Enjoy your walk in the country, but please don’t abuse farmers’ hospitality | Ben Eagle
Written by Ben Eagle
Visitors who ignore the Countryside Code put our livelihoods at risk. It’s time to educate the public about caring for the land
During the summer holidays, you may be heading into the British countryside for a leisurely walk. However, the idea of the rural idyll is not what you may think. Country paths are often strewn with dog poo left by irresponsible owners, litter blown into ditches or piles of flytipped rubbish. Most people who access the countryside respect it and want to look after it. After all, many of us enjoy exploring it and some of us still make our living within it. Yet, social media is awash with farmers and landowners venting their frustration at the way some people act, with gates left open and dogs allowed to run off the lead near cows and sheep.
On my 300-hectare coastal farm in Essex I’m lucky that there are quite a few regular walkers who act as our unofficial farm neighbourhood watch. They want to see the land looking good as much as I do and are the first to air their grievances to me if they find someone hasn’t picked up their dog’s mess or if they have come across flytipping. These people stick to public footpaths and permissive paths, leave gates as they found them and respect others. Unfortunately, there are people who do the opposite, but it seems impossible to catch them in the act. How often have you actually seen someone leaving their dog’s mess on the ground? Last week, I missed a flytipper by just 10 minutes. We need to collectively shame people, but finding them is not easy.
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