Negotiating Recreational Access Under Asymmetrical Power Relations: The Case of Inland Waterways in England

Abstract

This article addresses recreational conflict between anglers and boaters in England. While recognizing that interpersonal conflicts between individual anglers and boaters exist much as they do in other countries, the article argues that the position in England is mediated through complex land and property rights that position the stakeholders asymmetrically, as legal rights holders (anglers) and moral rights claimants (boaters). Under this scenario, negotiated attempts to increase access for boaters are interpreted not primarily as a means of addressing the asymmetry, but as a mechanism for underwriting the dominant property power of the anglers. Using data collected from focus groups involving stakeholders, the article suggests that in cases where recreational access to natural resources is mediated through sociopolitical institutions such as law, weaker stakeholders have very limited options in terms of the legal or social mechanisms through which he can pursue or assert their claims.

Keywords:

• anglers
• boaters
• England
• property rights
• recreational conflict

Notes

Note. Game fishing relates to anglers who fish for salmon, trout, and other game fish. When caught, such fish are sometimes, but by no means always, taken from the water as a “catch.” Coarse fishing, in contrast, involves fishing for nongame species, with the purpose being to catch the fish and then replace them in the water.

A public right of navigation is a legal term denoting the right at law for all watercraft to use a given waterway, even if the banks and bed of the waterway are privately owned and the use would otherwise constitute trespass. Such a term does not, therefore, refer to the practise of navigating along a waterway.

In England, the term canoe is a generic description for open canoes and kayaks.

In England and Wales, the right to fish is a right pertaining to property (known as a riparian right). The person who owns the legal interest in the banks and beds of rivers and lakes also owns the riparian rights and thus can determine whether or not fishing takes place, who has the right to fish, and to what extent this right is exercised to the exclusion of other uses such as canoeing and kayaking.