A number of European countries have "freedom to roam". It would be nice if America had an equivalent, but given how lobbying works that seems impossible at this point.
In practice it doesn't matter at all, just BLM (Bureau of Land Management) alone owns 387,500 sq mi of public land. For comparison, Scotland, is 30,090 sq mi in size .
This is not counting local, state and national parks and forests.
Why fix a problem that doesn't exist?
Some of the largest parks are comparable in size to European countries.
Exactly, the difference between unconnected wild areas (public access wise) and connected wild areas is massive. The landscape in large parts of the US is totally fenced in and splintered in a way that even if there is lots of public access it isn't effectively connected in a way that people can actually utilize it.
You misunderstand. The point is that people are only able/willing to travel a certain distance from where they live to use public land. Public land that's very far way from population centres is not useful (for public access purposes) regardless of how much of it there is.
A problem is that (at least some parts of) America has pretty absurd "stand your ground" laws (absurd from a EU POV).
Even in the EU countries which don't have freedom to roam laws it is most times safe and often rather inconsequential to trespass, as long as (very oversimplified) you don't climb any fences or similar and keep on the path. (I.e. you have only "accidentally" overlooked the sign pointing out it's a private path you are not allowed to take.)
Note that I strongly recommend reading/translating path signs, they might matter a lot. Similar keep on the path, not just for nature but because there might be unexpected natural and less natural dangers (like WW2 left overs, accidentally entering military training areas, flash flood risks, dangerous nature, etc.).
>A problem is that (at least some parts of) America has pretty absurd "stand your ground" laws (absurd from a EU POV).
You're confusing "stand your ground" (wherein one can defend against an attacker regardless of where they are) and "castle doctrine" (wherein one can defend against an attacker if residing on one's property). It's the latter that's applicable in this case, but only if the person trespassing is also attacking the property owner.
Additionally, there is a very strong historical precedent for both in western (ie European) law, and especially for the latter.
Sure I mixed up the terms but the difference is how the law is interpreted today.
in many EU countries the ways you can defend against an attacker are in practice much more limited and highly contextual. If you kill someone who is hiking across your property you are most likely going to prison for killing, even "just" using a taser or holding them down until police arives can easily count as unproportional amounts of force and get you sentenced for hurting the trespasser. On the other hand you are much more likely to get away with it in some US states.
Furthermore in some EU countries trespassing laws are also more limited and can even have unexpected "gaps". Like there had been a case in which it was found that activists which trespassed onto a farm to document animal abuse where not found guilty of trespassing as they had a reasonable reason to enter the property.
And sure it's something else if you idk. brake into someones home instead of "just" trespassingly pass through a property (especially if the property is not fenced off, I think in some countries if a property is not fenced of and there is a path especially if its without a sign and it's not just obviously a garden of a house it doesn't even count as trespassing at all).
Lastly people having a gun at hand is also much more rare in many EU countries.
This is a good "tell me you only know life in the city, without telling me you've only lived in the city".
To anyone living in a rural area or working in agriculture, conservation, timber/lumber, mining, ranching, hunting, etc, the idea of a finding a random stranger walking across their property would be as alarming as finding that stranger in their living room. The tourists may unintentionally cause damage, disrupt operations or create an unsafe condition even if they were well-meaning. And of course, many people will not be the ideal "leave no trace" expert and many will cause problems- they'll leave litter, they'll gather sticks for firewood, they'll clear areas for campsites, they'll walk on wet grass, they'll leave human waste, they'll leave fire rings with charred remains, they'll pick flowers or fruit, they'll take fossils, they'll carve their names in trees and paint on rocks, etc.
Ethically, if we're going to start taking away people's property rights, I'd rather we force vacant urban housing to be made available to rent before we start forcing farmers to clean up rogue campsites on their fallow fields.
I wouldn’t want that in the US. We have more than enough national public land where people are free to roam. The last thing I want is some random camping in my backyard. We are a very individualistic people, I don’t want people in my little nation state.
As with any legal term, the exact specification comes down to each individual country and their set of precedence and legal culture. One can ask a lawyer about any legal term and the answer will always be "it depend".
Camping for example, using Sweden as an example, is limited based on if a person is living nearby, what the land is used for, risk of damage to the environment (land and animals included), sanitation, and government issued exceptions and restriction. In practice most people choose to pay for a camping place in order to be allowed to camp. Place near roads are generally used for farming or grazing (neither allow camping under freedom to roam), nature reserves tend to be generally restricted by the government, and naturally people need a place to park their car for a extended time which is not a right given under freedom to roam.
What that leaves most people is the freedom to camp (in small groups) in the forest when hiking or mountaineering.
Sweden needs that law because it’s a tiny country where you can’t be outdoors for extended periods for more than 6 months out of the year. The US is huge. People aren’t really missing out if they don’t go on other peoples properties.
Sweden is about the size of California with 1/4 of the population.
The notion that we stay inside during half of the year is funny. Normally foreign media loves to write about children sleeping outside in the winter and all-weather forest kindergartens. And then we have all the german tourists that love camping and hiking.
I understand that it seems strange to hike on other peoples property. It's not that I have to go looking for privately owned property, it's that I can't imagine ever having to keep track of land ownership when I am out hiking, camping, skiing or picking berries or mushrooms.
Incorrect. Broadly-defined laws that do not hammer out the specifics to the inch are absolutely enforceable, just not with perfect certainty ahead of time. All laws are imprecise, and judges and juries are well able to operate more flexibly than a rigid programming-style logical interpretation (IF position X WITHIN bounds Y-Z THEN arrest) would allow.
Yes. In my experience, technical people often assume that laws and judges act like programming commands, when in reality it's more like a case-by-case assessment from the point of view of a reasonable person. Judges are not stupid, they understand what "fair distance" would mean.
How so? Specific laws might define specific distances. The spirit of the law is some reasonable distance, and the letter of a specific implementation of such a law might define a distance, which you could demarcate on your property if it were an issue, much like people may demarcate the boundaries of their property if trespass is an issue today.
> fair to me means "not one inch across my property line"
Then the compromise should be that vast wilderness can’t be privately owned.
i think "not one inch across my property line" makes sense, but there is still a problem to resolve regarding access to public land. in particular the article describes a problem with public land being inaccessible except through "corner crossing".
In the US we accomplish this in a lot of location with easements, common easements are for utilities, but easements can be for anything including transit to other parcels.
Easements means the ownership is maintained however access is granted for VERY VERY specific things, (like putting in and maintaining utilities, or transit across ) but can not be used for other things (like camping)
Virtually every property borders public land of some kind (a public road right of way, typically). It might be interesting to minimally specify what it means to allow access in a way that doesn't allow virtually any path across one's land. You can't just require allowance from any other border directly to the nearest border of public land, for this reason (could be through the owner's house or garden). One way might be to require the specification of public traversal areas as part of the title. Or 100m around the edges of every property is traversable.
Specifying some minimum property size should cover most cases, as well as specifying land uses that are or are not covered by the requirement for public access.
If you own a large parcel of land but are actively farming it, I think disallowing public access is reasonable. If you own hundreds of acres of wilderness, I think public access to traverse the wild areas of your property is perfectly reasonable, even light camping with reasonable restrictions. Specific issues can be prosecuted individually, instead of a blanket ban on all public access.
If it’s 70m that’s still very close to my house. Americans have a way of pushing the boundaries of every law, we’re a litigious country we follow the letter of the law not the spirit. This will probably result in a chain of homeless people that stay in your backyard for three days and then move over to the next backyard.
> This will probably result in a chain of homeless people
Countries with Freedom to Roam laws have homeless people, too. What you describe has not happened.
> stay in your backyard for three days
Again, FUD about “your backyard”. Do you have a 250,000 sq. ft (2.24 hectares, 5.5 acres) back yard? Also, Freedom to Roam laws usually restrict camping to at most two nights, sometimes one night only.
It definitely doesn’t, not according to the dictionary anyway.
As an aside, I think you may be underestimating how large American homes and properties can be, it’s not Europe scale. 5 acres really isn’t all that large.
What matters is how people here would interpret your statement “camping in my backyard”. I think most people here would interpret that as “too close for comfort”, not “somewhere within my 24 acre lot”. Therefore, your statement is misleading. Ergo, FUD.
Sorry, but characterizing Freedom to Roam as allowing people “camping in my backyard” is indeed FUD. Words like “my backyard” have a reasonable definition, and you can’t just redefine them at will (i.e. redefine “my backyard” to mean “my whole property”) to make the statement technically true.
As an American, yes backyard can mean the general area where one stays, but in the specific comment above, I also took it to mean literally in someone's backyard.
I have seen a fairly common solution being deployed in those situations. People who tend to be that lazy that they litter will also be too lazy to walk large distances with their stuff. Thus the solution that land owners deploy is to increase the walking distance between potential parking location and the desired nature destination.
Obviously this lower the accessibility for disabled people so its not a perfect solution, but if government want to make it accessible then they can also pay for solving the littering problem.
> The last thing I want is some random camping in my backyard.
Story: A regional gov agency bought a large tract of land behind my home for conservation. A fireline was cut all around the edge of the tract and lined with a 4' wire fence that ran adjacent to our properties. Homeowners were unitedly happy the land wouldn't be developed but some were upset it was now available for public daytime use.
Two disgruntled neighbors in particular stand out. One was a new mom who was alone all day and was unsettled with folks hiking past her backyard. The other was a generally cantankerous old guy who felt his right of privacy ought to extend far into land that wasn't his.
Whenever my kids and I hiked the fireline, we made a point of venturing away from the alone-mom's property but didn't extend the same courtesy to the old guy. Though we had a right to walk any part of the tract we wanted, we found respecting alone-mom's concerns was worth the effort.
My moral here is that demanding every last nanometer of rights - while rejecting all notions of consideration - is usually too absolutist to be productive. When conflicting desires are in play, I feel consideration+efficiency leads to more workable agreements.
> One was a new mom who was alone all day and was unsettled with folks hiking past her backyard.
This seems unreasonable to think hikers are a threat to her. It’s nice of you to work to make her feel better but it seems silly for her to think that people are going to break into her house in the middle of their hike. There are many more opportunities for violence and if she wants to worry about things, there’s others.
More to the point: it's bad policy to normalize her concerns. For the sake of her child we hope that New Mom stops at one and is single. The biggest reason for child abductions is custody disputes and the biggest perpetrators of child sex abuse are older siblings.
> it's bad policy to normalize her concerns. For the sake of her child we hope that New Mom stops at one and is single.
This feels like a pointlessly bitter analysis, one that has drawn unnecessarily harsh conclusions.
At the time, I started weighing her danger assessment but I stopped. New parents tend to suck at risk analysis. I did. Over time I sorted it out. She would too but not that day.
> The biggest reason for child abductions is custody disputes and the biggest perpetrators of child sex abuse are older siblings.
This false danger narrative you're referencing, you're right that it's crap and harmful. However it is mostly driven by LEO & news orgs - both of whom are in the exact position to know better. It isn't reasonable to blame new mothers for the ongoing ineptitude of professionals.
LEO & news orgs - both of whom are in the exact position to know better
They are not going to stop producing more of the "stranger danger" nonsense, no matter how politely they are asked. You have to start with the consumers if things are ever going to improve.
Regarding LEO, I'm inclined to agree. FBI stats are 2 clicks away so LEO's relentless tendency to portray custodial kidnappings as stranger abductions is at best disingenuous.
The press' issue is one of competency tho. Reporters parrot LEO (gov, corp) PR verbatim, without the least bit of verification, because they are inept. Once reporters get their dopamine hit from public freakout, they are fulfilled. Public freakout leads to ad dollars and that satisfies management.
> why were her concerns more important than his? old man was probably alone all day as well and unsettled
Young mom is young and still sorting out how to tell FUD from actual risk. Also, her peer group is at actual risk from men. I can give her room to sort out what's what; meanwhile, the risk from men diminishes with age.
The old man was married and his adult kids where there a lot. I was on the HOA board and talked to him a number of times. He wasn't struggling with any concern for his safety; he resented that his visible area could be (<5x/yr as it was remote) briefly intruded by someone walking by on the other side of the fence.
I have seen a lot of people with PTSD and I'm thankful for your consciousness of it and care about veterans. I wonder if there might be a way of going about discussing it that would be more effective in winning people over, though.
Sweden, one of the usual examples when freedom to roam is discussed, has laws agains home invasion including yards, gardens, etc. since at least 800 years. This has nothing to do with property rights, any home regardless of ownership structure is protected. So camping in someone's backyard could most definitely be illegal even if you were to introduce freedom to roam :)
As a general rule I dislike the form of government that is European, and prefer the American Individualist system, so I dont think it would be nice if America adopts more European laws, we have adopted too many of them already IMO.
We revolted for a reason, many Americans seem to have forgotten those reasons in the centuries since, Europe has always been more authoritarian than the US, and they largely replaced monarch systems with more collectivist systems instead of adoption of more Individualist systems like the US did.
I prefer the Individualist system, the smallest minority is the individual, and individual rights are supreme over collective or group rights.
In somewhere like the UK the "authority" can be the large land owner/aristocrat. And individuals own relatively little land. It is the kind of thing that Americans escaped from! In that context public access is a defence of individual rights. And often rights will have existed for hundreds or even thousands of years. Public access is a defence of that.
But I think the different culture of America is a really good practical reason against improving access for the public. Guns alone would make it risky.
Why? The "right to roam" is a collective right granting the public a "right" over that of the individual property owners right to control access and use to their property.
To conflate the "right to roam" as a "individual right" completely miss understands what an individual right is
This is possibly the core difference between the US and Europe for me; American individualism isn’t about individuals, but property, and it always has been.
By granting someone a degree of land ownership so extreme they can inhibit other people from experiencing nature across it, you’re merely fetishising property, and doing every single individual a net disservice in the process.
I am not "fetishising property", I am merely including property in with human rights. The Self-dermination or Self-ownership principle naturally requires some system of property ownership. One such system is Homesteading, while I do not fully support homesteading as a concept, I do believe in some kind of private property ownership is required for a functional society based on individual Self-dermination, absent that individuals would not have ownership of their labor or work product, and other functions of their lives.
Personally I lean more towards a Geoism model that combines exclusive possession of real property but is not "full ownership" but even under a Geoism model is critical that the "owner" or possessor of the land is given right of exclusion
> This is possibly the core difference between the US and Europe for me; American individualism isn’t about individuals, but property, and it always has been.
That doesn't jive with my experience on the subject. The core of American individualism has always been the traditional first amendment rights. The idea that you can live your life your way requires property rights, sure, but they're ancillary to the ultimate goal of freedom.
Now, if you don't agree with the first amendment, it may look very different. And I could understand why someone would disagree with it. Not everyone wants to have to tolerate, say, nazi rallies being held out in the open. But to reduce it all to property is missing the forest for the trees.
Land ownership, as we understand it today, is a government-granted right, not a natural right.
Ownership as a natural right is based on the idea that the fruit of your labor belong to you, and on voluntary trade. The land already existed before humans, so it can't be fruit of anyone's labor. It can't be owned in this sense. Traditional ideas of land control were based on usage, not ownership. If you used the land for something – built a house on it, farmed it etc. – that was the fruit of your labor and the land belonged to you. But if you abandoned the land and it started reverting to natural state, others could eventually claim it.
Freedom to roam laws retain some of these traditional ideas. The owner can only control access to protect their use of the land. If the land is unused, others can roam the land, as long as that does not hinder the owner's ability to use the land in the future.
So preservation of natural state is not a "use" ? Hunting is not a "use"?
I think they are...
>Land ownership, as we understand it today, is a government-granted right, not a natural right.
I think it is largely both, and I recognize that we can and should reform some of the government granted rights I just dont think the Right of Exclusion should be one of those reforms.
The lack of usage is not a use. Preservation means changing the legal status of the land permanently, and it also prevents the land owner from using the land for other purposes in the future.
Hunting is a use, but only when it's actually occurring.
> We revolted for a reason, many Americans seem to have forgotten those reasons in the centuries since
Aristocrats couldn't accept admitting representatives elected by the merely rich, rather than only aristocrats, since that would obviously be a large step toward the end of aristocratic political privilege, while most British citizens in positions of political power in the colonies were rich but were not aristocrats, so wouldn't accept representation that curtailed the franchise and/or restricted office to aristocrats, as it was in Britain (American revolutionary leaders wanted a slightly larger franchise, as was the custom in the colonies, and without which they would suffer a great loss of power and probably wealth, since office is a great way to get richer, maybe even more-so then than now) and these positions were irreconcilable for reasons of individual interest on both sides?
[EDIT] I mean there were also propaganda reasons but if that hadn't been a factor the war very likely wouldn't have happened until/unless Britain tried to end slavery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam