land”.
More crucially, it should not be determined at the whim of someone like Lord Smith, who evidently has not grasped the complexity of land use and biodiversity and values humans’ rights at the expense of the natural world.