FUD. Freedom to Roam laws only allow camping a fair distance away from inhabited buildings.
fair to me means "not one inch across my property line"
If you don't like that, don't buy property that borders public land.
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.
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)
> fair to me means "not one inch across my property line"
Then the compromise should be that vast wilderness can’t be privately owned.
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.
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.
Tell me you haven’t even visited Sweden without telling me you haven’t ever been to Sweden.
“150 metres in Norway and in all countries far enough that you do not inconvenience anyone and particularly not those in the nearest house.”
— https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Right_to_access_in_the_Nordic...
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It fairly contrasts with me earlier calling out a post for being bitter.