Freedom To Roam - Criticism

Criticism

In recent years population growth has increased pressure on some areas popular for hiking and increased mobility and affluence has made previously remote areas more accessible. There is some concern that without ecological education, some recreational users have limited understanding of the economic and natural systems they are exploring, though significant harm or damage is unusual, the main concerns being disturbance of sensitive species of wildlife (particularly by dogs), and litter.

The 1992 Rio Convention on Biodiversity (subscribed to by 189 countries) expressed some caution about the potential effect of unlimited access, especially in tropical forests, where slash and burn practices undermine biodiversity. For this reason, broad public access rights are challenged in some countries' resulting Biodiversity Action Plan.

Critics from defenders of proprietorship sometimes assert that the All People's Right threatens the essence of ownership and the "management practices" of property owners, who may or may not have created and preserved environmentally important qualities Private owners and their representatives have also argued that newly created access rights ought to lead to financial compensation for private landowners, though they tend to also argue that there should be no corresponding compensation for people who historically tended now-expropriated land in common, with proven ecological records—for example, aboriginals.