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S7 #7

The Commons, Trespass, and Wild Service | Lewis Winks (Right to Roam)

On this episode, my guest is Lewis Winks, a researcher, writer and campaigner who specialises in nature connection, cultural and behavioural change, and has a background working in the environmental and outdoor education sector. He joins us on behalf of the Right to Roam campaign as well as the Stars Are For Everyone campaign, the latter which he helped spearhed to defend wild camping rights on Dartmoor.

Since 2021, Right to Roam has been organising peaceful trespasses into some of the vast areas of countryside from which the public are currently excluded. They follow the tried and tested access code which governs Scotland’s right of responsible access, respecting privacy, crops and nature – all while seeking to leave a positive trace and practising deep care for the natural world: a concept they call Wild Service. Their vision is of a future countryside in which people not only enjoy the physical, mental and spiritual benefits of nature but serve as its guardians too.

"We have this right to trespass. We have this right to be on land, and that it's only really through a kind of spell that we've been put under this kind of narrative that we've been told that we don't have a right to land." - Lewis Winks
Themes:
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Show Notes

  • Right to Roam’s origins (Guy Shrubsole & Nick Hayes)
  • The Stars Are For Everyone (Dartmoor National Park)
  • The right to wild camp in England
  • The commons and the enclosures
  • Taking back trespass
  • The shadow places of fortress conservation
  • Wild service
  • Levellers and landlordism
  • Deifying dispossession
  • The community right to buy
  • International solidarity

Homework

Transcript

The transcript is available via Chris's Substack page. You can sign up for free and read along here: https://chrischristou.substack.com/

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