MASSIVE numbers on the Together march against the far right today. Right to Roam has been marching with the Folk Against Fascism bloc - Morris dancers reclaiming rural English traditions from the far right The countryside is for everyone!

The lion and the unicorn. A sentiment as apparent and as urgent today as it was for Orwell in the 1940s.

VICTORY! Government to open up the Land Registry - bringing to an end a thousand years of secrecy shrouding who owns England. I’ve been campaigning for this for ten years: the new Land Use Framework, published later today, makes it government policy. 1/ www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Great news. Dartmoor is an ecological disaster zone masquerading as a National Park, as its ecosystems have been grazed out by sheep. Now this must change.

This is a great news story. But it's also an interesting access story; revealing of how we talk, and think, about access rights. Nightjar are an 'amber' list species. They're ground nesters. And they roost in the sorts of habitats which often overlap with existing access land in England and Wales.

Across England, we are shut out of the majority of our woodland: so much of that which is off limits is used for pheasant shooting or private commercial forestry. Support @righttoroam.bsky.social & join a local group trespass! Time for access reform. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Very happy to be representing @righttoroam.bsky.social as a member of this new rewilding alliance, and to have authored its launch report: The Welsh Way to Wild. 1) Read the report and sign up to the mailing list at: rewildingalliance.cymru 2) Give the alliance a follow: @cynghrairalwylltio.cymru

When campaigners argue for public access to the countryside, the debate is often cast as though access itself is an exceptional imposition on private rights. Yet in commercial contexts, the right to exclude is seen as "central to the business model"... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Green majority of more than 4500, Labour in third place. Absolute calamity for Keir Starmer. And a complete failure of McSweeney’s electoral philosophy. The idea of relying on an anti-Reform vote coalescing behind Labour just collapsed entirely.

The attempted silencing of Palestine Action by proscribing is stuff of both satire and nightmare. Now all charges against protestors should be dropped and the ban repealed so that democracy can do its job of acting as a conscience for those in power with none. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/live...

This May sees the release of Our Land - a feature length documentary film about the Right to Roam campaign, directed by Orban Wallace. www.youtube.com/watch?v=est-...

The daft thing is that with Proportional Representation there'd be no need for this self-destructive war within Labour. It could split into its component parts - left and right - and people could vote for what they wanted. It's only First-Past-the-Post that forces these irreconcilables together.

Exciting news: this May sees the national release of OUR LAND. A beautiful documentary feature film about the @righttoroam.bsky.social campaign, directed by Orban Wallace. Trailer here 👇 www.youtube.com/watch?v=est-...

Good morning. Let's make a collective resolution: this will be the year in which we start to turn things round.

National or regional (GLA) government needs to liberate London’s river system for walking too. Try walking the Roding between Barking Creek & Redbridge?! Impossible where it offers the most benefit in statistically low walking areas. Try the Ravensbourne; canalised/buried even in most green spaces!

It seems the first of the new 'nine river walks' the Government announced in place of a real access policy... won't actually create any new access? They're just upgrading the existing path and adding some signs and benches. A really rubbish level of ambition. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Government's proposed new National River Walk a damp squib says @openspacessociety.bsky.social -it's not new, but on existing rights of way. Priority should be green paper on access to nature, and new legislation. www.oss.org.uk/new-national... @ramblers.org.uk @naturalengland.bsky.social

The Government has announced the first of their ‘nine new river walks’: a section of the River Mersey near Stockport. Yet what’s being presented as a national breakthrough is, in reality, a set of long-overdue local council upgrades to existing riverside paths. A skim through the details... 🧵

This Telegraph article is a distillation of the horseshit propping up the idea of a 'rural v urban culture war'. 'BBC ACCUSED OF METROPOLITAN BIAS TOWARD RURAL BRITAIN' it claims, citing a poll commissioned by the Regional Moorland Association (i.e. gamekeepers) www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

The River Dart in spate flowing through (and over!) Totnes following heavy & prolonged rainfall. And this is one week past spring tides!

The Government have today announced an Access Green Paper which will consult on how to ‘strengthen the public’s legal right to access’. This is welcome - but further delay isn't: Labour MPs & access NGOs are united on the need for access legislation now. @righttoroam.bsky.social comment:

Tonnes of topsoil heading seaward, washed out by rainfall from the River Dart Catchment, South Devon. With heavy rainfall events becoming more frequent as a result of climate breakdown, leaving fields bare at this time of year is a recipe for literal disaster.

ChatGPT’s signature writing style is everywhere now, and I hate it. It reminds me of when we tried mixing all the beverages at the soda fountain in middle school. We didn’t actually create the perfect drink, we just made a cloying monstrosity that lost everything good about its constituent parts.

Why Your House Is Full of Stuff You'll Never Use.

Trees high on Dartmoor have been deliberately poisoned. Perhaps an act rooted in frustration and of sorrow at the passing of an unfettered time... but an act of ecological vandalism nonetheless. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

@ebenmyrddin.bsky.social repping wild camping at the Basecamp stage at Kendal Mountain Festival.

A real joy to be at Kendal Mountain Festival with @righttoroam.bsky.social and friends -- raising our voices for equitable access to nature.

Wild camping: we won the battle on Dartmoor, now what? Listening to @lewis-winks.bsky.social, @maryannochota.bsky.social & Aila Taylor discussing extending the right to wild camp in England - at Kendal Mountain Festival, in (appropriately enough) a very big tent

'the abandoned paper mill was actually a deeply contaminated and highly radioactive former frack waste treatment plan' Hard to overstate the enduring filth released by fossil fuel extraction

Great trespass along the River Dart today to kick off @righttoroam.bsky.social's 9 river trespasses in November - protesting the inadequacy & unworkability of the Govt's 9 river walks pledge We trespassed in an estate owned in the Cayman Islands & later met up with kayakers from Friends of the Dart

Over 200 charities, businesses & organisations have signed our open letter to Keir Starmer asking him not to weaken the laws protecting National Parks and Landscapes. We're so thankful to everyone who added their name 💪 This letter represents millions of people and shows that #NationalParksMatter

Very excited to share that I'm writing a new book, THE GHOSTS OF CHALK COUNTRY - about the loss of England's chalk downland: a tale of flowers, fascism & freedom. To be published by @wmcollinsbooks.bsky.social in April 2027: www.thebookseller.com/rights/willi... Website: ghostsofchalkcountry.org

How do we fix this mess?

Absolutely delighted that my book THE LIE OF THE LAND has won the Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing! This week, one of the book’s recommendations, a ban on moorland burning, became a reality. Next, we need a Nature Bill for England… bsky.app/profile/wain...

This week's column. The details will make you gasp and rage. This massive desecration of nature is almost unbelievable, but it is happening in the UK right now. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This prize draw is generously supported by some of the cream of British nature writing. A fiver to enter might win you books, art and other goodies. That’s the ‘maybe’… the ‘definitely’ is that it will support our work to connect everyone in England and Wales with their nearby nature.

Your chance to support Right to Roam's trailblazing grassroots work to expand responsible access to land and water. All proceeds will go towards a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shift in our relationship with the countryside PLUS a chance to win some nature inspired prizes! ⬇️✨

My mate Damien is currently undertaking the world's longest litter pick - the Lu'Crusade - on his bicycle, to raise money for Trash Free Trails. If you can, please support his efforts! www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding...

Love #Dartmoor? Now’s your chance to influence its future. People who care passionately about the National Park are invited to share their views on the priorities that will guide this unique landscape for years to come. Complete the Public Opinion Survey: forms.office.com/pages/respon...

I got hold of the latest *official* stats for how many pheasants are being bred, reared and released in England It's a big number - 25.9 million - but it's far less than the reality It points to widespread rule-breaking by shooting estates failing to register: whoownsengland.org/2025/07/31/l...

Great leader in today's Guardian building on our research into ownership of rivers: "...there is no guarantee that landowners will allow the public to enjoy these landscapes. This, surely, has to change." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Happy #RewildingRoundup 🐛💚 🌊 Research by @lewis-winks.bsky.social has shown that Devon's river Dart has a staggering 108 owners, many of whom are aristocracy, demonstrating the vital link between conserving nature and addressing the country's need for more public access & ownership.

Excellent to hear @lewis-winks.bsky.social on the Today programme this morning discussing his research on 'Who owns the River Dart' - and why this shows we need a right of responsible access Listen here (45mins in): www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... Guardian story: www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Over the past 18 months I've been walking estates, speaking with landowners, examining angling maps, and trawling online records to determine who owns the River Dart in Devon- finally I can share the results! Research: whoownsengland.org/2025/07/29/w... Article: www.theguardian.com/environment/...

@lewis-winks.bsky.social, who compiled the River Dart research: “We’re calling for a rights-based approach to river access – similar to the system in Scotland, where the public has the right to responsibly walk, swim, paddle and canoe along most rivers and lochs, with sensible exceptions.”

I've spent many hours on, in and beside the Dart. I found this fascinating, enraging and illuminating - and it probably applies to a river near you.

Who owns the River Dart? 108 separate landowners, it turns out - with 11 miles of it owned by offshore companies! Great research by @lewis-winks.bsky.social which shows why the Government's 9 river walks policy won't work without a right of responsible access 1/ www.theguardian.com/environment/...

This looks like really positive news. Very happy to be proven posthumously correct and see many of my concerns addressed. Well done to @the-wildlifetrusts.bsky.social @wclnews.bsky.social, @rspb.bsky.social and everyone who fought for proper nature protections in planning.

Back in court for day 2 of our Dartmoor legal challenge today....and a timely, excellent piece from @phoebeweston.bsky.social on overgrazing. Expert local opinion from the brilliant @tonydartmoor.bsky.social & @guyshrubsole.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/environment/...