A PROTEST is being held in Princetown on Sunday over a major landowner’s attempt to overturn the right to wild camp on Dartmoor.

The rally will be held outside Princetown Visitor Centre from 11am, on the eve of a High Court judgment on the case.

It has been organised by new independent campaign The Stars Are For Everyone, backed by the Right to Roam campaign and the Campaign for National Parks.

The demonstrations are timed to coincide with a High Court ruling on the legal challenge being brought by Alexander Darwall, a hedge fund manager who owns the 4,000 acre Blachford Estate on southern Dartmoor.

He is taking the Dartmoor National Park Authority to court, challenging the right which has existed since 1985 to wild camp on Dartmoor. The moor is the only national park in England where this is permitted and it is upheld through the Dartmoor National Park Authority’s byelaws.

Large parts of the moor are open to wild camping, which involves spending just one or two nights under canvas, carrying everything you need in a backpack and leaving no trace.

Mr Dartwell is challenging whether the DNPA really has the authority to allow this on private land.

The campaigners behind Sunday’s protest in Princetown say wild camping is more important now than ever, citing its benefits for physical and mental health on what is one the UK’s last remaining wilderness.

There will be another outside the Royal Courts of Justice on Monday, as the judgment on the Darwell case is being delivered inside the court. Those who cannot attend either rally in person are being encouraged to state ‘solidarity wild camps’ and tag themselves on social media using the hashtag TheStarsAreForEveryone.

The campaign stressed that Dartmoor is the only place in England where wild camping is allowed.

‘For decades, this right has allowed generations of children, young people and families, from local schools, charities and community groups to Duke of Edinburgh expeditions and the Ministry of Defence’s Ten Tors Challenge, to experience the outdoors and responsibly connect with nature,’ said a spokesperson.

Writer and academic Robert Macfarlane, author of The Wild Places, The Lost Words and The Old Ways, has backed the campaign. ‘It’s appalling that multi-millionaire landowners are taking legal action to deny the public our long-established and much-beloved right to wild camp on areas of Dartmoor,’ he said.

‘A night under Dartmoor’s skies has been a mind-opening, life-shaping experience for tens of thousands of people down the decades. At this moment of ecological crisis we’ve never needed these opportunities to connect deeply with nature more.Please join these rallies, or raise your voice in protest however you can, to help us stop this vital right being rescinded.’

The rally takes place at 11am on Sunday, December 11 outside the visitor centre in Princetown car park PL20 6QF what3words: ///reserving.herds.frogs