Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Megan Dimozantos: Federated Mountain Clubs President on the possibility of visitor fees at national parks and conservation areas

Transcript

Megan Dimozantos: Federated Mountain Clubs President on the possibility of visitor fees at national parks and conservation areas · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Kiwis could be forced to pay up to thirty dollars
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: to set foot in some of our most popular national parks.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: The government's proposing it's just come out this morning introducing
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: an access charge to populent national areas natural areas. I
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: should say it could apply to tourists and US or
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: just tourists. They are out for consultation on this. They
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: say it will help maintain public conservation sites, and the
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: tariffs like this are used widely internationally. Meghan de Xantos
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: is Demixantos is with us. She's the president of Federated
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Mountain Clubs. Meghan, thanks for being with me, good morning.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Do you support this?
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Look, FMC is supportive of conservation law reform that we're
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: not supportive of domestic access charges.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: They say it will only be in overcrowded areas. You know,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: your Milford sounds, your Tongueriito crossings, that sort of thing.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: So would it affect many Kiwis.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, I think that probably one of our biggest
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: concerns is that those areas are used by recreationists to
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: access other more backcountry areas. But one of our biggest
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: concerns is that most of our recreation community are actually
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: also volunteers on the conservation estate, and those access charges
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: will become a barrier for people carrying out that important
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: conservation work. So what some people don't know is that
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: DOC relies quite heavily on volunteers to do their work,
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  Speaker 2: and the KIWIS actually also rely heavily on volunteers to
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: search and search and rescue services. So these people shouldn't
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: be expected to pay for the privilege of giving their
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: time for free to their community and nature.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Well that's a fair enough point. But surely they'd give
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: you an exemption. I mean, all of this is up
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: for debate, isn't it. That's the point of it. I
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: guess you'd get an exemption, surely if you were a volunteer.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Well you'd hope so. But that volunteers have also recently
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: been asked by docs to quantify their efforts, and so
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: you know, there's a certain irony and being a volunteer
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: and then being also expected to give you time to
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: prove and quantify what your contribution has seen.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: What do you reckon about for it? You know, because
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: the climbers here in New Zealand, and trampers and people
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: who love the outdoors obviously do the same thing overseas,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and if you look at Yellowstone, they pay thirty two
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  Speaker 1: bucks a day to go there, vamp and Canada National
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  Speaker 1: Parks thirteen bucks a day. Mount Fuji is twenty three
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: bucks a day. If we charged foreign tourists, one are
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: you okay with that? And two do you think it
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  Speaker 1: we're puttingnyone off?
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  Speaker 2: I think that that we're more amenable to foreign access
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  Speaker 2: charging than we are to domestic access charging. The thing
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  Speaker 2: with domestic access charging is we risk pricing keyweeds out
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: of their own backyard, and also that disproportionately affects families
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: and those from low socio economic background. So our view
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: is that wild places shouldn't be places that only rich
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: people can visit. Obviously, people who are visiting from overseas
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: they have the means, and there's also infrastructure that has
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: been put in place to be able to facilitate their visits,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: So we'd be more amenable to foreign only access charging.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: All right, thanks so much for your time. Megan Demazantos
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: with us, the president of Federated Mountain Clubs. If you're
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: just joining us this morning, the government drop day at
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: five o'clock this morning, drop day discussion document looking at
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: charging Kiwis and or foreign tourists to visit national parks,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: not paying just to stay the night, but also paying
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: to actually walk on the tracks that need to be
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: fixed up.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge.
• 3:38
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• 3:42
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