Annual Foraging Law Summary
By Daniel Butler, author and forager
We’re just about to start the ‘foraging silly season’ in the media. There will be numerous media pieces about greedy middle class people or East Europeans devastating the countryside by picking mushrooms or hedgerow fruit. These stories generally say foraging is damaging and illegal without permission.
Anti-foraging signs and stories are fruiting everywhere this autumn (Photo: author’s own)
Basically, these stories are untrue. Collecting mushrooms or berries has no ecological impact (indeed many are specifically designed to be eaten as way of spreading seeds or spores).
More significantly collecting for personal use cannot be illegal anywhere. This applies not only to public land such as commons and footpaths, but to private land, SSSIs, nature reserves, NT land etc. Forget people or signage telling you there is a bylaw prohibiting it or a Trust saying it’s banned on their site. Managers and owners might not want you to pick things on their land, but they can’t over-ride the Theft Act (1968) which specifies this cannot be criminal for personal use.
Designations such as NNR or SSSI cannot prevent foraging (Photo: donated to author)
Contrary to popular belief, designations such as SSSI or NNR don’t actually confer extra protection to the plants, fungi and animals found there. These are just as protected in the field next door. The designations are really around planning/land use. They are quite useful when it comes to stopping someone from building a road or supermarket, but they don’t mean anything present is more precious than elsewhere.
Many authorities suggest that collection for sale is illegal, but in theory this would make members of the WI picking blackberries to sell as jam for charity would be criminals. In reality, the law does not actually stipulate picking for sale is illegal: it merely says picking for personal use cannot be theft.
So, basically you can pick virtually anywhere for your own use.
That said, there are good reasons not to pick in many areas. The main one is that it can upset people. Farmers often get angry if they see people with baskets wandering across land and while a nature reserve might have no right to forbid foraging, having a needless row with a stranger upsets everyone.
This is a very brief summary of a very complicated legal situation. Indeed, even most land managers and lawyers are ignorant of the true position. If anyone wants to know more, there are five blogs on my website which outline the set-up www.fungiforays.co.uk/blog/mushrooms-and-the-law-1-of-4