WILD JUSTICE WIN IN COURT —DARTMOOR COMMONS HAVE BEEN MISMANAGED BY OVERGRAZING

Good morning! …and good news! Today we can finally bring you an update on our Dartmoor case – we won! Wild Justice wins High Court ruling that Dartmoor commons have been mismanaged We're pleased to tell you that the High Court has ruled in our favour on our legal challenge about overgrazing on Dartmoor, in which we argued that ecologically valuable (and protected) areas of the National Park were being failed by the body responsible for looking after them. In July 2025 we attended the High Court in London, where our lawyers argued that the Dartmoor Commoners' Council (DCC) had failed in its statutory duty to properly manage grazing on Dartmoor commons. This morning the presiding judge, The Honourable Mr Justice Mould, has ruled that DCC has failed to carry out quantitative and qualitative assessment of stocking levels that the law requires. We had additional grounds, which the court rejected, but we only needed one of our grounds to succeed in order for us to win our case. We brought this challenge because the evidence has long pointed to overgrazing as a significant driver of ecological decline on Dartmoor. A government-commissioned review in 2023 found the commons to be "not in a good state", with many Sites of Special Scientific Interest in unfavourable condition. Despite this, DCC had taken no meaningful steps to assess or control livestock numbers, and the commons have continued to be nibbled and gnawed to the detriment of their precious habitats and species. Dartmoor commons cover more than two-thirds of Dartmoor National Park — around 36,000 hectares of open land. Under the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985, the DCC has both the authority to grant grazing rights to local landowners and a legal responsibility to protect the conservation of that land. Our case centred on the fact that DCC had not been fulfilling the second part of that obligation. This ruling doesn't fix Dartmoor overnight, but it does establish clearly that DCC must now do the work it should have been doing all along. That means undertaking qualitative and quantitative assessments of how many livestock the commons can sustainably support, and taking action when overgrazing becomes evident. We'll be keeping a close eye on how DCC responds and what steps it takes from here. Dartmoor is a remarkable landscape and it deserves to be managed in a way that gives nature a real chance to recover and thrive. You can read more about the High Court ruling in a press release on our website – please click here. In the meantime, we’d like to extend a huge thank you to our brilliant legal team who helped us take another case through the courts. Thank you Ricky Gama, Carol Day and Madeeha Akhtar at Leigh Day, David Wolfe KC at Matrix Chambers and Jake Thorold at 39 Essex Chambers. It’s a real privilege to be represented by these exceptional environmental lawyers. Thank you also to the locals who first brought this issue to our attention and whose crucial insight and expertise helped us to build the case. And a huge thank you to you, our supporters, whose donations allowed us to take on this legal challenge. Our work would simply not be possible without your backing, and this win is as much yours as it is ours. If you like who we are, what we stand for, and how we do it, please consider making a small donation to help cover our costs. There are various ways of doing this, e.g. by cheque, bank transfer, or PayPal – you can find the details on our website here. Thank you. That’s it for now – although more coming soon! Wild Justice (CEO: Bob Elliot. Directors: Chris Packham and Ruth Tingay). This is the 263rd Wild Justice newsletter. This email was sent to you because you subscribed to it through the Wild Justice website or through an e-action or a petition where you ticked a box. Thank you. We will only use your personal details to send you the Wild Justice newsletter. We will not give or sell your details to anyone else. You can unsubscribe at any time: there is an unsubscribe button at the foot of this email or you can reply to this email and ask us to remove you from the list (the former will happen immediately, the latter might take a few days). 124, City Road London Greater London EC1V 2NX UNITED KINGDOM Unsubscribe | Change Subscriber Options