Posts by izogi
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It wasn’t necessarily a text message if there was anything. I/S’s request, at least, requested all communications, but I guess a critical point here is this specific text message is the only instance of communication that anyone had any evidence of (isn’t it, based on something Glucina said?) so it would have looked mighty suspicious of the PM had denied it.
Requesting call records with Glucina’s number from the Prime Minister’s phone could be telling, but if they existed they’re probably not stored in any competently kept independent record keeping process and would be long deleted by now, given how this machine seems to work, since leaving evidence that it happened would be inconsistent with the current response if it were ever discovered.
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Legal Beagle: Cameron Slater: computer hacker?, in reply to Alfie,
LPrent over at The Standard offers an analysis.
I've only glanced at it but it reads more like an angry rant than an analysis.
Perhaps justified, nevertheless.
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Polity: Leaving only footprints, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
This obviously makes the route more accessible (and it’s needed to control erosion in some places), but does it encourage people to go walking in jandals and t-shirts?
From what I’ve heard that’s a never-ending dilemma for management of parks.
On the surface New Zealand has different tiers of recreation management for catering to people who want different types of experiences. You can book on a Great Walk which is almost like a highway, or you could seek out remote Wilderness Zones, which have policies of zero artificial construction of tracks and huts and bridges, and flight restrictions to keep the aircraft away. And there’s lots in between.
Where something like the Tongariro Crossing and a few other places are concerned, I think DOC’s just doing everything it can to reduce the likely consequences of mistakes and unfortunate judgement. Trust is probably also an issue. The nature of backpacking means that people will often prefer to trust and learn from each other, often before even arriving in New Zealand, before taking notice of whatever advice DOC might issue on behalf of a foreign government... since governments have a tendency of trying to shape where tourists go and what they do.
There are some giant heuristic traps, too. eg. If you’ve set aside one day for what you’ve been told could be the greatest experience of your life, you’ve looked forward to it for 12 months, then you show up at the end of the road and the weather’s a bit dodgy, and there’s a sign (see attachment) screaming “you should have done all these things to prepare”, which you didn’t, many people will simply take the risk because people aren’t always rational when weighing risk versus reward.
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Polity: Leaving only footprints, in reply to Paul Campbell,
I’m not sure of the details but at the time “freedom walking” was a protest against the track being closed to ordinary trampers (of course this was 20 years before the National Parks act was signed). Now days it just means going without a guide.
Maybe it's been used this way for some time but I didn't really hear the "freedom walking" term until relatively recently, when "freedom camping" became a popular conversation shortly before the Freedom Camping Act came in.
I can't stand the term in its modern usage. It normalises commercial guided walks, as if doing it yourself is somehow eccentric and unconventional. I guess that's exactly how the much of the tourism industry wants to frame it. Maybe it's just linguistic evolution, though. :)
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Polity: Leaving only footprints, in reply to B Jones,
It’s also not especially safe in the scheme of things. Not so long ago there was nearly a major tragedy, which arguably was a fortuitous outcome for something that’s been on the edge of happening for a long time.
The Dominion Post and some others blamed an operator who dropped off the group, but I think that’s a fairly shallow analysis.
The National Parks Act, as is, doesn’t really account for the possibility that a particular place might become extrodinarily popular with people who aren’t well equipped to understand the risks. DOC's trying to mitigate the risk by coordinating how commercial operators act, but there's only so much that can be done when it's so easy for people to arrange their own transport.
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Polity: Leaving only footprints, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Incidentally if anyone’s trying to figure out where it’s legal to go, the Walking Access Mapping System is awesome.
It’s the first big accomplishment of the Walking Access Commmission that was created in 2008 to help promote and liaise for improved public walking access. After some initial research they figured out that one of the biggest frustrations people were having at that time was being able to figure out where it was actually legal to go. The WAMS collates together information from LINZ and a million different local authorities.
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Polity: Leaving only footprints, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I believe it only becomes climbing or mountaineering when you start using tools (rope, ice-axe, crampons).
To me the division between tramping and mountaineering is about risk, and it occurs once a line’s been crossed where the risk changes markedly. That extra risk, whilst low if you have the skills, can’t always be completely managed away without accepting that it’s there. It often correlates with avalanches, but also venturing to places where you really can’t afford to make a mistake.
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Polity: Leaving only footprints, in reply to Paul Campbell,
Dad freedom walked Milford (it used to be controlled, closed, mere NZ citizens were banned from walking it)
The guaranteed right of free entry to National Parks (s4 of the National Parks Act) and Conservation Areas (s17 of the Conservation Act) is one of the established rights I really treasure in New Zealand. DOC can charge for use of facilities, but it can’t charge for entry to the land. There are definitely some issues with privilege around access to the back-country, which I dislike, but the law itself doesn’t discriminate. These places prioritise the welfare of the park, but as long as it’s on foot and a few rules are followed to avoid damage, anyone can enter National Parks and Conservation Areas.
The legislation barely even mentions “tracks”, even though they make up so many people’s main experiences. Legally, for the most part, they don’t exist in New Zealand, which means they’re just abstract lines through the wilderness, or partings and markers which indicate where people have been. For me is a licence to explore the back yard. Track Closed signs on conservation land don’t legally mean anything on the public conservation estate (except sometimes good advice), though in some very unusual cases it’s possible for access to be restricted to an area if there’s good reason as defined in law and management plans. When Te Maari Crater erupted in Tongariro National Park in 2012, destroying Ketetahi Hut in the process, DOC didn’t close access to the land. It published information with maps showing people where they really shouldn’t go for their own safety. This all fits the caretaker-not-gatekeeper role.
Sadly the user-pays topic is a recurring one, which means that adding barriers to entry is also a recurring conversation. It’s being discussed again right now, starting with a recent Listener article (entirely online) when Lou Sanson (CEO of DOC) noted that DOC’s looking for ways to implement differential pricing between New Zealanders and visitors for use of DOC facilities. Since then, Fairfax has run a series of articles talking about the massive giant impact of tourists on the estate, and then openly supporting charging a fee to international visitors.
There are reasonable arguments for this, but to me the bigger problem is chronic underfunding compared with what we’re doing to our public land. New Zealand’s been driving a huge tourism campaign based on our natural environement. It’s bringing countless new visitors, created new jobs, created new businesses and allowed existing businesses to expand. Consequently, tax income from all these businesses and employees has sky-rocketed, even without counting new GST paid by visitors who frequent the conservation estate, yet DOC’s budget to manage all the resulting added externalities when tourists visit it has ultimately remained completely flat. I find it disturbing that the government’s choice to simply not allocate new money to pay for the real costs of the campaign, and stick to it, means that we’re now seriously talking about trying to directly charge tourists even more.
I think it’s easy for people to scream that there should be user-pays, whether for everyone or just for “foreigners”, but even if that were decided on it’s always been implementation that’s the problem. Even the current user-pays system of hut tickets doesn’t work. It’s effectively an honesty system when there’s almost never anyone looking over your shoulder. Thus honest people end up subsidising dishonest people.
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Polity: Leaving only footprints, in reply to B Jones,
Uh, sorry. That was a bad choice of words.
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Polity: Leaving only footprints, in reply to Russell Brown,
One of the teachers was swept away and, horrifyingly, later discovered dead downstream.
Yikes. Sorry to hear it. That’s a horrible thing to be involved in.
The Mountain Safety Council, which grew out of Federated Mountain Clubs in the 60s, has been running river safety courses for a long time, until recently. It had a great non-commercial format where people would be encouraged to train to be instructors, rather than just qualified attendees, which in turn would result in people being able to go back to their clubs or schools or whatever else and continue to train more people. The training programme was typically done at cost, thanks to the volunteers, with fees just covering expenses, so it was cheap and very accessible.
Sadly almost the entire course programme was killed off very recently, much to the frustration of many of the volunteers – instructors and others – involved in the training programmes. The structure was considered unsustainable, but I think also it was decided that the MSC wasn’t reaching many of the people actually having accidents in modern times, notably international visitors but also probably as a consequence of groups like clubs and schools no longer being as ubiquitous in the outdoors as individuals. Nevertheless it’s left a big training void in that domain. Now MSC is more focussed on trying to collect information about accidents (potentially a useful niche because it’s difficult to collect reliable information on outdoor accidents), and printing leaflets, or something like that.
Meanwhile though, if anyone’s looking for some good qualified training, or an instructor, in bushcraft, navigation, river safety, outdoor risk management, outdoor first aid, etc, look up Outdoor Training New Zealand which has collected a heap of former-MSC instructors and is working on restoring something resembling the old model that’s been so useful for clubs and schools and community groups until now. It's likely it'll now be competing with the MSC for some of the funding it used to get.
