Wild Places and Green Spaces: A Citizen’s Guide to Proving Public Access
Destination BC | Jeremy Koreski photo
With the goal of empowering citizen groups to defend access to the wild spaces they care about, today the Environmental Law Centre and the Outdoor Recreation Council released Wild Places and Green Spaces: A Citizen’s Guide to Proving Public Access.
“Wild Places and Green Spaces is designed to assist British Columbians who want to prove a public right to access to outdoor spaces for public recreation and nature enjoyment,” says Calvin Sandborn, QC, Senior Counsel with the Environmental Law Centre. “In many cases, the public is being deprived of a perfectly legal right to use the trail, road or public way. And this is a growing problem across the province.”
In recent years, British Columbians have been locked out of wild places and green spaces they previously enjoyed. Roads have been gated and trails have been closed to hikers and other nature-lovers. On Vancouver Island and elsewhere, kayakers and fishers have been locked out of dozens of lakes and streams. In urban areas of the province, public pathways to waterfront have been usurped by adjacent private landowners.
Executive director of the Outdoor Recreation Council of BC Louise Pedersen says, “We are very concerned that access to outdoor places for fly fishers, hikers, birdwatchers, kayakers and other recreationists are gradually disappearing in both rural and urban areas as roads, trails and paths are being blocked by gates, fences and no-trespassing signs.”
Wild Places and Green Spaces: A Citizen’s Guide to Proving Public Access provides information about how citizens can determine whether the public has a legal right to access a particular beloved place.
First, the Guide informs citizens how to gather the evidence they need to prove public access – how to document the history and status of the access route. It lays out specific tips on finding government maps, land registry documents, land grants, survey records, public works and other government records, orders-in-council, legal notices, community history accounts, archive documents, and other documents needed to prove public access.
Second, the Guide discusses legal principles you can invoke to prove a public right to travel the route. It provides a basic introduction to some of the laws governing public access and specifically describes circumstances where the law mandates public access. It focuses on some of the most common ways that public access rights can be established, such as the creation of public “highways” and creation of certain types of forestry and industrial roads.
For example, many citizens will be surprised to find that if government money was ever used to maintain a road in the past, it is likely a public route today. Others will be surprised to learn that multitudinous unsigned public routes to waterfront exist in their subdivisions. Still others will learn that many public accesses found in original Crown grants and “highway” designations are being ignored – as are routes that were informally “dedicated” to public use by historic landowners but are illegally closed by current property owners.
“We are hugely grateful to the team of legal specialists and students at UVIC’s Environmental Law Centre for their support in creating a practical guide for recreation groups to help determine whether there is a public right to access the trail, road or public way,” says Pedersen.
Concerned citizens can obtain Wild Places and Green Spaces: A Citizen's Guide to Proving Public Access here. Workshops on the Citizen’s Guide will be presented to recreation groups and lawyers throughout the fall.
