I think the main reason people get nervous about "the public" roaming their land is the liability and the personal injury lawsuit industry in the USA. If I let someone cross my land and he trips on a tree root and breaks his leg, now I'm possibly facing a lawsuit.
Also, what are they allowed to do? Simply crossing the land is one thing. Around here many private landowners are dealing with homeless encampments that are not only a liability but a sanitary issue, as they tend to be full of litter, needles, food waste, and human waste and end up attracting vermin.
If the law in England were to be similar to the one in Scotland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Outdoor_Access_Code), then "access rights can be exercised for recreational purposes, some educational activities and certain commercial purposes, and for crossing over land and water."
"Access rights do not extend to motorised activities... Access rights do not include the right to hunt, shoot or fish... Gathering items such as mushrooms or berries for commercial gain is not covered by access rights; but the customary picking of wild fungi and berries for personal consumption is not prohibited under the code."
"Wild camping, defined as lightweight camping by small numbers of people staying no more than two or three nights in any one place, is permitted under the code. ... The code requires that campers leave no trace, and must take away all litter, remove all traces of the tent pitch and of any open fire, and not cause any pollution"
So, homeless encampments are not permitted since these would not fall under this code.
> are not permitted since these would not fall under this code
The thing is, the law/code only matters if it is enforced. I have little faith this will be enforced enough to be a deterrent when much more important things like shoplifting, bike or phone theft have effectively been decriminalized by lack of enforcement.
Edit: to be clear I am just playing devil's advocate here. I am in favor of "right to roam" laws, just pointing out that restrictions in the law by themselves don't mean anything unless they're followed up by adequate enforcement to deter the prohibited behavior and systemic changes to make said behavior unnecessary in the first place (in case of homelessness for example).
> "Access rights do not extend to motorised activities...
This seems problematic as there are remote properties that are only accessible through long trails. Stuff like ice fishing spots where you might need to snowmobile a few kilometers. Same with ATVs for deep woods camping.
Personally, I have a registered trail through land I own and have no problem with it. I hope people get it to enjoy since I don't get enough chances to. I can't even get to it myself without passing through a dozen different lots.
How do you prevent people from getting to close to your house and invading your privacy? Someone can come on your property with the intention to rob you, stalk you, etc and if they get caught they can just they were passing through. And unless you have cameras it would make it pretty difficult to prove otherwise. When you're out in the woods all alone that makes you pretty vulnerable and this isn't a situation I would want to be in.
I mean, are homeless encampments ever permitted? Yet they show up and are very hard to get rid of. Its not a can of worms I would want opened if I owned property on the west coast, that is for sure.
I’d also add litter, trampling of grass/shrubbery, illegal structures (e.g. deer stands/blinds), theft (picking flowers, berries, apples, vegetables), and idiots trying to pet or take pictures with livestock that weigh 20x what they do. These are all things my family deals with despite our farm being posted no trespassing the entire perimeter. I literally can not imagine how bad it would be if people felt legally entitled to be there + how hard it would be to get law enforcement involved (“I’m not poaching, I was just taking the scenic route…”)
Counterpoint: the people who are observing your boundaries currently are precisely the ones who wouldn't make a mess of it and do stupid stuff. And there's probably a set of people using it who aren't being dipshits who you don't know about.
The idiots are already doing the things you don't want them to do and allowing them to roam isn't going to change that. The problematic behaviors are the ones the laws should target (and perhaps already do, e.g. having a blind up without landowner permission is illegal where I live). Merely being on another's property shouldn't be cause to involve law enforcement.
I have supported the right to roam (and generally treated posted property as "open to respectful and responsible use") for years, and that has not changed since becoming a home and landowner. Our land is wooded, not agricultural, and I have no issue with kindly use by all.
Obviously illegal, in public places too, do no relation to the topic discussed.
>theft
Come on. Theft is obviously illegal everywhere.
>idiots trying to pet or take pictures with livestock that weigh 20x what they do
Good thing is that it anyone is hurt in this scenario it's the idiot. Why worry about it?
>I literally can not imagine how bad it would be if people felt legally entitled to be there + how hard it would be to get law enforcement involved
I used to do a lot of hiking (in Spain, France, and some other European mountain ranges). Many remote routes go nearby or through someone's fields or even properties (like through someone's backyard). There are many farm animals on the trails or just next to them. Fortunately nobody here cares and we are all more happy because of it
> I think the main reason people get nervous about "the public" roaming their land is the liability and the personal injury lawsuit industry in the USA.
I would be surprised if that were really the case. I'm sure people would say that is the reason but I rather doubt that is the real reason.
People want their own kingdoms. (And private land ownership likely self-selects those people.)
I live in the US, and I have a "large" amount of property that is clearly marked for no-trespassing. The reason for this is the prior landowner was forced to sell when a trespasser drowned in the pond on the property and the landowner was sued, successfully, by their family.
If there were clear laws regarding trespassers and liability, I would gladly take the no trespassing signs down. I don't care if someone wants to go swim or fish on the very nice pond we have, but I absolutely will not lose my house for someone I don't know.
> I would be surprised if that were really the case. I'm sure people would say that is the reason but I rather doubt that is the real reason.
It's a real reason, even if it's not as likely to happen as people think it is.
The example of someone tripping on a root and suing for damages would get tossed out of court. However, getting to that point could require you to hire a lawyer, deal with a lot of hassle, spend money, and other things you'd rather avoid.
However, there are many examples of land owners being sued for various things that happen on their property. Ironically, one of the arguments for holding the landowner responsible in these cases is to demonstrate that they didn't actively stop people from entering the land and doing whatever got them hurt or killed. If it can be shown that the area was a popular or well-known destination for local kids, for example, you have a different set of legal responsibilities.
Likewise, if you know something is dangerous and you don't make an effort to keep people out, you could bring legal liability upon yourself.
It's a real thing. The near limitless legal interpretations makes it logical to lock down a property rather than risk it.
Search online for beware of dog lawsuits in the US as an example of liability. The problem is that these laws vary by jurisdiction, so for example in California those signs do not protect the homeowner if someone is bitten on their land [1]. Michigan State University has a comprehensive overview of dog bite laws in the US indicating where "beware of dog" signs legally protect the owner from lawsuits [2] when someone trespasses.
This is a good example of the difference between an excuse and a reason. The excuse people use to oppose roaming is "risk of lawsuits" but the actual reason is the "what's mine is mine and you can't use it" mentality.
Yes I want my own kingdom. I worked my ass off to get where I am, purchased a property with land for the sole purpose of solitude and freedom from other people. Being able to roam my own property and be free of social interaction and interruption. Is that not my right?
Some folks absolutely want their own private fiefdoms. I've got a "neighbor" right now that's archetypical. In less than a year of moving in he's already made ham-handed attempts to scam me out of control of my right of way, been an apocalyptic pain in the ass to the young couple that just cleared a couple acres and built a house next to his property, and made several attempts to discuss creating an HOA on our road. Then there are folks like me that are exhausted by having to navigate other people's agendas and just want to be left the fuck alone. Anyway, you're spot on. All of the pearl clutching about liability is just the socially acceptable excuse folks offer for their behavior.
Here in Sweden you're allowed to cross any land that is not directly connected to a house(read someone's lawn) you may pick wild mushrooms and berries growing there, and you may raise a tent and spend 1 night. The rule for camping as I understand it is that after you've stayed your 1 night in one place, you have to move "out of sight" from that location before you strike camp again.
You may not damage trees, cross fields where food is grown(as this would damage the crops) and you may not pick any planted fruits or berries.
Landowners are not liable for any injuries you may incur while on their land. Unless(I think?) you're on their lawn, which you're only allowed to enter if you have permission from the home owner.
There are probably a bunch of cornercases I'm unaware of, but that's the gist of it at least
Several states have spiritually similar laws, like how all beaches in California are public and it's illegal for private land owners to cut off access to them. I don't think anyone has won a personal injury lawsuit against a land owner for tripping over a root, but land owners have been sued for breaking that law and trying to create effectively private beaches.
Would this be because the beach is deemed public, not private with a right to access it? To allow someone to sue a landowner on the beach would be confirming it is privately owned by the landowner, no?
I approach this from a matter of principle. I don't recognize anyone's "right" to enjoy someone else's privately owned property or, stated more honestly, to infringe upon the property rights of others.
My wife and I currently live in a medium sized city but we are not the type to enjoy city life at all and thus dream of buying a sizeable chunk of land for the both of us to enjoy and retire to. The biggest factor motivating us to want to make that "investment" is our ability to enjoy peace, quiet and solitude on our own property, knowing that there is not another human being within several acres of us.
Our lives and property do not exist for the enjoyment of others. We are not your tools. Find somewhere else to loiter, wander, roam or whatever. Our property is private for a reason. We have no desire to encounter anyone else on it regardless of what they are up to.
> I approach this from a matter of principle. I don't recognize anyone's "right" to enjoy someone else's privately owned property or, stated more honestly, to infringe upon the property rights of others.
I also approach it from a matter of principle - I don't recognize anyone's right to truly "own" land. They didn't create it. It existed before they were born and it will exist after they die. Allowing a market in land doesn't, beyond any fringe degree, encourage the creation of new land. Disallowing a market in land does not decrease the supply of land. So by what right can a person "own" a piece of land they didn't create?
On a base level, land is what a country is. Your citizenship of a country entitles you to exist upon the land of that country. Imagine if a child were born into a country where every scrap of land was privately owned, and every land owner refused that child the right to exist upon "their" land. What is the child supposed to do?
I recognize that there are social and economic advantages to allowing people some exclusive rights of access to some land. I recognize that there are advantages to allowing some people some limited rights of monopoly when they make improvements to land. But I do not recognize that a private entity can truly "own" land, completely and in perpetuity, as if they had created it from whole cloth.
> I don't recognize anyone's "right" to enjoy someone else's privately owned property or, stated more honestly, to infringe upon the property rights of others.
There are those that do not recognize your "right" to exclude them from passing peacefully over land. Notably, in the real world, the FAA doesn't care one bit if you think you own your land. They will use the force of the federal government to let anyone fly a plane over your house (including at low altitude).
As a more extreme example, many indigenous people do not recognize your right to own land that was never sold.
Your principle doesn't really stand up well in the real world.
There are all sorts of exceptions to private property rights. People can legally come onto your land without your permission for all sorts of reasons (utility workers, aircraft overflying, government agents, police, private citizens who haven't been told not to, etc..) The 'right to roam' is just an extension of that, that says that if an undeveloped piece of land lies between where you are and where you need to go, you can pass over that land in a way that does not interfere with the landowner just like all the other exceptions to a landowners "exclusive" right to the land.
A property claim is a bundle of rights, and people democratically decide what is in the bundles. What something being (your) property means is up to all your neighbours to decide. Fortunately someone with more exclusionary view can move to a place where lots of people think like them - a community of solitude is what you need!
This is so hard to understand as a European. Why does it need to be your very own land to be enjoyable? I regularly go hiking in the alps. Sometimes I walk for hours without meeting a single other soul, but if I do, it's always a friendly greeting as we pass another. Why can't we share these places?
Many people view private property, and in particular land, as theft. The reasoning is that at one point private property was owned collectively by society so the only way that it could now have a single owner is if it was stolen at some point.
Note that in this case, private property is separate from personal property like someone's house, car, clothing, etc.
How did you get that land? Presumably you acquired it from someone legitimately. But how did they get it? At some point, it was enclosed and almost certainly enclosed to exclude others without their consent. It is the notion of private property that is the problem here, not problems you get by denying people their birthright.
You are not alone. My wife and I managed to attain that dream in the last year. 20 heavily wooded acres, each of the "neighbors" lots range in size from 10 to 40 acres. Being able to go entire days without seeing a rando is every bit of what you think it might be like and I strongly encourage you to make the move as early in life as you possibly can. large acreage frequently takes significant investments in time and labor to get into a configuration that suits you, don't wait until you're so old that that work pushes the limits of your physical abilities. Best of luck to you!
I'm interested to read more about the "personal property liability" thing in the US. I have never heard anyone explain why your example would expose you to liability. There are other things I can imagine, like unfenced swimming pools or open sinkholes that you knew about, but tree roots and general features of the land? Maybe there's a long history of case law about this.
Basically just think of it as a continuum from things you're obviously responsible for (a child drowns in your pool because you didn't put up a fence), to things you're obviously not (somebody fell and broke a bone because they tripped over a tree root in your acres of backyard forest).
That there's a big gray area in the middle, and that somebody can sue you if they're injured in that gray area, and even if they lose it's still expense and stress and a time suck for you.
I am not a legal scholar, but anecdotally a common theme in US law is that if you don't make obvious attempts to stop someone from doing something with your property (be it land, objects or intellectual property) then you are tacitly approving it.
The most well known example is probably Trademark Erosion.
Given this theme, it's not hard to see how a judge could rule that if you allow a lot of people to traverse your land, you are inherently maintaining a passageway and are thus responsible for ensuring its safety.
Open holes that you know about are one of the issues with the Colorado peaks. There are old mineshafts up there. The owners put up signs, they get torn down.
There's an interesting (slot canyon) local hike that's a good example. The whole situation is a mess, it's an old non-operating mine grandfathered inside what's now a national recreation area. Seems some years ago somebody's car was damaged (not exactly astounding, you need a 4x4 HCV and know how to drive it to get there.) Since it happened on private property their insurance tried to go after the landowner. For years it was posted as no trespassing although some groups still did sneak in. Then there was a period of a few years where it wasn't posted and we (local hiking community) believed it was accessible (nope--flash flood took out the signs and gate.) I went with one such group. There were a couple of mineshafts in the side of the canyon, imperfectly blocked by chain link fencing. Once glance inside was plenty to make me NOPE! it but some of the group squirmed in anyway.
After seeing that I completely understand why the owner denies access.
While I in general support a right to roam it needs to come with extremely strong liability protections. There are too many idiots out there who do not respect that nobody's combing the land for hazards, nor is it even possible as they may change. (There was a case a while back, trespassing IIRC biker got hurt because a flash flood had taken out the paved road he was on. Owner liable.)
I think the problem is that there doesn't appear to be any plan to manage the land usage. In the US, there is tons of public land, but there are giant federal and state departments that manage it, and there are entire books of rules for how that land can be used. The public land is a collectively owned asset that is managed for public benefit. Areas can be closed off, or require permits, or limited to a specific usage.
The "right to roam" seems almost completely unregulated with no power to manager or limit this public asset. It's a right without any responsibility.
There's certainly a responsibility to follow other applicable laws. You aren't allowed to litter or murder your hiking buddy on private property even if you're allowed to be on it.
1. Right to roam (in the US) might might actually reduce homeless encampments.
In my firsthand experience, people are generally more sympathetic and supportive if you are just passing through as a homeless person. They may give you a ride and/or a small amount of cash without you asking, but the US is actively hostile to pedestrians in most places and you have zero right to pitch a tent overnight anywhere.
2. If homelessness is something you dislike, the primary root cause of homelessness is lack of affordable housing. This is a nationwide problem, not peculiar to the West Coast.
So if you don't like homeless encampments, try to find ways to foster the existence of more affordable housing generally. It's a win/win solution that helps the homeless without rewarding or encouraging bad behavior and gets "the homeless" out of "your" face (not intended as a personal attack).
And has zero relationship whatsoever to this issue. None.
> I think the main reason people get nervous about "the public" roaming their land is the liability and the personal injury lawsuit industry in the USA. If I let someone cross my land and he trips on a tree root and breaks his leg, now I'm possibly facing a lawsuit.
I rather got the impression that it was rich people wanting privacy.
As for lawsuits… I'm not sure how effective they are, but here in Berlin half the woods say "Privatgelände / Benutzung auf eigene Gefahr!" which means what you might guess without a translation.
It's entirely possible that the reason this type of lawsuit is still a real thing is because of rich people recognizing that it also gets them extra privacy. (At least in part.)
I know if at least several states that have a recreational use law, the gist of which is generally along the lines of "if you aren't being charged money to access the property, you can't sue the landowner for anything that happens to you while you're lawfully recreating."
Kentucky has a law of this type on the books, and it helps a lot with access to climbing at the Red River Gorge.
In the west it's more often that the public "roaming" their land is hunting for big game and trying to edge onto private land to find it. Hikers are inconvenienced but they aren't the norm.
> If I let someone cross my land and he trips on a tree root and breaks his leg, now I'm possibly facing a lawsuit.
Don't worry, you're impacted by laws anyways. (My fave example is outdoor pools in LA, which by now require a fence. Never mind if there are never any children on the property, there might be at some point)
> Simply crossing the land is one thing
Yup. And it isn't just homeless encampments (which we could address, if we wanted to ever provide housing), it's also that a good chunk of people are, well, asocial assholes. See e.g. folks defacing public parks, destroying natural monuments for kicks, destroying vegetation to get their insta pic just right, etc.
I don't have a good answer. People should be free to access public lands. There should be more public lands. But the consequences of that right often are destructive, and we don't seem inclined to fix that part.
Not a lawyer, but an important part of why those lawsuits can happen is under the idea that you invited someone onto your property, therefore, you have a duty to ensure they're safe when they accept that invitation. Places open to anyone, like a restaurant or grocery store, have an implied invitation because they want everyone to come inside and spend money.
So if someone jumps your fence and breaks their leg walking through your property, you didn't invite them there, you aren't intending your land to be open to the public, so the onus would theoretically be on the traveler to cover their own bills.
They could sue anyway, sure. But they can do that right now without any legal changes anyway, it would just be under well established law and they likely wouldn't win.
> I think the main reason people get nervous about "the public" roaming their land is the liability and the personal injury lawsuit industry in the USA
This is somewhat a solved problem in the US, what you're describing is actually nefarious behavior by cities and counties. I'll give an anecdote and I'm sure someone will come tell me if I'm wrong :)
In Texas we called these "public easements". Back then in order for the city or county to establish a public easement they had to establish that there was a reason, they had to indemnify the area and some buffer around it, and they were obligated to maintain the land that they created the easement on. Sounds simple, right? Not so much.
Cities and counties would often short change the indemnification, leaving the land owner on the hook for things they shouldn't be on the hook for. Sometimes the city would also have vaguely phrased policies like, "all public easements must have sidewalks" and those sidewalks would often incur some amount of damage to the landscape. Think about, for instance, a sidewalk going from a road, through someones property, to what is a dirt trail through the woods. Doesn't really make sense - but the city has a policy it's obligated to abide by!
I think in general cities and counties could benefit from some non-court oversight to these processes with the public that don't need to involve expensive things like lawyers and are frameworked to understand the perspective of both the public and people giving access. There should also be a zero tolerance policy for underindemnifying the easement.
Since you mentioned homlessness - I now live in Portland. Here's the way I deal with it:
If you camp on public land around my neighborhood I expect you to be a good neighbor. Clean up your trash, no feces or urination in public, no leering/jeering/being creepy etc... I've generally provided water, heating devices, medical aid, etc to people that need it - the same way a good neighbor would.
Some amount of people don't care about those boundaries though and will violate every single basic human expectation you can have. City code enforcement is generally not setup to handle disputes like this and neither are the police so it puts the public in really weird spots. I don't know how to solve that, but those folks aren't using easement rights. They're using public camping rights, which are entirely different and have more to do with camping on BLM and forestry land.
You're right, I don't think the US overall system is ready for a right to roam.
I come to this conclusion sometimes, one simple example is that most US suburbs are not ready for public transport because of the distances between each home.
I have some land in SE Oklahoma the going rule that I’ve been told is if you cross an open gate leave it open and if you cross a closed gate close it behind you. However, I still make it a point to meet and shake hands with the owners of the land I cross. I live in Texas and, especially near the border with Mexico, you’re putting your life in danger trespassing on land, no matter how remote, without permission.
Liability is a major reason but it's also a security concern.
Is someone up to no good? Casing a location to plan a robbery/kidnapping/theft/vandalism/squatting/arson (or any of these in progress but not yet committed or committed but not provably by the tresspasser)? It's difficult to impossible to know because you can't just determine intent.
But if their mere pretense in a location is prohibited that is easy to determine and prosecute.
It's very important for security sake to be able to create bright lines that bad actors need to cross and which good parties are unlikely to cross accidentally so that response can have a high accuracy.
People passing through may also litter, set fires, scare off wild life or travel to a space where they are allowed to hunt (and then kill wildlife that crosses properties lines, or inadvertently shoot bullets or arrows into space you're using).
The need to immediately paint one party or the other as in the wrong in a dispute can make it hard to see that in many cases all parties have worthwhile concerns and that there aren't easy answers.
I live on a large property in a very rural mountain area in the US. My property abuts state land on 2 sides but we've never really had any issues with trespassers, likely because of the first sentence of SoftTalker's comment. Our area is one of the most popular mule deer hunting spots in the Northwest which seems like it could be problematic, but in my experience the hunters are extremely respectful of private property. It's also nice to be able to hunt mulies on my own property and not worry about errant bullets. It is a but unsettling in the last 2 weeks of October (regular rifle deer season) when the local grocery store literally fills the aisles with pallets of Busch Light and Fireball.
The law could easily include a liability disclaimer. People just don't like other people, want their privacy, and want their "I got mine" land locked public lands.
Without a right to roam, we end up with cases of public lands that lack any legal public access. I just read this article in the LA Times about a state park in California that there's no legal access to: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-05-20/the-stat...
Im with the ranchers in the case of Sutter Buttes. They pre-date the state purchase of the land, which it did without access rights, and before the state turned it into a park.
It reminds me of the phrase: "Poor planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine".
Maybe it will work out for the state in the long run, but it took the risk to buy land without access, with full knowledge, and cant cry foul later.
Given the land's Native American heritage, the ranchers leaning "We were here first" argument is... really something.
Private property rights are only as good as the government that recognizes them. Keep in mind that the government that gives you private property rights (California in this case) also has the right to take as much of your land as they want for 'public use'. If the government wants to play hardball, it is perfectly reasonable for them to build a road across the land and open it to the public. You can't stop them, your only recourse is to argue how much they owe you for doing it.
In some cases, the law can be used to force the sale of an easement for access to a landlocked property. So, in that sense, it can amount to an emergency for you.
It appears that the land had an easement for access which transfers on sale.
> The land was served by a road easement at the time it was purchased by the state. An underlying landowner sued asserting that the easement was insufficient to permit park visitor travel between Pennington Road and the park, and lost. The court determined that the easement was sufficient to allow visitor use
If the fact that that these families grabbed that land before the union blocks state from having an easement to access the land, then the state should protect private property of these ranchers at all. So if some private militia enters and forcefully take over the ranchers land, the state should not intervene then.
Here in Spain you can't neither freely roam around into some protected nature spaces, but that's done to preserve a delicate ecosystem. Such as Urdaibai, or Doñana.
"All parts of the great outdoors, in particular forests, mountain pastures, rocks, wastelands, fallow land, floodplains, riparian strips and agricultural land, may be entered by anyone free of charge."
Airstrip One has been invaded by so many countries over many hundreds of years that those who have defeated the our poor armies have then, without any authority, given "OUR" lands to their friends, lords, ladies, and any sychophantic mendicants.
These lands are not their lands!
All these lands were stolen from the common people.
Its called Berkshire for a reason and where the cockney rhyming "Berkshire" comes from
UK is literally still a monarchy mostly, a limited one, but still a kingdom, no surprise there. No one says it was "stolen from common people", because they have always owned it.
UK people still pay land tax to baron families from ancient times in many places, London included. AFAIR the whole House of Lords is created to protect their rights.
You may say it's unfair, but I'm not sure it's productive. Good thing nowadays you can emigrate relatively easily.
> No one says it was "stolen from common people", because they have always owned it.
Not true. Common land, in particular, was stolen during the agricultural revolution and enclosed. This also created the cheap labour needed for the industrial revolution. The modern world was built on theft from the rural common people.
> Good thing nowadays you can emigrate relatively easily.
As an immigrant (as a child) I have already done that. I even have dual nationality so one emigration option is easy. The problem is I do not know of anywhere much better.
Funnily enough, the need to have a passport to leave your country is a relatively recent thing. Pre-World War I, people could just pack and go to another country, and passports were rarely enforced. They were more a helping document while traveling than a controling tool.
Only after WWI one of the explicit objetives of the passports was to limit the emigration of skilled people. Not to menction that most countries in America were happily receiving huge amounts of people from everywhere without too much hassle. I don't think that is happening today.
> No one says it was "stolen from common people", because they have always owned it.
... but enclosure acts were specific legislative acts which privatized land and removed common access. I.e. common people had access to the land, and it was taken away. Whether it is "stolen" is perhaps messier to decide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure#Parliamentary_Inclos...
Being a monarchy is orthogonal; Norway has a king and right to roam, for example.
3 out of the 30 "people" on that list are the government, and some others are companies. And only 7 of these properties are over 3000 acres. I don't really see what the problem is with large rural properties. How many people even want to own empty land in the first place?
>How many people even want to own empty land in the first place?
My experience, based on the price of property, is that a shit ton of people want to own empty land, in the anticipation of it not being empty at some point in the future.
I pretty much knew what I would find in the comments on this one.
The right to roam, in country in which it exist in one form or another, is exactly this: the right to roam. Not the right to camp (although some allow it usually with some restriction), live, squat, pollute, destroy, ...
As someone who sometime had to go from point A to point B in the countryside without a car, this was a necessity as it was the only safe way to do so (sidewalk are nonexistent in the countryside). It also avoid "trapping" some public land within private one (and effectively privatizing it), although, in my country at least, the state will usually preempt a small piece of the private land to always have a passage between public land.
As for the liability, is should go without saying that there is usually laws that release you from any liability for people hurting themselves while roaming on your property (with the obvious exception that you should not put anything with the intention of hurting people, for example traps).
> with the obvious exception that you should not put anything with the intention of hurting people, for example trap
what if it's bear country and someone puts out bear traps and says they're for bears when really they were meant for people? it's a good alibi so how would you defend against that?
It's not really a good alibi; someone putting bear traps on a human path is going to have a very hard time arguing they were trying to catch bears. Someone putting out bear traps without signage is clearly doing something funky; would you put bear traps out in the woods and then try to collect them without signage?
More generally, many states ban the use of steel leg traps by civilians already. They're dangerous to humans (often including the owner), they're cruel to the animal, it lacks any of the "sport" attributed to normal hunting, and they can't differentiate between a bear and an endangered kind of deer or whatever.
They're gonna get weird looks, though. I've spent some time in bear country and I don't think I've heard of anyone trapping them; I don't even think the wildlife service around there does it. They generally prefer to shoot or tranquilize them if need be, because trapped bears are pissed off and you do not want to be in eyesight of a pissed off bear. I wouldn't take any bets about what a pissed off bear is capable of, especially in the ability of a trap to immobilize it.
Hunting is highly regulated these days. For one, I'm not aware of anywhere that allows the trapping of bear anymore. If you're trapping, you can't just put out traps and leave them. Most places require you to check them every 24 hours.
EDIT: apparently, Maine is the one state that allows trapping bears
> As for the liability, is should go without saying that there is usually laws that release you from any liability for people hurting themselves while roaming on your property
This isn't true.
A person can break into your home, fall down stairs and file a lawsuit against you.
You can file a suit against anybody for anything. If it’s obviously without merit, it’s likely to get dismissed pretty quickly. But there’s nothing stopping you from filing it.
If a new right to roam law was introduced, why couldn't it include a section on the release of any liability if one makes use of this right to roam? It's not like laws can't be adjusted, right?
Anyone can file a lawsuit for anything. Filing a lawsuit that doesn't get immediately dismissed by the judge because it has no merit, is a different question.
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In the Northern New England states (VT/NH/ME) that have a sort of freedom to roam codified in law (basically - unposted, undeveloped property is generally free to access for low-impact uses like hiking without requiring permission) - there is broad liability protection provided to the property owner.
For example, the law in VT for liability in that land access situation is only if the injury that occurs is "....the result of the willful or wanton misconduct of the owner." (and has further exemptions from even that if the injury is with regards to accessing equipment/machinery/personal property - which you're not entitled to access).
You pretty much need to be setting traps or creating some truly absurd unnatural hazards to be at legal risk.
Not really true - that case was an urban myth I believe from my own searching (as I heard about it when I grew up). Would like sources if it's true.
What I did look up:
"Premises liability laws generally do not extend to trespassers, such as burglars, because they do not have a legal right to be on the property. However, property owners in California may be liable for injuries caused by a crime on their property if they should have reasonably foreseen the crime and failed to take steps to reduce the risk. This is known as negligent security and can apply to crimes such as burglary, theft, and robbery. Factors that may contribute to a negligent security claim include: Broken or missing surveillance cameras, Lack of security guards, and Broken or inadequate locks."
My ideal "right to roam" laws would be
1) you have the right to pass through any piece of land
2) you have to stay x amount of meters away from a house/building/etc
3) you have the right to camp for one night in a spot and you can't have a tent pitched until one hour before sunset and it must be down by one hour after sunrise. There should probably be an even further minimum distance from a house compared to the distance set for just passing by.
4) no fires / pack it in, pack it out / etc
There's a bunch of places in Europe now that have a no camping policy, but allow (or tolerate) "bivouacking", which originally meant sleeping on the ground without a shelter but now kind of includes small tents. I think it's the ideal tradeoff, it still allows long distance backpackers to do their thing while discouraging the "party camping" crowds.
>you have the right to camp for one night in a spot and you can't have a tent pitched until one hour before sunset and it must be down by one hour after sunrise.
If you have land in a desirable location, I fear your at best one tiktok away from people coming to your property each night to camp.
I think right to roam is an interesting idea, but the camping part should probably just be left out, or the fine minimal enough where if you made a best effort to stay out of sight and out of the way (as you should) no one would care. And if you got 'caught' you don't head to prison.
That's really not far off Scotland's "responsible access" (the proper term for the 'right to roam'). It's just more fleshed out.
The Outdoor Access Code contains such gems as "You only have access rights if you exercise them responsibly", which I love - it's the closest I've ever seen to "don't be a dick" being codified. But also such details as in crop fields you only have access to the margins, fields with animals, bringing dogs, etc.
But they do have "land on which there is a house [..] and sufficient adjacent land to enable those living there to have reasonable measures of privacy and to ensure that their enjoyment of the house [..] is not unreasonably disturbed". Which isn't "x metres", but is again wonderfully close to "don't be a dick".
So would this ideal legal framework extend to the suburbs? Do I get to roam through people's backyards? Am I allowed to hop over fences so long as I stay X meters away from buildings? How big does a property have to be before I can pitch my tent in the middle of someone's lawn? No matter what the number, 10m, 25m, 100m, I can probably find a nice neighborhood on google maps full of lawns big enough to become my next campsite.
I haven't really thought it through but off the top of my head 250m from a house just passing by seems reasonable, and maybe something like 750-1000m for biouvacking? No one (who wants the right to roam in the wilderness) desires to roam around the suburbs, and having some reasonable limits like 250m/1000m would prevent people from doing that. It would prevent people from entering tracts of land that are even a few acres in size. When I think "the right to roam" I am thinking about places with vast tracts of wilderness. Think some "ranches" in the American West, though could be tens of thousands of acres of land not really used for much besides grazing cattle. No one advocating for the right to roam wants to camp in your backyard.
The policy needs to be reasonable, unless you want home owners taking matters in their own hands (you don't).
Policy or not, seeing a steady stream of strangers "roam" through your property next to your (vulnerable) family members will generally do more harm than good.
Also, how would you deal with unintended property damage?
> Am I allowed to hop over fences so long as I stay X meters away from buildings?
A reasonable policy would probably specify at least 50-100 meters from buildings, which would outlaw roaming in suburbia.
I think abrogating the property rights of every property owner in exchange for some people getting a shortcut is not a very good trade.
There are legal routes for public agencies to purchase portions of land to create routes for transportation, including pedestrian paths, that ensure you're at least paid for the lost property. If there is a need, then lobbying your mayor or council is the way to go about this. That's a lot less risky than letting anyone enter your property anytime for any reason as long as they say they're on a nature walk or something.
I know my corner of the world will not embrace right to roam anytime soon. I'd settle for something that requires owners to acknowledge that when they buy land with a trail on it they have to maintain that trail. I don't mind going around, but it shouldn't take me an additional 30m.
That'll get you shot 'round these parts. Or bit by someone's dog.
Although there's one fence in particular, around an apartment complex parking lot which I cut through to go to the grocery store, which I've been dismantling. They've repaired it three times so far, we'll see who gives up first.
Readit News
Also, what are they allowed to do? Simply crossing the land is one thing. Around here many private landowners are dealing with homeless encampments that are not only a liability but a sanitary issue, as they tend to be full of litter, needles, food waste, and human waste and end up attracting vermin.
If the law in England were to be similar to the one in Scotland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Outdoor_Access_Code), then "access rights can be exercised for recreational purposes, some educational activities and certain commercial purposes, and for crossing over land and water."
"Access rights do not extend to motorised activities... Access rights do not include the right to hunt, shoot or fish... Gathering items such as mushrooms or berries for commercial gain is not covered by access rights; but the customary picking of wild fungi and berries for personal consumption is not prohibited under the code."
"Wild camping, defined as lightweight camping by small numbers of people staying no more than two or three nights in any one place, is permitted under the code. ... The code requires that campers leave no trace, and must take away all litter, remove all traces of the tent pitch and of any open fire, and not cause any pollution"
So, homeless encampments are not permitted since these would not fall under this code.
The thing is, the law/code only matters if it is enforced. I have little faith this will be enforced enough to be a deterrent when much more important things like shoplifting, bike or phone theft have effectively been decriminalized by lack of enforcement.
Edit: to be clear I am just playing devil's advocate here. I am in favor of "right to roam" laws, just pointing out that restrictions in the law by themselves don't mean anything unless they're followed up by adequate enforcement to deter the prohibited behavior and systemic changes to make said behavior unnecessary in the first place (in case of homelessness for example).
e.g.
https://www.lochlomond-trossachs.org/things-to-do/camping/ca...
These are relatively small areas though.
This seems problematic as there are remote properties that are only accessible through long trails. Stuff like ice fishing spots where you might need to snowmobile a few kilometers. Same with ATVs for deep woods camping.
Personally, I have a registered trail through land I own and have no problem with it. I hope people get it to enjoy since I don't get enough chances to. I can't even get to it myself without passing through a dozen different lots.
I would think that is not uncommon.
The idiots are already doing the things you don't want them to do and allowing them to roam isn't going to change that. The problematic behaviors are the ones the laws should target (and perhaps already do, e.g. having a blind up without landowner permission is illegal where I live). Merely being on another's property shouldn't be cause to involve law enforcement.
I have supported the right to roam (and generally treated posted property as "open to respectful and responsible use") for years, and that has not changed since becoming a home and landowner. Our land is wooded, not agricultural, and I have no issue with kindly use by all.
Obviously illegal, in public places too, do no relation to the topic discussed.
>theft
Come on. Theft is obviously illegal everywhere.
>idiots trying to pet or take pictures with livestock that weigh 20x what they do
Good thing is that it anyone is hurt in this scenario it's the idiot. Why worry about it?
>I literally can not imagine how bad it would be if people felt legally entitled to be there + how hard it would be to get law enforcement involved
I used to do a lot of hiking (in Spain, France, and some other European mountain ranges). Many remote routes go nearby or through someone's fields or even properties (like through someone's backyard). There are many farm animals on the trails or just next to them. Fortunately nobody here cares and we are all more happy because of it
I would be surprised if that were really the case. I'm sure people would say that is the reason but I rather doubt that is the real reason.
People want their own kingdoms. (And private land ownership likely self-selects those people.)
If there were clear laws regarding trespassers and liability, I would gladly take the no trespassing signs down. I don't care if someone wants to go swim or fish on the very nice pond we have, but I absolutely will not lose my house for someone I don't know.
It's a real reason, even if it's not as likely to happen as people think it is.
The example of someone tripping on a root and suing for damages would get tossed out of court. However, getting to that point could require you to hire a lawyer, deal with a lot of hassle, spend money, and other things you'd rather avoid.
However, there are many examples of land owners being sued for various things that happen on their property. Ironically, one of the arguments for holding the landowner responsible in these cases is to demonstrate that they didn't actively stop people from entering the land and doing whatever got them hurt or killed. If it can be shown that the area was a popular or well-known destination for local kids, for example, you have a different set of legal responsibilities.
Likewise, if you know something is dangerous and you don't make an effort to keep people out, you could bring legal liability upon yourself.
It's a real thing. The near limitless legal interpretations makes it logical to lock down a property rather than risk it.
https://kdvr.com/news/colorado/a-simple-sign-will-allow-acce...
After they were indemnified from liability the peaks opened back up.
[1]: https://www.enjuris.com/california/premises-liability/beware...
[2]: https://www.animallaw.info/topic/table-dog-bite-strict-liabi...
You may not damage trees, cross fields where food is grown(as this would damage the crops) and you may not pick any planted fruits or berries.
Landowners are not liable for any injuries you may incur while on their land. Unless(I think?) you're on their lawn, which you're only allowed to enter if you have permission from the home owner.
There are probably a bunch of cornercases I'm unaware of, but that's the gist of it at least
My wife and I currently live in a medium sized city but we are not the type to enjoy city life at all and thus dream of buying a sizeable chunk of land for the both of us to enjoy and retire to. The biggest factor motivating us to want to make that "investment" is our ability to enjoy peace, quiet and solitude on our own property, knowing that there is not another human being within several acres of us.
Our lives and property do not exist for the enjoyment of others. We are not your tools. Find somewhere else to loiter, wander, roam or whatever. Our property is private for a reason. We have no desire to encounter anyone else on it regardless of what they are up to.
I also approach it from a matter of principle - I don't recognize anyone's right to truly "own" land. They didn't create it. It existed before they were born and it will exist after they die. Allowing a market in land doesn't, beyond any fringe degree, encourage the creation of new land. Disallowing a market in land does not decrease the supply of land. So by what right can a person "own" a piece of land they didn't create?
On a base level, land is what a country is. Your citizenship of a country entitles you to exist upon the land of that country. Imagine if a child were born into a country where every scrap of land was privately owned, and every land owner refused that child the right to exist upon "their" land. What is the child supposed to do?
I recognize that there are social and economic advantages to allowing people some exclusive rights of access to some land. I recognize that there are advantages to allowing some people some limited rights of monopoly when they make improvements to land. But I do not recognize that a private entity can truly "own" land, completely and in perpetuity, as if they had created it from whole cloth.
There are those that do not recognize your "right" to exclude them from passing peacefully over land. Notably, in the real world, the FAA doesn't care one bit if you think you own your land. They will use the force of the federal government to let anyone fly a plane over your house (including at low altitude).
As a more extreme example, many indigenous people do not recognize your right to own land that was never sold.
Your principle doesn't really stand up well in the real world.
There are all sorts of exceptions to private property rights. People can legally come onto your land without your permission for all sorts of reasons (utility workers, aircraft overflying, government agents, police, private citizens who haven't been told not to, etc..) The 'right to roam' is just an extension of that, that says that if an undeveloped piece of land lies between where you are and where you need to go, you can pass over that land in a way that does not interfere with the landowner just like all the other exceptions to a landowners "exclusive" right to the land.
Note that in this case, private property is separate from personal property like someone's house, car, clothing, etc.
That there's a big gray area in the middle, and that somebody can sue you if they're injured in that gray area, and even if they lose it's still expense and stress and a time suck for you.
The most well known example is probably Trademark Erosion.
Given this theme, it's not hard to see how a judge could rule that if you allow a lot of people to traverse your land, you are inherently maintaining a passageway and are thus responsible for ensuring its safety.
There's an interesting (slot canyon) local hike that's a good example. The whole situation is a mess, it's an old non-operating mine grandfathered inside what's now a national recreation area. Seems some years ago somebody's car was damaged (not exactly astounding, you need a 4x4 HCV and know how to drive it to get there.) Since it happened on private property their insurance tried to go after the landowner. For years it was posted as no trespassing although some groups still did sneak in. Then there was a period of a few years where it wasn't posted and we (local hiking community) believed it was accessible (nope--flash flood took out the signs and gate.) I went with one such group. There were a couple of mineshafts in the side of the canyon, imperfectly blocked by chain link fencing. Once glance inside was plenty to make me NOPE! it but some of the group squirmed in anyway.
After seeing that I completely understand why the owner denies access.
While I in general support a right to roam it needs to come with extremely strong liability protections. There are too many idiots out there who do not respect that nobody's combing the land for hazards, nor is it even possible as they may change. (There was a case a while back, trespassing IIRC biker got hurt because a flash flood had taken out the paved road he was on. Owner liable.)
The "right to roam" seems almost completely unregulated with no power to manager or limit this public asset. It's a right without any responsibility.
How can you say something so controversial yet so brave?
In my firsthand experience, people are generally more sympathetic and supportive if you are just passing through as a homeless person. They may give you a ride and/or a small amount of cash without you asking, but the US is actively hostile to pedestrians in most places and you have zero right to pitch a tent overnight anywhere.
2. If homelessness is something you dislike, the primary root cause of homelessness is lack of affordable housing. This is a nationwide problem, not peculiar to the West Coast.
So if you don't like homeless encampments, try to find ways to foster the existence of more affordable housing generally. It's a win/win solution that helps the homeless without rewarding or encouraging bad behavior and gets "the homeless" out of "your" face (not intended as a personal attack).
And has zero relationship whatsoever to this issue. None.
I rather got the impression that it was rich people wanting privacy.
As for lawsuits… I'm not sure how effective they are, but here in Berlin half the woods say "Privatgelände / Benutzung auf eigene Gefahr!" which means what you might guess without a translation.
Kentucky has a law of this type on the books, and it helps a lot with access to climbing at the Red River Gorge.
Don't worry, you're impacted by laws anyways. (My fave example is outdoor pools in LA, which by now require a fence. Never mind if there are never any children on the property, there might be at some point)
> Simply crossing the land is one thing
Yup. And it isn't just homeless encampments (which we could address, if we wanted to ever provide housing), it's also that a good chunk of people are, well, asocial assholes. See e.g. folks defacing public parks, destroying natural monuments for kicks, destroying vegetation to get their insta pic just right, etc.
I don't have a good answer. People should be free to access public lands. There should be more public lands. But the consequences of that right often are destructive, and we don't seem inclined to fix that part.
So if someone jumps your fence and breaks their leg walking through your property, you didn't invite them there, you aren't intending your land to be open to the public, so the onus would theoretically be on the traveler to cover their own bills.
They could sue anyway, sure. But they can do that right now without any legal changes anyway, it would just be under well established law and they likely wouldn't win.
This is somewhat a solved problem in the US, what you're describing is actually nefarious behavior by cities and counties. I'll give an anecdote and I'm sure someone will come tell me if I'm wrong :)
In Texas we called these "public easements". Back then in order for the city or county to establish a public easement they had to establish that there was a reason, they had to indemnify the area and some buffer around it, and they were obligated to maintain the land that they created the easement on. Sounds simple, right? Not so much.
Cities and counties would often short change the indemnification, leaving the land owner on the hook for things they shouldn't be on the hook for. Sometimes the city would also have vaguely phrased policies like, "all public easements must have sidewalks" and those sidewalks would often incur some amount of damage to the landscape. Think about, for instance, a sidewalk going from a road, through someones property, to what is a dirt trail through the woods. Doesn't really make sense - but the city has a policy it's obligated to abide by!
I think in general cities and counties could benefit from some non-court oversight to these processes with the public that don't need to involve expensive things like lawyers and are frameworked to understand the perspective of both the public and people giving access. There should also be a zero tolerance policy for underindemnifying the easement.
Since you mentioned homlessness - I now live in Portland. Here's the way I deal with it:
If you camp on public land around my neighborhood I expect you to be a good neighbor. Clean up your trash, no feces or urination in public, no leering/jeering/being creepy etc... I've generally provided water, heating devices, medical aid, etc to people that need it - the same way a good neighbor would.
Some amount of people don't care about those boundaries though and will violate every single basic human expectation you can have. City code enforcement is generally not setup to handle disputes like this and neither are the police so it puts the public in really weird spots. I don't know how to solve that, but those folks aren't using easement rights. They're using public camping rights, which are entirely different and have more to do with camping on BLM and forestry land.
Also you would already see many areas that people can roam that are private properties especially in the midlands.
I come to this conclusion sometimes, one simple example is that most US suburbs are not ready for public transport because of the distances between each home.
Is someone up to no good? Casing a location to plan a robbery/kidnapping/theft/vandalism/squatting/arson (or any of these in progress but not yet committed or committed but not provably by the tresspasser)? It's difficult to impossible to know because you can't just determine intent.
But if their mere pretense in a location is prohibited that is easy to determine and prosecute.
It's very important for security sake to be able to create bright lines that bad actors need to cross and which good parties are unlikely to cross accidentally so that response can have a high accuracy.
People passing through may also litter, set fires, scare off wild life or travel to a space where they are allowed to hunt (and then kill wildlife that crosses properties lines, or inadvertently shoot bullets or arrows into space you're using).
The need to immediately paint one party or the other as in the wrong in a dispute can make it hard to see that in many cases all parties have worthwhile concerns and that there aren't easy answers.
In Vermont, where they have something similar to free roam laws, a lot of people are having issues with hunters roaming their property.
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But that's certainly not the only such case: https://www.trcp.org/unlocking-public-lands/
It reminds me of the phrase: "Poor planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine".
Maybe it will work out for the state in the long run, but it took the risk to buy land without access, with full knowledge, and cant cry foul later.
Private property rights are only as good as the government that recognizes them. Keep in mind that the government that gives you private property rights (California in this case) also has the right to take as much of your land as they want for 'public use'. If the government wants to play hardball, it is perfectly reasonable for them to build a road across the land and open it to the public. You can't stop them, your only recourse is to argue how much they owe you for doing it.
But it is still a sale.
It appears that the land had an easement for access which transfers on sale.
> The land was served by a road easement at the time it was purchased by the state. An underlying landowner sued asserting that the easement was insufficient to permit park visitor travel between Pennington Road and the park, and lost. The court determined that the easement was sufficient to allow visitor use
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutter_Buttes
https://casetext.com/case/campbell-v-state-1088
"All parts of the great outdoors, in particular forests, mountain pastures, rocks, wastelands, fallow land, floodplains, riparian strips and agricultural land, may be entered by anyone free of charge."
(Though you can't camp there like in Norway)
https://www.outdooraccess-scotland.scot/
https://www.alpin.de/sicher-am-berg/30427/artikel_darauf_mue... (article is in German)
https://whoownsengland.org/2017/04/17/the-thirty-landowners-...
Loads of sychophants in that list.
Airstrip One has been invaded by so many countries over many hundreds of years that those who have defeated the our poor armies have then, without any authority, given "OUR" lands to their friends, lords, ladies, and any sychophantic mendicants.
These lands are not their lands!
All these lands were stolen from the common people.
Its called Berkshire for a reason and where the cockney rhyming "Berkshire" comes from
I never gave my permission to give away my land.
UK people still pay land tax to baron families from ancient times in many places, London included. AFAIR the whole House of Lords is created to protect their rights.
You may say it's unfair, but I'm not sure it's productive. Good thing nowadays you can emigrate relatively easily.
Not true. Common land, in particular, was stolen during the agricultural revolution and enclosed. This also created the cheap labour needed for the industrial revolution. The modern world was built on theft from the rural common people.
> Good thing nowadays you can emigrate relatively easily.
As an immigrant (as a child) I have already done that. I even have dual nationality so one emigration option is easy. The problem is I do not know of anywhere much better.
Only after WWI one of the explicit objetives of the passports was to limit the emigration of skilled people. Not to menction that most countries in America were happily receiving huge amounts of people from everywhere without too much hassle. I don't think that is happening today.
... but enclosure acts were specific legislative acts which privatized land and removed common access. I.e. common people had access to the land, and it was taken away. Whether it is "stolen" is perhaps messier to decide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure#Parliamentary_Inclos...
Being a monarchy is orthogonal; Norway has a king and right to roam, for example.
Given than 1.2m people migrated to the UK in the year ending June 2023, it doesn't seem to be putting people off.
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My experience, based on the price of property, is that a shit ton of people want to own empty land, in the anticipation of it not being empty at some point in the future.
As someone who sometime had to go from point A to point B in the countryside without a car, this was a necessity as it was the only safe way to do so (sidewalk are nonexistent in the countryside). It also avoid "trapping" some public land within private one (and effectively privatizing it), although, in my country at least, the state will usually preempt a small piece of the private land to always have a passage between public land.
As for the liability, is should go without saying that there is usually laws that release you from any liability for people hurting themselves while roaming on your property (with the obvious exception that you should not put anything with the intention of hurting people, for example traps).
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what if it's bear country and someone puts out bear traps and says they're for bears when really they were meant for people? it's a good alibi so how would you defend against that?
It seems to be an American thing that landowners actively seek ways to injure both wildlife and people.
More generally, many states ban the use of steel leg traps by civilians already. They're dangerous to humans (often including the owner), they're cruel to the animal, it lacks any of the "sport" attributed to normal hunting, and they can't differentiate between a bear and an endangered kind of deer or whatever.
They're gonna get weird looks, though. I've spent some time in bear country and I don't think I've heard of anyone trapping them; I don't even think the wildlife service around there does it. They generally prefer to shoot or tranquilize them if need be, because trapped bears are pissed off and you do not want to be in eyesight of a pissed off bear. I wouldn't take any bets about what a pissed off bear is capable of, especially in the ability of a trap to immobilize it.
EDIT: apparently, Maine is the one state that allows trapping bears
This isn't true.
A person can break into your home, fall down stairs and file a lawsuit against you.
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In the Northern New England states (VT/NH/ME) that have a sort of freedom to roam codified in law (basically - unposted, undeveloped property is generally free to access for low-impact uses like hiking without requiring permission) - there is broad liability protection provided to the property owner.
For example, the law in VT for liability in that land access situation is only if the injury that occurs is "....the result of the willful or wanton misconduct of the owner." (and has further exemptions from even that if the injury is with regards to accessing equipment/machinery/personal property - which you're not entitled to access).
You pretty much need to be setting traps or creating some truly absurd unnatural hazards to be at legal risk.
What I did look up:
"Premises liability laws generally do not extend to trespassers, such as burglars, because they do not have a legal right to be on the property. However, property owners in California may be liable for injuries caused by a crime on their property if they should have reasonably foreseen the crime and failed to take steps to reduce the risk. This is known as negligent security and can apply to crimes such as burglary, theft, and robbery. Factors that may contribute to a negligent security claim include: Broken or missing surveillance cameras, Lack of security guards, and Broken or inadequate locks."
There's a bunch of places in Europe now that have a no camping policy, but allow (or tolerate) "bivouacking", which originally meant sleeping on the ground without a shelter but now kind of includes small tents. I think it's the ideal tradeoff, it still allows long distance backpackers to do their thing while discouraging the "party camping" crowds.
If you have land in a desirable location, I fear your at best one tiktok away from people coming to your property each night to camp.
I think right to roam is an interesting idea, but the camping part should probably just be left out, or the fine minimal enough where if you made a best effort to stay out of sight and out of the way (as you should) no one would care. And if you got 'caught' you don't head to prison.
You can camp/roam in non farm/garden land, but not closer than 150 meters to a house/cabin.
Time limit pr spot is 2 days.
Some areas are restricted for environmental reasons like restriction on camp fires certain times in the year.
You can harvest wild berries and fish.
You are expected to be considerate to the environment and people.
Norwegian text: https://miljostatus.miljodirektoratet.no/tema/friluftsliv/al...
The Outdoor Access Code contains such gems as "You only have access rights if you exercise them responsibly", which I love - it's the closest I've ever seen to "don't be a dick" being codified. But also such details as in crop fields you only have access to the margins, fields with animals, bringing dogs, etc.
But they do have "land on which there is a house [..] and sufficient adjacent land to enable those living there to have reasonable measures of privacy and to ensure that their enjoyment of the house [..] is not unreasonably disturbed". Which isn't "x metres", but is again wonderfully close to "don't be a dick".
They don't have set times for camping, however.
Policy or not, seeing a steady stream of strangers "roam" through your property next to your (vulnerable) family members will generally do more harm than good. Also, how would you deal with unintended property damage?
> Am I allowed to hop over fences so long as I stay X meters away from buildings?
A reasonable policy would probably specify at least 50-100 meters from buildings, which would outlaw roaming in suburbia.
There are legal routes for public agencies to purchase portions of land to create routes for transportation, including pedestrian paths, that ensure you're at least paid for the lost property. If there is a need, then lobbying your mayor or council is the way to go about this. That's a lot less risky than letting anyone enter your property anytime for any reason as long as they say they're on a nature walk or something.
Although there's one fence in particular, around an apartment complex parking lot which I cut through to go to the grocery store, which I've been dismantling. They've repaired it three times so far, we'll see who gives up first.