SWNS The community has raised £38,000 to appeal the court's decision

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The Steward Woodland Community – made up of 23 people, including nine children and teenagers – live in hand-built huts on a beauty spot in rural Dartmoor. With no connection to mains, electricity or water, their alternative lifestyle includes foraging for food, using solar powered electricity and alternative medicines - and are virtually self-sufficient. But despite buying the site and making it their home since 2000, the Dartmoor National Park Authority refused them permanent planning permission and ordered them to leave.

The group are now devastated after their last ditch appeal was rejected by the planning inspectorate. They now have a year to fully clear and vacate the site. The inspector also ruled that all unauthorised buildings and structures must be pulled down.

SWNS Their campaign has been backed by 1370 people in just 10 days

Inspector Paul Freer said in his report: "The development as existing unacceptably harms the character and appearance of Dartmoor National Park. "The additional development proposed under the appeal would cause further harm to the character and appearance of Dartmoor National Park." The group's initial application for planning permission was refused last year – but the community raised a total of £38,000 to appeal the decision.

SWNS The Steward Community Woodland is made up of 23 people

We have created a far more sustainable way of living on this planet A spokesperson for the group

But the planning inspectorate upheld the decision by the Dartmoor National Park Authority that felt the community had a "harmful effect" on the character and appearance of the area. The community have now launched a petition urging a re-think. A spokesman for the group said: "Steward Community Woodland is a hugely important project in terms of the urgent global environmental challenges everyone is currently facing.

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"We have created a far more sustainable way of living on this planet and are sharing the knowledge we have gained with the many hundreds of visitors we receive every year through open days, tours, courses and volunteering opportunities. "We are an internationally respected permaculture community, which is supported by huge numbers of people locally and globally. "Our local support was demonstrated by the number of letters from local residents supporting our recent planning application and by those who spoke in support and represented us at the public inquiry. "Support from further afield has been shown by the overwhelming success of the crowd funding campaign to raise money for the legal fees in which we reached our target of £38,000 within just 10 days of its launch and were actively supported by 1,370 backers."

SWNS The children have friends in the surrounding villages

"Our children have had the opportunity to grow up amongst nature and with a deep respect for the natural environment. Some have lived here all of their lives and all of them for most of their lives. "They would be devastated if they are forced to leave." The community built eight houses, a communal longhouse and kitchen, bathhouse and other structures on the 32 acre conifer woods they bought in 1999. They had tried to argue they were housed in a low impact development and received hundreds of letters of support.

The Woodlanders try to live sustainable lives by using renewable energy - including solar panels - and growing their own fruit and veg. Most of the children are also home educated but are friends with people from the surrounding villages. But their application also received 19 letters of objection, with one of their neighbours, Karen Thwaite, saying their lifestyle is not "valuable". In a letter, she wrote: "In my opinion, they have a simple desire to live in a woodland.