The battle to save wild camping on Dartmoor

Our National Parks and open spaces were a lifeline during the Covid lockdowns. Record numbers headed out to the likes of Dartmoor National Park in Devon, often stepping on moorland for the first time. 

The legacy of that should be a generation of outdoors enthusiasts who appreciate the beauty and balm of nature. Yet the careless actions of a few during that strange episode in history are now threatening a right that has been exercised on Dartmoor for generations. 

In June, Alexander Darwall, a City hedge fund manager, issued a claim in the High Court seeking to end wild camping on his Dartmoor estate without his permission. Currently Dartmoor is the only place in England and Wales where you can wild camp legally, a right that was protected in the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 and subsequent bylaws.

Darwall and his wife Diana own about 3,000 acres, including Stall Moor, home to an impressive stone circle called the Dancers, and one of the designated areas where you can wild camp. However the couple claim increasing numbers of people are camping on the moor, lighting fires, leaving litter and poaching fish. 

The Dartmoor National Park Authority (DNPA) has refuted the substance of this allegation. Among advocates of the right to roam, there is a fear that the Covid period is being used as an excuse to curb wild-camping rights. 

“Undoubtedly there were regrettable actions by a small group of people who ‘fly-camped’ on Dartmoor over the Covid lockdown period in 2020/1,” says Devon resident and Dartmoor enthusiast Tom Usher, a veteran wild camper on the moor. But attempting to ban wild campers from Dartmoor is not the solution, says the former soldier. 

“The solution is a better and wider understanding of our National Parks; most of the errors were not deliberate but made from unfamiliarity with how National Parks should be treated. Greater exposure to National Parks, not less, is the answer.”

He adds: “It should also be noted that visitor numbers have not peaked again in the same way they did in 2020.”

Fly-camping is a term for people who leave all their equipment – including tents and camping chairs – behind after they leave. Fly-campers will typically use disposable barbecues, congregate in large groups and have their tents up during the day.

By contrast, wild camping is conducted in small groups, with campers carrying all their equipment, and adhering to the National Park’s wild-camping map. Low-profile tents are generally used, with campers getting in late and leaving early, carrying all their rubbish out and respecting the environment of the National Park and those who live there.

Usher is CEO of the Dartmoor Preservation Association (DPA), an independent membership body that defends the natural beauty and cultural heritage of Dartmoor, and with it, wild camping.

As a body it isn’t convinced that the Darwalls’ motives are strictly related to fly-camping. Since purchasing the Blachford Estate in 2011, where they rent out cottages and offer pheasant shoots and deer-stalking, the Darwalls have come into conflict with ramblers over their decision to end parking permissions for access to Stall Moor. They are now seeking a declaration that “members of the public are not entitled... to pitch tents or otherwise occupy Stall Moor overnight… except with the claimant’s consent”.

They contend that section 10 of the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 does not authorise wild camping, but only recreation “on the move”.

Usher calls the case currently with the high court for judicial review “very worrying”.

“It might be more convenient for the Blachford pheasant-shooting operation if wild camping was banned. However, it would be an outrage to curtail the access for wild campers to a National Park in favour of an exclusive activity enjoyed by only a few. Wild camping has long been a tradition on Dartmoor, and it should not be sacrificed for a landowner’s sport.”

When approached for comment the Blachford Estate did not reply.

However, John Howell, a landowner and chairman of the Dartmoor Commons Owners Association says the case reflects frustrations shared by many landowners. Howell says visitor numbers are significantly greater than they were in 1985 and that the DNPA lacks adequate resources to make good the damage caused by public access: “Land owners are forced to accept an uncompensated liability for bearing the costs of repairing the damage caused by fly-camping and outdoor recreation.” Howell would also welcome greater consultation with the DNPA about what areas should be in the designated camping areas.

The threat to wild camping is a subject close to my own heart. When rock-climbing is your hobby, wild camping allows you to trek to remoter tors, and wake up at 7am on the moor in time to beat the lunchtime downpour that sends you home for the rest of the weekend.

It is a pastime entirely reliant on the goodwill of landowners, access delicately negotiated by the British Mountaineering Council. It’s never taken for granted. One of Dartmoor’s most fascinating tors, Vixen Tor, legendary home to the witch named Vixana, as well as classic rock climbs, has been off-bounds to hikers and climbers since a 2011 court ruling in favour of the landowner.

Wild campers have no wish to abuse such fragile rights. It means camping in designated areas, away from roads and houses, setting up at dusk and packing your tent up at dawn. If you see a stray piece of litter, most likely left by a daytripper, you take it home.

Having to seek permission to wild camp would add a layer of complexity that is at odds with the light touch of wild camping.

The DNPA owns 3,590 acres of the 235,700 acres that make up Dartmoor. The rest is made up of private landowners, the largest of whom are the Duchy of Cornwall, Lord Roborough’s Maristow Estate, and the National Trust. Who owns what can be confusing. In the past when I have phoned the Maristow Estate for climbing permission, no one has answered. I am just one of many thousands who exercise their right quietly, leaving no trace. 

Over the next few months, Stall Moor will be used by young people training for the Ten Tors challenge in May next year. Run by the army for the past 60 years (the MOD owns 3,343 acres of Dartmoor with additional training rights), it is the only mass-participation event of its kind in the UK; each year 2,400 young people take part.

For the past 15 years Nigel Coles has organised the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme at Torquay Girls Grammar School, as well as managing training for the Ten Tors, an integral part of which is how to wild camp responsibly, dispose of human waste, carry away litter (and often rubbish that they find).

“If Mr Darwall and his supporters wish to challenge that right to wild camp, in effect they will be jeopardising opportunities for thousands of young people to enjoy the wilderness and respond to the challenges of an outdoor team challenge and learn to respect their environment. It beggars belief that anyone would want to remove that opportunity from our young people,” says Coles, who is a member of the Right to Roam Campaign.

There can be little doubt that wild-camping rights on Dartmoor are a privilege that afford remarkable experiences, ones that are rare in a world where it is easier to connect with your phone screen than nature.

Coles recently led young campers on a trip on nearby Exmoor, staying on recognised campsites. “There were hot showers and on-site shops. But there was no adventure. It’s not the same,” says Coles.

If anything he believes we should be expanding the area where wild camping is possible across the UK, rather than removing that right. Pressure on Dartmoor would thus be relieved.

Even if it were to be banned, he says it would be unpoliceable. “The thing with wild camping is that you wouldn’t know that people have done it because the essence of it is to leave no trace.”

Visit Snowdonia or the Brecon Beacons, parks where wild camping isn’t legally permitted, and if you search hard enough you will find wild campers.

They won’t be advertising, because they are there for solitude and peace in the wilderness.