Re your report (Dartmoor national park to pay landowners to allow wild camping, 19 January), it seems the local authorities and courts ignore the principle that everyone has an equal right to life. It seems we have no right to be on this planet without the permission of landowners.
Nobody made the land or creates its value; it should be our common heritage. Centuries old economic injustice stems from private ownership of land by the few. It has led to an inexorable transfer of wealth to landowners, without them lifting a finger, except to raise rents. The only fair and practical solution is to tax land values, to transfer that unearned and undeserved wealth back to the many.
Peter Reilly
Chair, Labour Land Campaign
• The case made against wild camping on Dartmoor was brought for ecological reasons. Or so I thought. However, it now seems that being financially compensated is acceptable. Once again, greed triumphs over wellbeing.
Linda Gresham
Birmingham
• Your article (Thousands march across Dartmoor to demand right to wild camp, 21 January) reminds me of the idea that over centuries the wealthy and powerful have quietly clawed back rights that were historically held by all people in common.
Many readers, especially Americans like me whose knowledge of UK history is limited, would be interested to read in the Guardian some analysis by one or more historians of the battle over wild camping at Dartmoor. Surely historians of the commons and their encroachment could provide valuable perspective for those who wish to better understand the recent developments.
What little I know comes from reading Lewis Hyde’s book Common As Air, wherein he suggests that copyright law has been weaponised over time to encroach rights to intellectual property, which also has a strong history, like certain lands, of being commonly owned.
Paul Dobbs
Relanges, France
