LOCAL landowner John Howell has spoken about his experiences with wild camping on the BBC programme Countryfile, describing the many problems that he has had over the years and calling for greater regulation of the practice.
Issues raised included litter, chopped down trees, antisocial behaviour and ‘poo and vomit’ left on his land.
Mr Howell, the owner of a 1,000-acre estate including Harford Moor and Higher Piles, voiced similar concerns that landowner Alexander Darwall cited in his controversial legal challenge to overturn the right to camp earlier this month.
Before this legal challenge, which ultimately proved successful, Dartmoor was the final remaining place in England and Wales where backpackers had a legal right to camp on the land without permission.
Mr Howell invited the BBC presenter Charlotte Smith onto his estate, for her to see the issues he had faced over the years first-hand. Mr Howell pointed toward a tree that he claimed to have been chopped down by irresponsible campers: ‘The problem has been with the uncontrolled camping in the past, people just sawing this down to make a fire.
‘You can see the axe marks there. This tree is probably about 200 years old.’
Mr Howell proceeded to show pictures of where a fire pit had been left nearby, using stones from an ancient stonewall.
When asked as to what he had on his land in the past, John responded In amongst these rocks, old tins, broken glass, plastic bags and then there'll be excrement and used toilet paper and so on just lying on the rocks, in amongst the mosses, sleeping bags full of vomit.’
Mr Howell also claimed that it is he who must clear up the mess, and that he has spent thousands on repairs throughout the years. ‘We don’t get paid for it,’ said Mr Howell, ‘It’s our land, it’s just something we’ve had to put up with.
‘The rangers will come, but it will take them a few days and they’ve got plenty of problems elsewhere to deal with.’
Nonetheless, Mr Howell claimed that he didn’t want to see a total end to wild camping, and has entered the new permissive agreement with Dartmoor National Park Authority. Mr Howell added: 'I think people should go camping, but it must leave no trace.
'We're saying, if you want to camp you're welcome to do that a bit further up, a 20-minute walk from here, from there onwards 'no trace' camping is very welcome.
'What has been the problem in the past is the minority of people who have indulged a sort of festival-type culture, cooler boxes full of booze, a fire, a lot of mess and then everything is abandoned in the morning. That's what we can't tolerate.’
Lewis Winks from the Stars are for Everyone campaign group and organiser of the 3,000-strong rally against the ruling responded. He said: ‘These examples are, first of all, very, very few examples compared to the huge numbers of people that responsibly enjoy the moors and crucially leave no trace. You don’t know these examples because the people are up and gone. And so I think that what that speaks to is a desperation for people to have opportunities to spend time in the natural world. How we do that responsibly, how we educate for that is another question, really, about resourcing, about giving time.
We need to put more resources into national parks. We need to do far more to support landowners. This is about working together for the benefit of Dartmoor, which we all love.’