Private property is everywhere. Almost anywhere you walk in the United States, you will spot “No Trespassing” and “Private Property” signs on trees and fence posts. In America, there are more than a billion acres of grassland pasture, cropland, and forest, and miles and miles of coastlines that are mostly closed off to the public. Meanwhile, America’s public lands are threatened by extremist groups and right-wing think tanks who call for our public lands to be sold to the highest bidder and closed off to everyone else. If these groups get their way, public property may become private, precious green spaces may be developed, and the common good may be sacrificed for the benefit of the wealthy few. Ken Ilgunas, lifelong traveler, hitchhiker, and roamer, takes readers back to the nineteenth century, when Americans were allowed to journey undisturbed across the country. Today, though, America finds itself as an outlier in the Western world as a number of European countries have created sophisticated legal systems that protect landowners and give citizens generous roaming rights to their countries' green spaces. Inspired by the United States' history of roaming, and taking guidance from present-day Europe, Ilgunas calls into question our entrenched understanding of private property and provocatively proposes something unheard of: opening up American private property for public recreation. He imagines a future in which folks everywhere will have the right to walk safely, explore freely, and roam boldly—from California to the New York island, from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters.

Should there be greater access to Britain's countryside? For a thousand years British people have been battling against the 'Trespassers will be Prosecuted' mentality of landowners. Now, however, the law of trespass is under challenge. After mass trespasses and days of protest against'Forbidden Britain', we have a government committed to creating a general right of public access over at least part of rural Britain. But such a 'right to roam' will be fiercely resisted by some. What would it really mean for agriculture, forestry and wildlife, as well as recreation? Who would benefit and who would lose out? In this illuminating book Marion Shoard, dubbed the 'Rachel Carson of the British conservation movement',answers these questions and places them in what turns out to be a fascinating historical, philosophical and political context. The result provides essential reading for anyone concerned about the balance of power in a changing Britain as well as the fate of our changing countryside.

Nomadic groups and sedentary society have been in conflict throughout the ages and the conflict continues to this day. For the most part it is nomadic groups who have been the losers in these conflicts. The idea of human rights has traveled around the world in response to some of the great conflicts of our time. ‘The Right to Roam- Travellers in the Modern Nation State’ examines the right of nomadic groups to maintain a way of life that is contrary to the drive toward sedentarisation and modernisation. If human rights are to exist, one approach to the derivation of rights is that they are to exist as protectors of the autonomy of individuals. When the autonomy of individuals is threatened by restrictions on their liberty then the protection of human rights is required. For Travellers in Ireland, restrictions on the freedom to maintain a Travelling lifestyle have consequences for members of the Travelling community. “The Right to Roam- Travellers in the Nation State’ explores the impact of recent legislation such as the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act of 2002 on Travellers in modern Ireland and whether progress driven be sedentary society should be required to include the needs of nomadic groups.

The vast majority of our country is entirely unknown to us because we are banned from setting foot on it. By law of trespass, we are excluded from 92 per cent of the land and 97 per cent of its waterways, blocked by walls whose legitimacy is rarely questioned. But behind them lies a story of enclosure, exploitation and dispossession of public rights whose effects last to this day. The Book of Trespass takes us on a journey over the walls of England, into the thousands of square miles of rivers, woodland, lakes and meadows that are blocked from public access. By trespassing the land of the media magnates, Lords, politicians and private corporations that own England, Nick Hayes argues that the root of social inequality is the uneven distribution of land. Weaving together the stories of poachers, vagabonds, gypsies, witches, hippies, ravers, ramblers, migrants and protesters, and charting acts of civil disobedience that challenge orthodox power at its heart, The Book of Trespass will transform the way you see the land.

"It's not only a feast for the eye--Florian Schulz is a fine young nature-wildlife photographer--but a challenge to those of us who live in a not-yet-used corner of he planet." (Seattle P-I)A grizzly bear emerges, one small detail in an immense vista of field and mountains and sky. A shoreline, still and empty but for the telltale tracks of passing wildlife. Golden peaks that roll to the horizon, starkly beautiful in the morning light. This kind of space, of solitude-of simple wildness-still exists in North America, outside the boundaries of any park.Photographer Florian Schulz documents the landscape, plants, animals, and people of an eco-system that is surprisingly intact up and down the spine of the Rocky Mountains. There is still time to make a difference: to direct the path of encroaching development and establish connections between the national and provincial parks on this course.Essay contributors--including Dvid Suzuki, David Quammen, Rick Bass, Ted Kerasote and Roberts F. Kennedy Jr.-- tell of their travels through the region and their experience of the land. They explain the need for Y2Y, based on new findings that reveal isolated nature sanctuaries to be a recipe for extinction. They set the Y2Y conservation program in context: a grand vision grounded on science; a practical plan that provides for economic as well as environmental sustainability; a blueprint designating critical wildlife habitat. Environmental conservation does not mean that humansmust be excluded from the land, but we must act thoughtfully.For more information about the author, visit his web site at www.visionsofthewild.com/.

This is the first handbook devoted entirely to leisure theory, charting the history and philosophy of leisure, theories in religion and culture, and rational theories of leisure in the Western philosophical tradition, as well as a range of socio-cultural theories from thinkers such as Adorno, Bauman, Weber and Marx. Drawing on contributions from experts in leisure studies from around the world, the four sections cover: traditional theories of leisure; rational theories of leisure; structural theories of leisure; and post-structural theories of leisure. The Palgrave Handbook of Leisure Theory is essential reading for students and scholars working in leisure studies, social theory as well as those working on the problem of leisure in the wider humanities and social sciences.

Living near Boston, sixth-grader Emma tries to hide from family problems and changing friendships by spending the summer in Wyoming.