Nick
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Just read this, and wondered...
It's illegal to pick wild flowers, isn't it? Are fungi fair game (assuming it's not private property, etc etc)?
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cab
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| Nick wrote: | Just read this, and wondered...
It's illegal to pick wild flowers, isn't it? |
No. Except where there is specific protection due to them being endangered, or if you're trespassing.
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Are fungi fair game (assuming it's not private property, etc etc)? |
Provided you're allowed on the property and they're growing wild, and you're not planning on selling them when you pick them, then the countryside and wildlife act (1981) gives you clear permission to pick plants and fungi. Its polite to ask if you can identify a land owner, and it certainly would be bad form to strip a site bare, and of course there are byelaws in some areas that make things more complicated (e.g. limits on picking in the New Forest, Wimbledon Common, Epping Forest, etc.). Oh, and you can't take a whole plant, you can only take leaves or parts of the plant (i.e. digging up roots on other peoples land is illegal).
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mushroom man
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The law is awfully complicated and rather contradictory. You can pick anywhere as long as it is for private consumption, even if you do not own the land (1968 Theft Act and common law). Of course if you don't own the land you should not be there in the first place, but if you get thrown off no-one is allowed to take any mushrooms you have picked away from you.
There are lots of bylaws restricting this right but how legal they themselves are is, and has been, open to question.
You can collect from SSSI's as long as you are not collecting or damaging the plant or fungus that caused the site to become an SSSI in the first place.
As far as I can tell you are not permitted to collect from "Right to Roam" land. This appears to be one of those odd and malign consequences of poorly drafted legislation.
There are four, extremely rare (and inedible), fungi that it is illegal to pick at all (1983 Wildlife and Countryside Act). I found one of these in January (Battaraea phalloides).
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gil
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| mushroom man wrote: | As far as I can tell you are not permitted to collect from "Right to Roam" land. This appears to be one of those odd and malign consequences of poorly drafted legislation.
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This would appear to have considerable consequences in Scotland, then ?
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mushroom man
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Scotland always adds another layer of complexity when one is talking about "British" law. There is no law of trespass in Scotland as I am sure you know. I think Scotland had the Land Reform Act instead of the CROW Act . I don't know if the "not removing anything from the land" clause found its way in to that Act.
Does anyone remember the trouble someone got into a couple of years ago by picking rowan berries from private land (England this time)? The police caught up with him a few weeks later and two or three counties away and gave him a caution for theft. I am sure he was not guilty of any crime and that the police were wrong in pursuing him. The Theft Act of 1968 is quite explicit about the right to collect wild plants.
I would be interested if anyone else has any ideas about all this - I am sure I haven't got to the bottom of it yet. Very off topic too - should be a new thread.
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Treacodactyl
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| mushroom man wrote: | | The law is awfully complicated and rather contradictory. |
I agree with that, it seems each time I read up or hear something about it it changes slightly. 
| cab wrote: | | Oh, and you can't take a whole plant, you can only take leaves or parts of the plant (i.e. digging up roots on other peoples land is illegal). |
That's what I thought about the roots until I saw a programme recently that said you could take roots as long as you left part of the plant, e.g. the foliage, to show you didn't intend to take the whole plant.
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cab
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| Treacodactyl wrote: |
| cab wrote: | | Oh, and you can't take a whole plant, you can only take leaves or parts of the plant (i.e. digging up roots on other peoples land is illegal). |
That's what I thought about the roots until I saw a programme recently that said you could take roots as long as you left part of the plant, e.g. the foliage, to show you didn't intend to take the whole plant. |
You'd probably get away with that. I wouldn't try it though.
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Treacodactyl
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| cab wrote: | | Treacodactyl wrote: |
| cab wrote: | | Oh, and you can't take a whole plant, you can only take leaves or parts of the plant (i.e. digging up roots on other peoples land is illegal). |
That's what I thought about the roots until I saw a programme recently that said you could take roots as long as you left part of the plant, e.g. the foliage, to show you didn't intend to take the whole plant. |
You'd probably get away with that. I wouldn't try it though. |
I wouldn't try it and I've never wild harvested a root or bulb. If there's something I fancy giving a try I'll try and grows it myself. Growing quite a few 'wild' edibles myself I wouldn't be very keen on someone picking them even if it's not technically a crime.
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cab
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| Treacodactyl wrote: |
I wouldn't try it and I've never wild harvested a root or bulb. If there's something I fancy giving a try I'll try and grows it myself. Growing quite a few 'wild' edibles myself I wouldn't be very keen on someone picking them even if it's not technically a crime. |
I'd be lying if I said I'd never broken this law. I've certainly had dandelion and horseradish roots up in the past, and I've unashamedly nicked wild violets and sorrel plants from building sites shortly before the topsoil was removed. Those acts would have been illegal.
I'm comfortable with the law as it stands with regard to removing whole plants, because its there to prevent the wholesale removal of things that aren't all that numerous; I strongly suspect that if anyone did try to get you up in front of a judge for nicking a dandelion root from waste ground, you'd get away with it.
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mushroom man
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The 1981 (sorry, must get that right) Wildlife and Countryside Act Chapter 69 section 13. 1. a. says that it is illegal if "not being an authorized person, (someone) intentionally uproots any wild plant not included in that schedule" (the "schedule" is a list of protected plants).
That's all there is to say about it except that fungi are not plants and don't have roots!
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dpack
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law vs darwin award
i think i know what protects shrooms from most brits
im sure i have breached some law with some dinner ,some dinner never gets thought of
forage needs to be sustainable and those who forage should make sure it is
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cab
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| dpack wrote: |
forage needs to be sustainable and those who forage should make sure it is |
Seconded. Do no harm, to yourself, the habitats you're foraging in, or your forage!
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