to think no one should own land and ignore a sign saying private woods

[mls3]

Ok o will probably get flamed here.

But there is a badly managed woods near me with am old broken sign that say private woods. Aibu to collect a few broken branches for the wood burner? I know it is stealing, but this woods is overgrown and I'm thinking how unethical it is for anyone to own land.

Land used to all be free, until someone carved it all up to hoard for themselves. If land was still free now maybe we wouldn't have to all be working such stupid hours wasting our lives doing a job we don't like.

OP, you have completely derailed my afternoon's work because I have been totally unable to leave this thread for more than about ten minutes at a stretch. It has more entertainment value than the average evening's TV.

it becomes a worry when the badgers swoop down from their nests and interbreed with the headhogs.

Or this?

Just go in and gather the sticks you need.

Be glad that you didn't live 300 years ago when you would have been cast in jail for gathering wood off the gentry's land.

Pay no attention to the health n safety idiots saying that the woods are dangerous.

I haven't read the whole thread because it's too long but OP, yes YABU.

That land is private land which belongs to someone. Under our laws anything growing there and any resident animals (with a few exceptions) are their property too.

Go and ask the landowner if you can do a bit of foraging.

I own a lot of land, including woodland and I don't mind locals walking / foraging as long as they obey certain rules which I have set out very clearly on signs at access points (no public footpaths, just paths I've created because I want to. People are generally very good as they know if I keep finding litter / damage / having dogs chase my livestock I'll just put the fences back up.

How would you like it if someone just came into your garden and just started helping themselves to your plants and going through your wood pile and loading it into their car?
I would bet you'd shout and swear a lot and then call the police. It matters not whether someone owns a few square yards of suburban garden or 2000 acres of farmland, what you're proposing to do is EXACTLY the same - TRESPASSING and STEALING.

Our woods actually were dangerous, CuttedUp - there had been some really bad fungal infections that the previous owners had left untreated and a lot of the trees were completely rotten.

I can laugh at ridiculous health and safety restrictions with the best of them, but this really was a risky situation, especially as autumn was looming and the likelihood was that the winds would start picking up whilst the trees still had a decent amount of foliage on. The tree surgeons removed about a third of the trees totally. Most of the rest were really stripped down.

Had it been safe I would have had no problem letting people in to use it.

But I was (am I suppose) a landowner, therefore my opinion is apparently completely invalid.

If you leave a messy patch in a quiet undisturbed area of your garden then hedgehogs might make their own nest there either to hibernate in or to rear their young

This is what I am aiming for on my own, private land We actually do have a little family of hedgehogs living here now, after 15 years of hard work to get them back, creating the right habitat. If someone were to come in and disturb it, to collect frikkin' firewood, I would be beyond livid. Might even be prompted to purchase a blunderbuss to see them off!!!!!

Just to get back to OP's opening post - No, you cannot ignore a sign that says "Private Woods", no matter what state that sign might be in. And whatever you think of people living on land (most particularly because you have a house and garden which is, errrmmm .... land).
It is not for you to judge who is managing their land to what you perceive to be your own standards, because it would appear your standards are not very environmentally-friendly (just going by some of your ill-informed posts).

CuttedUpPear -can you tell us how you can be so sure that there are no rotting/dying trees in the OP's bit of woodland? And how you can be so sure the landowner isn't letting someone go shooting in there? Have you checked it for any old traps or pitfalls or bits of rusty machinery that someone has left in there?

No? Then you cannot tell the OP that it is safe, and it is a pretty stupid thing to say.

FyreFly - no, your opinions are not invalid at all, on the contrary! They are most welcome (IMO).

The original question posed by OP was - Could he/she trespass on someone else's private (clearly labelled) land to steal stuff?
And the answer was, NO

CuttedUpPear - rotting wood is actually helpful to some species - Stag Beetles and Hornets, among others

I know, Evans, I replied to the OP much earlier in the thread (before the funny turn) to say that not all "Keep Out" signs are necessarily about a symptom of someone being greedy and mean, but might also be a necessity. I used the woods I used to own as an example.

I had every intention of re-opening them once all the work was done, but circumstances meant I had to sell them a couple of years later. I have no idea what the situation there is now.

A farmer around here had some idiots (ramblers I think) go wandering into a field despite the "Keep Out" sign, but the bull soon saw them off. I don't think they were badly hurt...

For people who don't know the countryside - Keep Out signs can be for your own good as well! Please, please don't ignore them. There could be dangerous animals or land or old workings. There could be active shooting in the area. There could be sensitive wildlife and plants. It could be an old military site. The top of the cliff may be unstable. The riptides off the beach could be incredibly strong. Yes, it could also well be that the owner is just being mean, but there are many more very good reasons why the landowner wants the land being left alone, and ultimately you have no idea why. Please respect that.

This thread is amazing!

If only for this 'i would shoot a dog if it started picking my blackberries'

Oh and that weird pig faced man thing above...!

This thread is hilarious, especially badgers making 'nests'.
OP, have you tracked down the owners of the wood and made clear to them your views on land ownership?
How do you know the wood is 'awaiting redevelopment'?

I am honestly still laughing at the idea of only owning topsoil.

'I'm sorry sir, but your lava flow appears to be joining ours without permission. Please could you divert it before it erupts'....

But the bears would eat all the sodding blackberries and then where would we be

They bloody would, too!
At least we wouldn't have to contend with those pesky, theiving trespassers - Bears would snarl, problem solved. Hehehehe

Off to Google

The land might be part of a shoot.

But the bears would eat all the sodding blackberries and then where would we be?

Looking out for an awful lot of pippy bear shit in the communal woods obviously . But at least the badgerhogs could use it to insulate their nests .

My dog likes blackberries. But he wouldn't pick them without permission. He waits for me to pick them and throw them to him so he can catch them.

There are probably some of those old Victorian mantraps they used to leave out for poachers.

If we still had bears, woods would be unattractive (bears shit in them doncha know).

manina I hope you have public liability insurance as anyone hurting themselves in your wood could happily sue you..

i want assurance that when the badger cull takes place they also destroy the nest. otherwise the badgers will just come back.

i particularly enjoyed the massive swerve from 'can i get some free firewood?' to 'man is destroying our goddess the earth and all property is theft'. i love the Levellers as much as the next man but really, OP, you're talking absolute fucking nonsense.

(it's very weird in here today)

I own quite a few acres of forest. My DP manages it as well as he's able, but it's too much on his own (also, it's up the side of a mountain).

We would be only delighted if some neighbour proposed that they help us to manage it and in return get free wood for their fire.

If someone came in and gathered up logs that we were intending to use ourselves, though, I would be a bit narked.

So I think the fairest thing all round would be if the OP proposed to the landowner that they managed at least some of the land in return for free wood.

I don't think anybody would notice or prosecute if you pick a couple of sicks.

I wonder if there us a formula for the energy gained collecting and burning dead wood v the energy expended collecting it.
I know that when I relied on a fire from dead wood I'd collected, there was no way it was enough to keep even barely warm in the Winter.
Bugger all to do with the thread really though, just musing........