A lack of common knowledge

Enshrined in law since 1215, commoners’ rights allow the unrestricted grazing of all sorts of livestock–including ducks–that learn to ‘heft’ or ‘lear’ to the land in an ancient farming system that’s now under threat, says Octavia Pollock

- Octavia Pollock

IF you were to propose a system of commoning as if it were a new idea, few would quibble that it is an excellent one. Farmers working together to raise high-welfare, top-quality livestock in wildlife-filled landscapes that they know intimately and manage for the benefit of all, preserving bloodlines, providing healthy food and protecting archaeological sites. Yet this ancient way of life, the oldest farming system in the world—and one recognised as being of vital cultural importance for llamas in the Andes and reindeer in Norway —is under threat in the UK.

‘We are the original custodians of the land,’ declares Will Rawling, a member of the Federation of Cumbria Commoners. ‘Vikings and Neolithic man would recognise what we’re doing.’ Commoning rights were enshrined in Magna Carta in 1215 and, until the agricultural revolution of enclosure, 50% of England was common land. Wordsworth called the Lake District ‘the republic of the shepherds’ and John Clare wrote that: ‘Unbounded freedom ruled the wandering scene/Nor fence of ownership crept in between.’ Now, only 3% is commons, mainly in Dartmoor, Cumbria, the New Forest, Shropshire, the Malvern Hills and the Yorkshire Dales.