ON SEPTEMBER 24 300 people trespassed in Oldhouse Warren, part of the erstwhile medieval hunting forest of Worth, right next door to Crawley, and down the road from Gatwick airport and south London. 

The mass trespass was organised by Sussex-based Landscapes of Freedom, in tandem with the Right to Roam national campaign. 

It took place just after Green MP Caroline Lucas had presented her “right to roam Bill” to Parliament seeking to extend open access to woodland, Green Belt, river banks and more downland.

Most of Worth Forest, including Oldhouse Warren, is forbidden to the public, but our reasons for this action were focused on an atrocious proposal for a gigantic Center Parcs leisure development in the Warren, covering 553 acres — roughly the size of Gatwick’s runways — in this ancient woodland. 

They want to build 900 holiday lodges, a retail plaza, a “subtropical swimming paradise,” an “aqua sauna spa,” roads and car parking, at a cost of some £400 million. Its energy usage will ratchet up climate change, and its transport implications will wreck the tranquillity of the High Wealden forest district.

Goshawk, nightjar and woodcock will be swept away, along with rare lesser spotted woodpecker, redstart, and many rare species and relict ecosystems surviving from the temperate rainforest 7,000 years ago and beyond. 

But never mind, if you hand over enough dosh, Center Parcs can take your kids’ photos with a captive owl or falcon perched on their arms.  

What chance do “handsome woollywort,” a tiny but gorgeous liverwort that survives in a single marshy gully, and elfin bellflower, a fairy-sized cousin of the harebell, or dark stonewort, a rare and primitive algae living in flooded tractor ruts on forest rides, stand against a whole new urban settlement? 

Center Parcs will trash and steal Worth Forest’s wild and primeval naturalness, and then sell back to us the more domesticated survivors for our delight.

So never mind, if you pay to walk/cycle/jog up their leisure tracks you might see a squirrel or a party of tits on the bird feeders!! 

It doesn’t have to be like this. 

Epping Forest, hugging the north-eastern edge of London’s sprawl, was also — 150 years ago — threatened with enclosure and clearance by its clique of landowners, despite the fact that London folk had enjoyed its bosky haunts for centuries. 

People kicked off in a big way, with huge demonstrations which tore down the enclosing fencing. The City of London Corporation, whose fat cats enjoyed the forest too, chimed in and co-led a successful legal and political campaign which resulted in their purchase of the entire forest for public enjoyment and for the protection of its trees and open spaces.

The forest became a “people’s forest,” bringing many thousands of Londoners to its lawns and glades, its pubs and tea gardens. It became a “Cockney paradise.”

Has the massive popularity of Epping Forest — and the New Forest, Wyre Forest and Burnham Beeches — destroyed those places? Does the dog mess and disturbance, the picking of flowers and fungi, the litter and trampling, destroy the very richness of wildlife we seek to protect? 

The short answer is No. Despite much historical Corporation mismanagement and the pressure of public usage, the bulk of Epping Forest’s wonderful ancient woodland and veteran trees survive. 

To prove it the forest has a collection of national and international conservation designations longer than the array of medals on King Charles III’s chest.

For sure, there are serious problems. Dog walkers can destroy the nests of ground nesting birds like woodcock and nightjar, and fungus foragers sweep away gorgeous displays of Ceps and Chanterelles.

In Epping Forest the City Corporation has correctly had to ban all fungus foraging, and in the New Forest the Forestry Commission has followed suit.

At Oldhouse Warren, the private owners make no attempt to manage commercial dog walkers or control fungus foraging in the part of the forest which has permissive access. 

On the Brighton Downs the Council uses dog control orders and the excellent services of an education ranger to manage large numbers of commercial and family dog walkers on their new “re-wilded” Downland at Waterhall. 

Without such measures the large population of gorgeous adders and the low-nesting birds, like linnets and whitethroat, would sink towards local extinction. 

Even the newts, frogs and toads in the dewpond would be lost if it was left as a “doggy pond.” With more resources the council and National Park Authority could do much more to manage our collective presence on this wildlife-rich restored Downland.

But, in the end, those are secondary matters compared to the imperative need for the public to claim our universal right to roam across all our countryside. 

For without our watchful presence endless petty eco-atrocities take place in secret across our forbidden landscapes. Private landowners have got away with making ecological desolation.

In Worth Forest and neighbouring St Leonard’s Forest three major Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) were nationally designated in 1954 to protect their wildlife. 

Yet in 1987 the bulk of those SSSIs were de-designated, because ruthless commercial coniferisation and farming in the forests had destroyed much of what made them so special. 

Just five years ago the Oldhouse Warren landowners smashed through its hugely species-rich heathy rides system to create hard-core forest tracks suitable for modern giant tree-harvesting machines. 

They did so without any of the necessary planning permissions. Only by trespassing did we discover this unfurling atrocity, and then persuade the council to take enforcement action. It was our trespassing that put this private estate’s mismanagement publicly on the spot.

Even at the now-famous Knepp re-wilding project it took our trespassing on the closed part to discover that the landowner had neglected an ancient pasture Site of Nature Conservation Interest so badly that its special wildlife was at the point of total loss. He then took remedial measures.

At Offham Down and Marsh in 1997, it took our trespassing to challenge the farmer who was ploughing up these SSSI sites to grow highly profitable flax. Some 250 people occupied the down to “un-plough” it — lifting, replacing and tamping down the turned turves. Our activists camped on the marsh for long weeks to halt its ploughing. We won, and both marsh and down are now restored.   

Even on the Brighton Council Downland Estate it took our trespassing to discover that a tenant farmer who had no shooting rights had constructed a game bird release pen and was managing the land for shooting. We obliged the estate’s conservative managers to take enforcement action. 

Our mass trespass on the Brighton Downs last year forced the council to take action against another of their shooting tenant farmers, which resulted in the council ending his tenancy of much of his grazing land in the face of his intransigent opposition to giving up his shooting rights. 

Only with a universal right to roam — as Scotland already has — can we collectively perform our public role as defenders, stewards and advocates for nature. Only by ending our separation from nature can we act to reverse its slide to extinction. 

What the eye doesn’t see the heart will not grieve.