Interesting thread and topic. Mecklenburg County and the City of Charlotte are on a push to purchase land for open space, nature preserves, and parks. From the Mecklenburg County Park and Rec Ordinance: SECTION 5:No person shall willfully and intentionally remove, destroy,cut down, scar, mutilate, injure, take or gather in any manner any tree, flower, fern, shrub, rock, artifact or other plant or mineral in any park unless authorized by permit. My understanding is that this refers to "Parks". So Freedom Park is technically off-limits. However, Park and Rec also has purchased large plots of land and they are classified as "nature preserves". The rules really do not apply to nature preserves but if the park rangers see you they may ask you to leave. I see lots of hunters tree stands in nature preserves and I don't think the rangers are actively running the hunters off.