If it is time for a discussion has this article missed serious a point?
This type of camping is lightweight, done in small numbers and only for two or three nights in any one place.
The serious multiday walker will not be only walking in the remote parts of national parks. Most of us, who have wild camped enroute are not doing it for some touchy/feely experience of getting close to nature, but a more functional 'Pitch at dusk, break camp a dawn and move on'. No signs left perhaps some crushed grass, but even this if spotted can create a sense of outrage against property, unless the benefits of allowing such activity is not recognised.
The allowable charge for a landowner to make for grazing a horse is a Halfpenny, I believe that this was set in law at the time that the happeny was the lowest denomination of coin at a time it was recognised that people traveled and had to sleep out of doors. The pedestrian was not subject to any charge as it was presumed he either went or carried his own food and did not graze on the land.
So in history do we not have a case for wild camping? The argument against this may be the increase of ground under tillage, but now we have 'Field Margins'. A farm adviser on access once responded to me, on the issue of fields margins that they were for 'nature'. We humans have been sharing our environment with nature ever since we evolved, it is only when we go into that environment with predatory intent that we are a threat.