Vote for the Changemaker of the Year Award! Voting is open from 12 June to 17 June.
‘The Changemaker of the Year Award celebrates devoted volunteers, individuals or groups who have gone above and beyond their role working in National Parks. Their passion is unmatched and their dedication to a future where National Parks and AONBs can thrive is an inspiration.’
National Parks Protector Awards
We’ll be voting for The Stars are for Everyone’, described on the awards’ page as:
‘…an incredible grassroots campaign to protect the right to wild camp responsibly in the outdoors in Dartmoor National Park and extend that right to other National Parks in England and Wales. The campaign has grown out of the decision of a wealthy landowner to seek legally to stop people camping responsibly after decades of precedent and many more years of accepted access. In January 2023, The Stars Are for Everyone managed to get 3,500 people up onto Dartmoor for the largest peaceful protest about outdoor access since the famous Kinder Trespass in 1932, almost 100 years earlier. The campaign has highlighted the vital importance of the public’s right to responsible access and its role in actually preserving and protecting the outdoors for everyone.’
Lewis Winks, one of the campaign’s founders said:
“We’re totally stoked to have been shortlisted for the National Park Protector Awards!
“We are shortlisted alongside some other incredible campaigns and individuals – what an honour!
“The campaigning work on access rights on Dartmoor is the product of hundreds of (mostly voluntary) hours put in by countless individuals and organisations.
“Being nominated for this award is a glowing tribute to this far-reaching collaborative work which has so beautifully turned such a devastating loss into an historic victory for a fast-growing and much needed movement.
Lewis continued:
“We started as a local pressure group, but the mass protest at Cornwood back in January catapulted us to national attention. The whole thing was organised by volunteers, working around the clock at incredibly short notice, but really delivered and put the debate around access rights very much in the public eye.
“Our campaign goes on. We are passionate about Dartmoor and, moreover, we are passionate about promoting responsible access rights across all our iconic National Parks. Everyone should have a right to spend a night under the stars if they wish, without having to seek permission.
“We’ll be outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London with Right to Roam, on the July 18 at noon to support Dartmoor National Park’s appeal. Join us there!
In the meanwhile, please vote for us!“
Lewis Winks, The Stars are for Everyone
We’ve published several articles about Dartmoor, including Tony Whitehead‘s excellent series on the state of the moor from an environmental and ecological perspective. We will be hosting a live-streamed panel event headed by Tony at the Byline Festival on Friday 14 July on the future for Dartmoor. Look out for more details.