‘Stone stacks are against the Countryside Code — so I kick them down'

Times

5 days ago

A couple of weeks ago a hiker called Stuart Cox — aka the Peak District Viking — achieved five minutes of fame when he posted a Facebook video showing him kicking down cairns on the Derbyshire hill known as Mam Tor.
These weren't real cairns, raised over centuries as waymarkers. Rather, they were the stone stacks that tourists now leave in beauty spots and wild places, and Cox doesn't see his behaviour as vandalism. Instead, he considers their destruction to be an act of conservation.
Some might say that building a pile of rocks and posting pictures of it on Instagram is a gentle, artistic endeavour that hurts nobody and is as innocent as building a sandcastle. These same people might have similarly benign opinions on the release of paper lanterns at sunset, the attachment of love locks to bridges or, indeed, the carving of initials into ancient monuments. Countryside lovers like Cox say otherwise.
'The craze really got going post-pandemic,' he says. 'It's all fuelled by social media, and as soon as one appears, more start popping up, and because the damage it causes isn't obvious, people see it as a harmless way of engaging with nature.'
In the Peak District the National Trust has mobilised volunteers to demolish stacks made with rocks taken from the 16th-century Peak Forest Wall, which, it says, 'are not only impacting the history of the site, but also affecting the natural habitats of wildlife that live and feed within these ancient walls'. In the longer term it will disrupt the delicate balance of the landscape.
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'We are therefore asking visitors to please help us preserve this special place for future generations by refraining from creating stone stacks at Mam Tor and the surrounding National Trust land.'
There are more than 170,000 pictures of rock stacks posted on Instagram, and you'll find people piling stones on almost any beach, lakeside, riverbank, mountaintop or viewpoint within easy walking distance of a car park. Conservation authorities from northern Norway to South Africa are unanimous in their condemnation.
In Yosemite National Park in California rangers have asked visitors to dismantle any unofficial cairns they find, and in Queensland, Australia, the construction of a rock stack has been classified as vandalism since 2022 under the Nature Conservation Act. Park rangers can issue fines of up to £336.
In Iceland rock stacks are known as feroamannavortur — or tourist warts. The musician Flosi Porgeirsson says the beauty of a landscape created over thousands of years 'fades when each visitor leaves behind visible signs of their own ego'.
The psychology behind the urge to stack rocks is complicated. Part of it is the so-called exceptionism we all experience when on holiday: the feeling that everyday norms do not apply. Part is the urge to impose order on nature as a form of control, and part is an animalistic urge to leave one's mark. And a lot is about social approbation — aka likes.
'There is no malice in it,' Cox says. 'Just ignorance. Rock stacks are generally built by people who aren't used to the countryside. Years ago, we had public information films like Keep Britain Tidy on the TV to educate us about the Countryside Code, but they've vanished and now entire generations are growing up with no idea of how to behave in our wild places.'
It's not just the stack builders spoiling our National Parks, beaches and country parks. Disposable barbecues cause wildfires, failure to close gates imperils livestock, inconsiderate parking blocks access, and the so-called fly campers blighting the Peak District, the Lake District and parts of Scotland leave behind human waste, fire damage and, in some cases, even their camping equipment. Most insidious, though, is the litter.
Despite criticism from residents and visitors, the Yorkshire Dales National Park maintains a no-bins policy in the vain expectation that tourists will take their litter home. On Scotland's North Coast 500 tourist route, the Facebook group NC500 The Dirty Truth reports on matters that the marketing people would rather you didn't see.
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In a letter to the Northern Times, the resident Davide Khalil from Sutherland explained how he had erected a sign outside his village asking NC500 tourists 'to please bury their poop' in the hope that they would 'do the courtesy of properly disposing of their excrement' as it was causing a public health problem.
The solution is as much education as legislation. Public spaces protection orders (PSPOs), under which those causing a detrimental effect to our wild places can be fined, are only effective when authorities have the manpower to police their area.
Perhaps one way of persuading visitors to cherish our wild places might be a rural version of the hugely successful Two-Minute Beach Clean, in which visitors to the seaside are invited to spend just a couple of minutes litter picking, with the benefit coming from the cumulative effect.
The other might be to bring back Joe and Petunia, animated stars of the 1970s public information campaign. Only four films were made, but in each the protagonists ably demonstrated exactly how not to behave in the outdoors. In the episode dedicated to the Countryside Code, the pair traipse across a field of crops, leave gates open, break glass, scatter litter and let their dog Bingo 'have a lovely time playing with those sheep'.
Many watching the cartoon today might recognise themselves in Joe and Petunia. All that's missing are the rock stacks.
How do you feel about stone stacks? Share your views in the comments
• Be considerate to those living in, working in and enjoying the countryside• Leave gates and property as you find them• Do not block access to gateways or driveways when parking • Be nice, say hello, share the space • Follow local signs and keep to marked paths unless wider access is available
• Take your litter home — leave no trace of your visit • Do not light fires and only have barbecues where signs say you can• Always keep dogs under control and in sight • Dog poo — bag it and bin it in any public waste bin or take it home • Care for nature — do not cause damage or disturbance
• Check your route and local conditions • Plan your adventure — know what to expect and what you can do • Enjoy your visit, have fun, make a memory