Dept of Conservation struggling with tourists

I DO feel sympathy for the Department of Conservation.

Yes, it sometimes gets it wrong (as when bowing to demands from the tourism sector, or going overboard on health and safety), but look at the intolerable pressure from all sides. There are unprecedented visitor numbers, pest plants, animals, and now fungi attacking our environment, destructive practices by farmers, industries and developers, and then anti1080 activists threaten their staff.

Doc has to assess these threats. Of course it would rather not allocate funds to monitoring malcontents, but what’s the alternative? Accept people loosening its staff’s wheel nuts? Allow native fauna to go extinct on their watch?

The department is doing its utmost to keep up with the tsunami of overseas visitors encouraged to come here by Tourism New Zealand (another Crown entity).

As a consequence, it can never get ahead of the numbers requiring carparking, upgraded tracks, bigger huts. And it gets blamed when some backcountry visitor loses their way or falls off a cliff.

Doc’s governing legislation lists (in this order) conservation, preservation, advocacy, fostering recreation and allowing tourism. I’m sure the staff would love to do their job in that order too.

Let’s give them the tools to do their job and let’s help fund it by a levy on visitors when they enter the country.