As Hugo said,
>There will probably always be some landowners who do not want anyone on their
land (for whatever reason - appropriate, prejudiced or paranoid).
This is undoubtedly true. However there are two important principles here.
Firstly leasehold land is not "their land", i.e. not private property, the
leaseholder holds the lease to carry out particular activities ( grazing
stock etc. and to erect facilities relating to these uses). therefore
other rights to that land should unless otherwise stated remain public
rights ( e.g. access) as long as they do not impinge on the leasehodlers
interest.
Secondly should the fact that some leaseholders "do not want anyone on their
land" be allowed to prevail over others who wish to gain access to or
through areas without impinging on the leaseholders interests?
Yes, undoubtedly some of these things need to be changed through the political
system, and hopefully changes in community attitude. However it seems to
be that in SA at least recent changes have further restricted public
rights rather than clarifying and maintaining them. This could be seen as
a process of "Privatisation by stealth" of large areas of crown land.
Therefore I don't think that the common law of rights of way are irrelevant to
this debate, remember that they had to be fought for in the UK, and
continue to be challenged, by those who would like to see the rule of
private interests over public good in enjoying use and access to land.
Nevil Amos
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
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