Campaigners challenge Prince William to make Dartmoor wild again 

Hundreds of people marched across Dartmoor recently to challenge its biggest landowner, Prince William, to urgently support farmers to restore nature in the iconic national park. 

Slamming the Prince and other landowners’ management of Dartmoor’s “dying” ecosystems, local people called for Royal land in Dartmoor to be returned to public ownership if major progress for nature is not quickly realised. Dartmoor was once covered in the globally rare habitat of temperate rainforest - today only fragments remain. 

In a striking stunt, local families and landworkers “threw down the gauntlet” to the Prince by delivering a 15ft sculpture of a medieval gauntlet to the Dartmoor offices of the Duchy of Cornwall. The ancient landed estate, inherited by Prince William on the death of the Queen, controls one third of the National Park. Protesters also delivered a 70,000 signature petition, while flourishing a banner on the steps, and inviting people to write messages to the Duchy about the future of Dartmoor’s natural landscapes.

The action comes against the backdrop of a politically charged national debate over the future of sheep in the National Park, after Tory MPs clashed with Natural England over the QUANGO’s attempt to limit numbers of sheep in certain areas of the moor. A DEFRA initiated review, triggered by the backlash, is due to return its findings later this year.

Joel Scott-Halkes says: “The state of nature on Dartmoor is a source of local and national shame and some DEFRA led review isn’t enough. Where there used to be rainforests now there’s just a desert. We’re marching today to say enough is enough, we want the wild to return and we demand that Prince William and other absentee landlords step up and show leadership for nature, or step back and let us manage our own landscapes instead.” 

Beavers, wild cats, pine marten and water voles are amongst the many wild species campaigners say could be returned to Dartmoor should landowners take action now. These species were celebrated by children, artists, musicians and local storytellers who gathered for the event. 

Saturday’s action, organised by campaign groups Wild Card and 38 Degrees, comes after Prince William was criticised for under ambition after pledging to double the size of Dartmoor’s most famous rainforest fragment, Wistman’s Wood. This, according to the activists, was just “small potatoes” with the proposed area of reforestation amounting to less than 4 football pitches of new woodland (3 hectares) or 0.01% of the Prince’s Dartmoor estate. 

The march, which started from Princetown - thought to be the first ever demonstration to call for wilder National Parks in British history - seeks to make a nature-rich Dartmoor a crucial asset in the UK’s race for Net Zero. Wild Card states that they intend to expand the campaign to other National Parks in pursuit of their target of rewilding 50% of the UK landmass. 

25 year old Emma Eberhardt, representative of Youth Flame, the youth coalition of the Landworkers Alliance, says: “Today marks a historic and hopeful coming together of local people, environmentalists and landworkers. The fight for nature’s recovery can no longer just be left to a wealthy landowning few. We, together, can and will bring our Dartmoor back to life.” 

Megan Bental, 38 Degrees Head of Campaigns, said “At 38 Degrees, we campaign for a country that is more sustainable for everyone, for people and wildlife. Unlike Prince William, most of us don’t have the opportunity to rewild thousands of acres of land, but the thousands of people marching for our countryside today are backed by more than 72,000 people who signed this petition and are doing what they can to fight for a Britain where nature can thrive. It’s time for Prince William and the Royal family to do their part too.”