The right to roam builds a truly ecological civilization

Sadly, Americans often have to go to Europe just to have a good walk, simply because many northern European countries have established the legal "right to roam". That is, walkers have the right to cross private forests, wild spaces, and farmland. This gives the public access without limiting the economic use of the land. The United States has beautiful national parks and some fine state and city parks, but little land where people can just ramble.

I recently finally succeeded in passing the Chinese driver's license test, so I've been driving around on the outskirts of Beijing looking for places to ramble. There are many beautiful places in the nearby mountains and farmland, but too much of it is being fenced off and closed to the people. There are not enough foot trails. Many golf courses are blocking access to riversides. I even came across a "resort" under construction with a guard who blocked an access road into the mountains.

But all land in China belongs to the people. It is not too late to preserve walkable open space for the general public.

For many years, I lived in the Washington, DC area. The surrounding counties in Virginia and Maryland pride themselves on having "greenbelts" that limit development in the outer reaches of the metropolitan area. What this means in practice is that beautiful hills and farmland are now occupied by huge houses on lots with a minimum size of about 25 acres, roughly 10 hectares.

The rolling hills and big grassy lawns are pretty when driving by in a car, but these areas are not really ecological and provide no benefit to the general public. Wealthy landowners have fenced off all the land, so there is nowhere to walk. Dangerous, winding two lane roads are the only way to get around the area. Only a brave person would dare to bike. Just walking by the side of the road means facing constant danger from cars speeding around a curve. The lawns are green in color but are not green in the sense of being ecologically sound－they take lots of mowing and chemical treatment.

So, the only benefit of the Virginia and Maryland greenbelts goes to the rich landowners by reducing their land costs by excluding other types of development. Housing costs for everyone else in the region are driven up by limiting developable land. This might very well be worthwhile if the greenbelt provided green space for the people or protected the environment, but it does exactly the opposite. China should not follow this path.

In the once free American west, extremely rich individuals, often Hollywood stars or tech billionaires, are buying tens of thousands of acres and closing them off to locals who have hiked, hunted and fished on those lands for generations.

A very informative 2018 book by Ken Ilgunas, This Land is Our Land: How We Lost the Right to Roam and How to Take it Back, documents the history of the struggle to establish the right to walk around England. In the early 1930s, the British Communist Party in Manchester set up the British Workers' Sports Federation to support the rights of factory workers to just walk through the gorgeous nearby Peak District, which had long been open land celebrated in English poetry. After a massive national protest, the workers managed to establish England's first national park in the region. Finally, in the year 2000, an act of Parliament established the right to roam throughout most of England. Similar rights exist in Scotland, Scandinavian countries, and other parts of northern Europe.

I've had the wonderful experience of wandering on public footpaths through farmland in England and in the German and Austrian Alps. As nice as nature parks are, they are no substitute for the right to walk around normal land nearby home.

China is taking big steps to establish parks, greenways, and a network of national trails. Tying these in with "right to roam" footpaths would ensure that China's people can enjoy their beautiful land.