Megan Dimozantos: Federated Mountain Clubs President on the possibility of visitor fees at national parks and conservation areas

There are concerns New Zealanders could be priced out of their own backyard.  

The Government's seeking feedback on who should pay visitor fees at national parks and conservation areas. 

The options include charging everyone the same, charge New Zealanders less than international visitors, or only charge overseas visitors. 

Federated Mountain Clubs President Megan Dimozantos told Ryan Bridge they're open to foreign access charges. 

She says they have the means to pay, and infrastructure has already been established there to service them, but they’re against domestic access charging. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kiwis could be forced to pay up to thirty dollars
to set foot in some of our most popular national parks.
The government's proposing it's just come out this morning introducing
an access charge to populent national areas natural areas. I
should say it could apply to tourists and US or
just tourists. They are out for consultation on this. They

(00:21):
say it will help maintain public conservation sites, and the
tariffs like this are used widely internationally. Meghan de Xantos
is Demixantos is with us. She's the president of Federated
Mountain Clubs. Meghan, thanks for being with me, good morning.
Do you support this?

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Look, FMC is supportive of conservation law reform that we're
not supportive of domestic access charges.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
They say it will only be in overcrowded areas. You know,
your Milford sounds, your Tongueriito crossings, that sort of thing.
So would it affect many Kiwis.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, Look, I think that probably one of our biggest
concerns is that those areas are used by recreationists to
access other more backcountry areas. But one of our biggest
concerns is that most of our recreation community are actually
also volunteers on the conservation estate, and those access charges
will become a barrier for people carrying out that important

(01:18):
conservation work. So what some people don't know is that
DOC relies quite heavily on volunteers to do their work,
and the KIWIS actually also rely heavily on volunteers to
search and search and rescue services. So these people shouldn't
be expected to pay for the privilege of giving their
time for free to their community and nature.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Well that's a fair enough point. But surely they'd give
you an exemption. I mean, all of this is up
for debate, isn't it. That's the point of it. I
guess you'd get an exemption, surely if you were a volunteer.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Well you'd hope so. But that volunteers have also recently
been asked by docs to quantify their efforts, and so
you know, there's a certain irony and being a volunteer
and then being also expected to give you time to
prove and quantify what your contribution has seen.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
What do you reckon about for it? You know, because
the climbers here in New Zealand, and trampers and people
who love the outdoors obviously do the same thing overseas,
and if you look at Yellowstone, they pay thirty two
bucks a day to go there, vamp and Canada National
Parks thirteen bucks a day. Mount Fuji is twenty three
bucks a day. If we charged foreign tourists, one are
you okay with that? And two do you think it
we're puttingnyone off?

Speaker 2 (02:31):
I think that that we're more amenable to foreign access
charging than we are to domestic access charging. The thing
with domestic access charging is we risk pricing keyweeds out
of their own backyard, and also that disproportionately affects families
and those from low socio economic background. So our view

(02:52):
is that wild places shouldn't be places that only rich
people can visit. Obviously, people who are visiting from overseas
they have the means, and there's also infrastructure that has
been put in place to be able to facilitate their visits,
So we'd be more amenable to foreign only access charging.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
All right, thanks so much for your time. Megan Demazantos
with us, the president of Federated Mountain Clubs. If you're
just joining us this morning, the government drop day at
five o'clock this morning, drop day discussion document looking at
charging Kiwis and or foreign tourists to visit national parks,
not paying just to stay the night, but also paying

(03:32):
to actually walk on the tracks that need to be
fixed up.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
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