Recreation Access
New ZealandRecreation Access New Zealand (RANZ) is a campaign seeking protection of public access rights and better management of recreational resources by public authorities.
RANZ was instigated in February 2007.
RANZ's objects
- The promotion of non-motorised recreation on New Zealand's public lands and waters.
- Sympathetic land management for non-motorised recreation.
- Public ownership and control of resources of value for public recreation.
- The supremacy of the public interest ahead of private or commercial interests in the management of public lands and waters.
- Secure public access to recreation areas.
There is continual challenge to public rights through attrition, lassitude, ambivalence and expediency on the part of politicians and the bureaucracy.Self-interested pressures from the commercial sector, and destructive activity by many motorised recreationists, is making large inroads into the integrity of recreation areas. This is adversely affecting everyone else who are trying to enjoy the outdoors. The disjunction between the motor-dependent and others is too great to expect a common view of recreational needs.
Despite the minimum-impact rhetoric of most club 4WDers, the damage done to natural areas and access roads has become widespread and intense. The 'dirt bike' sector is out of control. The intrusion of recreational machines into the public outdoors has become a defining issue.
RANZ advocates for natural quiet and tranquility, free from the adverse effects of motor vehicles.
Access for recreation
In one respect previous access campaigns in New Zealand have been too successful. Access is now a high profile issue, however politicians have succeeded in trivialising recreational needs. They have expediently reinterpreted recreation as being solely about 'access'.
Access is not an end in itself. It is a means of indeed, an essential pre-requisite for making outdoor recreation possible.
Protection of recreation environments is as important as protecting access to them. For many, these settings must remain attractive and suitable for their recreational activity. There is little point in providing access if the area becomes degraded or developed for incompatible purposes.
Planning needed
Under the Department of Conservation, being the primary manager of public lands, recreation planning has all but dropped off the agenda. Instead DOC has an unhealthy fixation on 'assets' such as flash lodges, 'Great Walks', and removal of perceived 'liabilities' like the simple overnight shelter. There is no apparent attempt, or staff capability, to plan effectively for present and future needs including the separation of incompatible recreation activities through zoning. It appears that anything goes, everywhere.
Commercial interests are running rampant. RANZ is pushing for greater recreational planning and restraint on the commercial sector. These lands are supposed to be primarily for public benefit. However DOC is fostering tourism and only, begrudgingly, 'allowing' recreation - the reverse of its statutory duty.
There is a particular perversion of public policy currently at play. Due to political pressure DOC is actively encouraging off-road vehicle use as an "imperative" even if sound protection reasons for exclusion exist. Given the statutory duty to protect conservation areas such a directive may prove to be unlawful. RANZ is actively pursuing this.
Clearly there is a pressing need for more recreation-sympathetic management of public lands and access-ways by central and local government, and for government agencies to greatly improve their performance in recreation provision and public rights protection.
Research-based advocacy
RANZ is distinguished from other recreation lobbyists by using rigorous, comprehensive research to validate its arguments and to give authority to its advocacy. The value of this distinction is becoming more apparent over time. Well-informed advocacy is indispensable in countering non-evidence-based opinion, as well as official expediency in decision making.
About me...I am the principal contributing researcher and commentator for RANZ.
I have been a recreation practitioner and advocate since the mid 1970s, both inside and outside Government.
My track record for recreation is one of thorough investigation of issues and energetic advocacy based on well-enunciated objectives. This often leads to changes in government policy and practice. Improvements for recreation on-the-ground (in my Otago home territory) have resulted from my direct endeavours.
As a consequence of a private study tour of North America in 1974 I introduced the minimum impact code of recreational ethics to New Zealand. As a National Parks and Reserves Ranger, I was primarily responsible for establishing the Otago Goldfields Park from 1975-82. The Department of Lands and Survey put me through Lincoln College, from where I graduated with a Diploma in Parks and Recreation.
I was the researcher for the FMC/F&B/F&G Public Lands Coalition (PLC) in the 1980s. A direct consequence of my research into misallocation of Crown lands between DOC and State Owned Enterprises was the retention in public ownership of over 400,000 hectares of natural areas that were otherwise destined to be privatised.
The PLC published my guide to public rights over public roads - a hitherto neglected subject in New Zealand.
I was at the forefront of two national 'Queen's Chain' campaigns.
In 1988-89 Federated Mountain Clubs (FMC) published my two volume 'Outdoor Recreation in Otago: a Conservation Plan'.
I was the instigating founder of Public Access New Zealand in 1992 and their researcher and principal spokesman until my resignation in late 2005. It was my knowledge and energy that created PANZ and put it, then kept it, on the national stage.
An entrenched unwillingness of most PANZ trustees to do anything to secure PANZ's financial future, despite consistent high praise for my work, was the reason I left. There were no policy differences behind my departure as others' have claimed. Now there are major policy differences as PANZ appears to be favouring privatisation of public roads.
The access strategy I authored for PANZ in 2003, as an alternative to Government's initial proposals, has won acclaim from peers as "the definitive access document in New Zealand" and, along with the Government's report, was judged to be "the most comprehensive assessment of access issues ever written for New Zealand".
The above is not for the purposes of grandiosity, but is a matter of record.
Happy recreating...
Bruce Mason
Web site created 16 February 2007
This home page updated 3 April 2008