Speaker 1: Country Slide understands that DEFRA is considering whether a new
Speaker 1: licensing regime should apply to influencers, wild campers, nature writers,
Speaker 1: and rural lifestyle content creators who make commercial or quasi
Speaker 1: commercial use of sensitive landscapes. Officials say the Department has
Speaker 1: become increasingly concerned by what one draft note describes as
Speaker 1: a growing class of countryside user whose activities are framed
Speaker 1: as wholesome, restorative, and low impact, but whose aggregates effect
Speaker 1: can include trampling of nesting habitat, widening of footpaths, disturbance
Speaker 1: at sensitive times of year, livestock worrying, crop damage, littering,
Speaker 1: drone intrusion, and increased risk of wildfire. The concern, one
Speaker 1: source said, is not that people enjoy being in the countryside,
Speaker 1: but that some users exploit it for personal gain, often
Speaker 1: framing things with a veneer of wholesomeness and moral superiority
Speaker 1: that actually promotes or encourages extractive and ecologically damaging activities
Speaker 1: or misrepresents its impact on landscapes and biodiversity. In his
Speaker 1: emotional and esthetic strip Mining a Death for spokesperson Phil
Speaker 1: Form declined to comment on the existence of any formal
Speaker 1: consultation but said the department was keen to ensure that
Speaker 1: all interactions with the natural environment are assessed according to
Speaker 1: actual ecological effect rather than the story participants tell about
Speaker 1: them afterwards. He added, there is increasing recognition across government
Speaker 1: that some countryside uses may appear to be low impact positive,
Speaker 1: even while being considerably less benign in practice. At the
Speaker 1: center of the mooted plans is a permit system for
Speaker 1: what officials are calling the Outdoor Access Framework OAF. We
Speaker 1: understand stand that this would include outdoor influencers, wild campers,
Speaker 1: transformational walking memoirists, grief naturalists, and countryside influencers, young women
Speaker 1: in colourful for dooras suede boots and tweed miniskirts, and
Speaker 1: their quarter zip clad male equivalents. Under the proposals, creators
Speaker 1: filming or photographing themselves in picturesque sensitive landscapes would require
Speaker 1: an access and Recreation for social exploitation permit. Arse conditions
Speaker 1: could reportedly include a ring light and selfie stick levy,
Speaker 1: as well as seasonal restrictions on drone use. Revenue from
Speaker 1: these would be ring fenced to repair damage done to
Speaker 1: footpaths caused by increased footfall to previously little known sights,
Speaker 1: and to fund the installation of queuing systems at particularly
Speaker 1: viral selfie spots. The draft note observes drily that a
Speaker 1: habitat does not cease to be under pressure merely because
Speaker 1: one appends hashtag nature hashtag keep it Wild to a
Speaker 1: TikTok post. Wild campers would require a temporary overnight Site
Speaker 1: Stop Permit of Tenure tss POT. A briefing paper reportedly
Speaker 1: lists among the impacts of wild camping the increased risk
Speaker 1: of wildfires owing to the lighting of campfires and disposable barbecues,
Speaker 1: littering what is somewhat euphemistically referred to as human waste mismanagement,
Speaker 1: and wildlife disturbance. The Department remains fully supportive of public
Speaker 1: enjoyment of landscape, one passage reads, but is less persuaded
Speaker 1: of the ecological benefits of defecating beside a remote tarn
Speaker 1: For content. Nature writers meanwhile, would need a Sentimental Healing
Speaker 1: and Anthropomorphism Mandate SHAM, permitting them to derive meaning from
Speaker 1: weather estuaries, long walks, and chance encounters with mammals. Authors
Speaker 1: would require a certificate from their GP before claiming that
Speaker 1: a landscape healed the author that a walk changed my life,
Speaker 1: or that a badger had arrived with therapeutic intent at
Speaker 1: precisely the right moment. Applicants wishing to suggest that a
Speaker 1: hare had reordered their understanding of loss, that drizzle had
Speaker 1: instructed them in humility, or that a wren had quietly
Speaker 1: restored the architecture of the self would first need to
Speaker 1: complete an online awareness module entitled Gossawks and hares are
Speaker 1: not crisis Counselors. Civil servants are said to be especially
Speaker 1: concerned by the rapid growth of what one described as
Speaker 1: landscape based moral autobiography, in which mildly strenuous walks and
Speaker 1: selective hardship are used to construct an aura of depth, authenticity,
Speaker 1: and earned wisdom. There may also be civil penalties for
Speaker 1: mileage inflation. Officials are understood to have become interested in
Speaker 1: the routine exaggeration of disa, remoteness, and hardship by walkers,
Speaker 1: campers and memoirists seeking to present a bit of a
Speaker 1: walk as a grueling yet life changing ordeal of spiritual
Speaker 1: and physical reconstruction. Mister Form said, you can't claim to
Speaker 1: have been on some epic journey when your campsite is
Speaker 1: withinside of the car park, three pubs and a visitors
Speaker 1: center selling cream teas and artisanal ginger beer. It is
Speaker 1: also understood that officials are looking into a special income
Speaker 1: tax band for any former ad execs or KPMG consultants
Speaker 1: moving into a cabin to engage in willow weaving or
Speaker 1: hedge laying in order to assuage their feelings of capitalist
Speaker 1: guilt or to recover from corporate burnout. A separate license
Speaker 1: would cover the performative rural living sector. Before creating an
Speaker 1: Instagram account about their new rustic living arrangements, applicants would
Speaker 1: have to establish that the property described as a farmhouse
Speaker 1: was linked in any way to a farm, and would
Speaker 1: also be record required to declare whether repeated references to
Speaker 1: slow mornings, living with the seasons, and the good life
Speaker 1: were supported by any meaningful familiarity with slurry, dead lambs,
Speaker 1: block drains, feed bills, or other less photogenic substances from
Speaker 1: which real countryside life is generally composed. The cost of
Speaker 1: these licenses would be means tested, so that those who
Speaker 1: can prove that their self sufficient lifestyle is not supported
Speaker 1: by independent income or inherited wealth are excluded. The department
Speaker 1: is also said to be considering a levee on cagoules
Speaker 1: branded Patagonia T shirts, down jackets and fleecelined yoga leggings
Speaker 1: in recognition of what one Treasury linked paper describes as
Speaker 1: the wider environmental footprint associated with synthetic moral signaling. A
Speaker 1: similar levee would be placed on teal for dooras quarter zips, leather,
Speaker 1: Wellington's tweed skirts and silk scarves with game bird motifs.
Speaker 1: Campaigners have reacted with fury. The Haste formed movement opposing
Speaker 1: regulation of nature users accused ministers of criminalizing noticing things outdoors.
Speaker 1: Its chairman, Ian walking Boot, said members were being unfairly
Speaker 1: targeted simply for loving nature in a visible, emotionally articulate
Speaker 1: and brand compatible way. He denied that the sector had
Speaker 1: a hypocrisy problem. It's perfectly possible, he said, to feel
Speaker 1: profoundly connected to a place while also widening its paths,
Speaker 1: leaving a smoldering campfire on it, and allowing one's cockapoo
Speaker 1: to disturb every curly nest in the vicinity. Officials insist
Speaker 1: that the proposals are not anti access. This is not
Speaker 1: about stopping people enjoying the countryside. One source said It's
Speaker 1: about whether wilderness and simple living should go on being
Speaker 1: treated as morally superior states of being when in practice
Speaker 1: they are often just consumer choices. Undertaken inexpensive knitwear still
Speaker 1: say about people.