A little success with a local stick man to me. We’ve had a lot of branches and debris placed over trails on Pitch Hill in the past (North Downs). The branches and debris tended to be placed on a Wednesday morning – we noticed stuff would be clear on Tuesday night rides, but blocked come Wednesday mid morning. A friend came across someone he suspected of putting sticks across trails, and got in a conversation with him. The landowner for that bit of Pitch is part of Hurtwood Control, and we had been keeping the ranger and Hurtwood committee updated on this for a while. My friend asked very politely that the chap keep an eye out for people putting sticks across trails, as both the land manager (Hurtwood) and the police were very keen to talk to them, as they were acting very dangerously, and could cause harm to walkers and cyclists. Apparently the guy went quite bug-eyed at this point. Shortly after, the stick situation seemed to improve a great deal.
The long and short of this is that at least some stick men don’t realise that, by their actions, they are endangering others. They may also think that what they’re doing is right, and what cyclists are doing is wrong. Often this bears no relation to what the landowner thinks – they’re usually very concerned if someone is going out to try to injure people on their land.
Might I suggest you speak to the local Forestry Commission bods about access rights, and about possible sabotage? I’ve found in the past that, quite often, the FC people on the ground are not always consistent. For example, our local beat forester knows his onions, but the pest control bloke for the FC is quite ranty and gets stuff quite wrong. Very reassuring for someone who drives ’round the Surrey Hills with a rifle 😀