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  1. #1

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    Default MoD geocaching Policy update


    We have received a written statement from MoD following the recent GAGB/MoD meeting. In summary, Physical caches on MoD owned estate (freehold/leasehold) are NOT permitted and if currently in place then MoD request that these are removed. Virtual caches (including Earthcaches and virtual stages of multi-caches, Puzzle and Wherigos) are permitted on MoD estate where the public has access. Cache pages should give any appropriate safety messages.

    Where MoD is not the owner/leaseholder, then they advise that they have no control over geocaching or other recreational activities and that it remains the landowner’s decision to allow geocaching. Dartmoor is an example of such an area.

    We understand that MoD are intending to remove containers from their estate, whether geocaches, letterboxes or others. Therefore geocachers owning affected caches are requested to recover these where appropriate.


    If you have any questions about this or the letter from MoD then please ask them in this thread before the end of September so that we can collate them and pass them on to the relevant person.

    The detail of MoD’s letter follows:

    Ministry of Defence
    Building 97a
    Land Warfare Centre
    Warminster
    Wiltshire BA12 0DJ
    United Kingdom
    E-mail:

    19th August 2013

    Dear <GAGB Member>,

    Apologies for the delay in getting back to you following our meeting on the 24th July 2013. As promised, I am writing to confirm the position of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) in respect of Geocaching and the placing of geocaches on our property.

    As discussed at the meeting, the MOD are unable to give permission for any physical geocache to be placed anywhere on the MOD freehold/leasehold estate (referred to here after as the owned estate). Whilst the MOD does operate a presumption in favour of public access on its estate, when compatible with military operations and training, we do not consider physical geocaches to be acceptable. Our main areas of concern centre on:

    a. National Security – It is not appropriate to encourage people to leave or conceal marked or unmarked packages on any part of the MOD owned estate as it contradicts all security procedures and could lead to false security alerts.

    b. Public Risk and MOD’s Duty of Care to all Users of the estate – The majority of the MOD training estate is a risk area where blank fire, pyrotechnics and smoke may be used even outside of the 'live fire' danger areas. The Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) danger is self evident in live ranges but also exists in dry training areas where individuals could inadvertently disturb, or harm themselves, on military debris whilst searching for or hiding geocaches.


    The MOD estate is extensive. It is fundamental that a consistent approach is applied across the owned estate to ensure there is no confusion amongst staff and military users in how sites are operated and to ensure overall clarity in how the public can safely use the military estate. Resources do not allow a site specific approach to geocaching and, more importantly, this would not support an over arching level of consistency.

    As you are aware the MOD often has to implement changes in levels of security associated with different sites and that each site must remain flexible in how it is used for training purposes. Such variations will ultimately affect the extent to which a site is publicly accessible. Clearly these changes may happen over night so further preclude a consistent approach to the management of geocaching.

    Turning to a legacy issue, despite the Geocaching Association of Great Britain’s (GAGB) guidance about ensuring landowners permission is granted prior to the locating of geocaches, we are aware that there are numerous examples located across our estate that have not received permission or that may have received mis-guided local permission. As discussed at our meeting the MOD has found, and disposed of, geocaches located in highly unsuitable locations such as against security fences on bases and within live-fire Impact Areas where public access is permanently denied.

    Whilst the MOD does acknowledge these may have been placed by geocachers associated with other listing sites, such as Terra Caching or Open Caching, it is unfortunate that the views expressed by some on GAGB (and other) online forums in relation to geo-caching on the MOD estate did little to build confidence that members would act in a responsible manner in the gaining of permission and/or placing of geo-caches.

    The MOD will be contacting other geocaching websites to ensure a consistent message is made apparent to all geocachers.

    It is for these reasons that physical caches on the MOD owned estate are not permitted.

    There are a small number of training areas that the MOD do not own or hold under leasehold arrangements. These are areas where the MOD is licensed to train but are not the primary occupier. In these circumstances the MOD has no control over geocaching or many other recreational activities and thus it still remains the landowner’s decision to allow the placing of geo-caches e.g. Dartmoor Training Area with the exception of Willsworthy Range which is owned by the MOD.

    You requested that we provide a dataset of our owned estate in order for your Reviewers to ensure that further caches are not approved on the MOD estate. I am still pursuing agreement to release this information to your organisation but in the meantime I would be grateful if you could publish a request on your website/forum for owners of geo-caches known to be on the MOD owned estate to remove them.

    In order for me to progress your mapping info request could you please let me know in what format the data would be acceptable.

    An internal protocol is now being drafted to ensure that it is understood that geocaches are not permissible on the estate. Should a geocache be found they will be removed. I am also continuing to ask MOD land managers to inform my office of any known geocaches that have received local permission with a similar view to removing them.

    As we agreed at our meeting the MOD has no objection to “virtual” caches on the estate as this would be no different from any other recreational user taking access. I would be very grateful though if you could remind your members that any such point should be in an area accessible by the public and that appropriate safety messages are published with any within live fire areas. These areas will be very obvious to those setting the cache.

    Yours sincerely


    Caching since 2001
    Founder member of GAGB (2003)
    Committee (2003-2013)
    Chair of GAGB (2010-2012)
    Negotiator of 18 Landowner Agreements
    GAGB Friend

  2. #2

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    Default

    Thanks for the update. Its a great shame, but at least they are allowing virtuals.

    Would this be a fair and accurate summary?

    1. All existing caches, letterboxes etc will be removed from MOD land.
    2. Virtual caches will be allowed.

    Can I presume that a non-physical waypoint is the same as a virtual cache? IE I could set a trail through MOD land with which would have the final physical cache location outside of MOD land?

    For instance, I could send somebody to the location of a sign on MOD land, get them to count the number of times the word "nature" appeared on it, and use that number to find a location outside of the MOD land where the cache would be located. Would that be ok?

  3. #3

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    Default

    All existing PHYSICAL caches and letterboxes will be removed. Non-physcial waypoints are permitted under the conditions stated (including counting the words on a sign), or as per my summary above:


    In summary, Physical caches on MoD owned estate (freehold/leasehold) are NOT permitted and if currently in place then MoD request that these are removed. Virtual caches (including Earthcaches and virtual stages of multi-caches, Puzzle and Wherigos) are permitted on MoD estate where the public has access. Cache pages should give any appropriate safety messages.


    Caching since 2001
    Founder member of GAGB (2003)
    Committee (2003-2013)
    Chair of GAGB (2010-2012)
    Negotiator of 18 Landowner Agreements
    GAGB Friend

  4. #4

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    Default

    Thanks for the clarification.

    It will be interesting to see which areas of land are actually owned by the MOD.

  5. #5

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    Default

    Well, that reply raises more questions then it answers. Perhaps someone who attended the meeting could explain what they're getting at.

    Just out of interest, how many caches are there in "within live-fire Impact Areas"? I'm surprised that they get through the review procedure, but it sounds like a significant number have been found (and I imagine that only represents a tiny proportion of the caches actually placed). I agree with the MoD that such areas are unsuitable, but it's alarming that people are allowed in areas where it's too dangerous to even place a film container.

    I'd say that it's a good rule of thumb that if you can't place a cache then you shouldn't be allowed access at all, and I'm puzzled as to how the MoD gets away with this apparent recklessness.

    In the meantime nothing much can be done without the accurate maps.

  6. #6

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    "within live-fire Impact Areas"
    What is partially being referred to, are Over Shoot Areas, when a potential projectile impact can take place, in the event a Live Round, overshoots the intended target.

    Modern Military Long Arms, have a Designed effective range of 300m, but the actual range of the bullet, can be over a kilometre. As such behind all Ranges, are Live Fire Impact Zones, some of these are publicly accessible, during Non Range Days.


    The Longest Record Kill by a Military Sniper, is recorded at over 1.5miles. using a weapon, with a Designed effective range of 0.5 miles. So 66% further than the Designed effective range. Which is why all ranges, have designated overshoot areas. In the case of the Military, some of these Designated Overshoot Areas are open to the Public, and not marked on maps, as being part of the Range.

    The above comes from personal knowledge gained whilst in the Military, and as a Reviewer.

    So caches, could unwittingly be published, which were outside of the Range Areas, marked on OS Maps, but which are Designated Overshoot areas, not marked as part of the Range Area on OS maps. But are marked as MOD Access Land, giving the Public the right to roam. On Non Range Days, on Range Days the area being closed to the public. Even though it is not fenced off.


    Deci
    My post is my personal opinion and as such you do not have my permission to quote me outside of these forums!

    Dave
    Brenin Tegeingl
    Formerly known as Mancunian Pyrocacher on GC

  7. #7

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    Exclamation View from an ex-service man

    Many MOD training areas are open to the public, Sailsbury Plain, Breacon, Otterburn, Thetford to name a few. The worry is not live rounds but items used in "Dry Training", these include smoke grenades, flashbangs, blank ammo, ETC. Just as the top brass leave laptops with national security secrets on trains some items get dropped while carrying out training, the majority are found as a weeks wages for losing something that costs the MOD a couple of quid to purchase is harsh but happens.

    If you are walking along a footpath from A to B you will no doubt never see any dropped items, however if you are searching for a cache then you may find something with a tragic outcome. Plastic explosives will not harm you but the small detonator used to set the explosives off is a metal tube thinner and shorter than a cigarette but on its own can be set off by body heat and if held in the hand will result in the lose of the hand.

    As for physical caches on MOD land I agree they should not be allowed. If you have had to go through the inconvenience of roads/barracks being closed off for hours while awaiting bomb disposal squads you would not want to place something that may cause problems. Seeing someones shopping blown up in a controlled explosion may seem funny but when you want to go somewhere but are stopped due to the incident it can cause major problems.

    Many places do not allow placement on wildlife conservation, the MOD has a ban to ensure mankinds conservation.

  8. #8

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    What do you mean by positive response? In that you are likely to get the maps you need or that we could maybe reopen communication?

  9. #9

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    Positive response means the Land Warfare people have told my contact they are working on getting the maps and the time scale was this Monday just gone. I have been copied in on the communication. This is more than has happened before. Despite the best efforts of the GAGB last year the MOD were just not forthcoming with any sort of help. My initial contact ended the same way. It's only since I made contact with the chap at the mapping centre who contacted the LWC internally that anything has actually happened. If this attempt comes to nothing I may write a final letter to the LWC informing them the ban and archival of caches is unenforceable and leave it at that. I will however need to run such an idea past Groundspeak first.

    If anyone else wanted to contact the MOD that's fine but it may just confuse things at this stage. I will wait until the end of this month before I chase this up again.

    Chris
    Graculus
    Volunteer UK Reviewer for geocaching.com
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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    Geocaching.com Help Center
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  10. #10

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    Default

    Thanks for the update.

  11. #11

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    Another month has now gone by since my contact at the MOD 'chased up' the LWC but they have still not contacted me. So I have now emailed Groundspeak, explained the situation to them and asked for their advice on how to proceed with this. I'll update you further when I have received guidance from them.


    Chris
    Graculus
    Volunteer UK Reviewer for geocaching.com
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    UK Geocaching Wiki
    Geocaching.com Help Center
    UK Geocaching Information & Resources website

  12. #12

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    I should have an update to this ongoing issue in the next couple of days. I just need to ask my reviewing colleagues for their opinion on the next steps to take.
    I've also had difficulty getting hold of my contact at the MOD as he's changed jobs recently. I needed to speak to him to get his permission to quote the correspondence we have had when I write to the Land Warfare Center (the department who initiated the ban).

    Chris
    Graculus
    Volunteer UK Reviewer for geocaching.com
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    UK Geocaching Wiki
    Geocaching.com Help Center
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