Britain’s natural environment is depleted and, despite nascent government schemes to manage the land differently, struggling to recover from centuries of destruction – plus more recent threats like climate change. What if the biggest obstacles to its recovery are the people we have entrusted to look after it?
Author and green campaigner Guy Shrubsole’s latest book, The Lie of the Land: Who Really Cares for the Countryside? argues for a radical reappraisal of property rights to democratise how land is held and used in England and Wales. You might remember Shrubsole from his writing on “the lost rainforests of Britain”, a topic he explored in an earlier book.
He begins The Lie of the Land by presenting the version of property rights to which English law has become wedded over the last 200 years, that allows the freehold owner of land to enjoy unrestricted and absolute rights to its natural resources.
