As a child and teenager, I had the privilege of roaming free in my bike in the village I come from, in its beach, and in its surroundings agricultural fields and woodland, but it was not until I arrived in Scotland in 2007 that I really understood the importance of the right to roam or freedom to roam. In Scotland 83% of rural land is privately owned and only around 400 people, out of a population of around 5.5 million people, own half of the private land (~50%). For me who come from small village where a great proportion of the population is a small landowner, owning from 0.5 to 4 hectares of land, this shocked me as a huge problem of land inequality. In Scotland, most population do not own land, and would not be allowed to walk, experience and harvest the benefits that land provides, if there was no right to roam, which has been consecrated under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003. With this right, anyone from the public can walk, cycle, run, climb, and even wild camp in private land and inland water (rivers, lakes). This right is valued by many UK nationals and foreigners (e.g. Americans, Germans, Dutch) who mention how they enjoy being able to experience remote places and beautiful landscapes, going up and down the highest (Munros), second (Corbetts), third (Grahams) mountains of Scotland as well as walking or cycling its Glens or moorland areas and forests. This attracts thousands, if not millions of tourists to Scotland every year. It is indeed a priceless right, the right to be free in nature, to be with yourself and to connect with something as special as nature. When I moved to England, I stumbled to another set of rules. In England, the public can only freely roam off-path on mountains, moorland, heathland, downland, costal margins (now the designated King Charles III England Coast Path) and dedicated land voluntarily opened by private owners. Apart from this, the public can only legally walk on established paths, which network is protected by the Countryside and Rights of Way (CROW) Act 2000. Even though England has a good coverage of these paths all over the country, it is believed that a great number of have been lost since the enclosures (the process of enclosing and fencing common land, excluding people from it), which had its peak in the 18th century. In the North of England, I have not yet come across landowners or farmers telling me to "keep off from my land" while accessing the land but have been told this is common in the South. And to be fair, I usually hear people saying that they do not want the public to have free access to land or water bodies because of anti-social behaviour or because they will drown (in the case of rivers and lakes). This is incredible because so many people are killed by car crashes, and I hear nobody saying we should not drive. I must confess that only more recently I have learnt, how naive I have been thinking that Portugal was a special case, and that we could do anywhere we wanted. In the past 40 years, since so many roads have been tarmacked and built (with EU money) and cars have become accessible to everyone, that the network of paths that before connected villages and that people used to attend the festivities in the parish council, to go to the church, to go fishing, to see the doctor, has been highly degraded. Many of these paths are not visible anymore and not recorded apart from the dated military maps. And even though a network or PR (Pequenas rotas - small routes) and GR (Grandes rotas - Long-distance routes) has been mapped out, signposted and increasingly promoted by local authorities (municipios), it is also true that those paths that are not mapped out, promoted or signposted become unknown, not walked or even blocked by new landowners (many foreigners or investors) that buy the land without respecting the easements on the land (burden created over a property for the benefit of another property that does not terminate when the ownership changes). I have already come across coastal walks blocked by new owners and fences and gates blocking old paths, with this being tolerated by local authorities and, to be fair, by most people, now well attached to the car as a sign of progress. These paths are, in many cases, public paths used since time immemorial, and owners may be obliged to allow people to cross their property. My son has benefitted, and still benefits, very much from many of these paths as he can walk freely on them, and explore the wildflowers, insects, birds, small mammals, butterflies, snails, without the worry of a car or motorbike running over him. It is with great sadness that I see many of these paths being lost and disregarded by our local authorities, only interested in showing off the "opening" of a few and limited number of PRs with colourful brand-new signs, as if these paths have not already been "opened" by people for centuries and centuries. I have barely arrived at the Northeast England after 10 days of free roaming in the west of Scotland, to read the deeply concerning news of the increasing attempts to prevent our fundamental right to access the beach in Portugal by private interests with the connivence from the local authorities. If this small right is lost, it will be a tragedy for the country and its people.
