yeah theres a definite focus to throw lots of resources at the great walks and now for generating more revenue. the guilded walks on routeburn are doubling their hut capacity to double the no of walkers they can take,, they are also trying to establish themselves on the kepler track as well... someone from the company said their huts would be unobtrusive but thers nothing unobtrusive about their existing huts... they are absolutely massive dwarfing the doc huts which are some of the biggest in the country...
After my previous post in this thread, I've now heard back from the Minister's office. There's an ongoing delegation of the Minister's power to 'close' Conservation Areas to DOC's Director-General, who in turn has delegated it as far down as Area Managers and Conservators.
Therefore, next time you pass a 'Closed' sign in a Conservation Area or Forest Park (which are legally Conservation Areas), you could be up for a year in jail or a $10,000 fine. But you won't automatically know, because DOC typically doesn't tell you in a useful way if it's actually closed the place or if it's just pretending it's closed.
As far as I can tell, this doesn't apply in National Parks. Section 8 of the Conservation Act pretty much says that if it's a National Park, it's not a Conservation Area. National Parks can only be closed by the Minister creating a bylaw, which has to be in line with a pre-existing management plan that's undergone public consultation. As far as I can tell.
It seems that all parks should , therefore , be designated National rather than Forest parks .
This would be unpopular with those that want to take dogs into wilderness areas designated "national" as dogs are not allowed in national parks .See Crown(DOC) v J Nawilaniec.(or something near it)
That'd be the Sushi case, right?
http://www.odt.co.nz/your-town/wanaka/122824/doc-reminder-dog-ban-national-park (followed by a heap of back n' forth letters
in the FMC Bulletin from the March 2011 issue onwards.
Surely it'd be at least as easy to change the rules for Conservation Areas to prevent the Minister from delegating area closures, but that's about as likely to happen as is re-designating them as National Parks. It's more likely the National Park legislation would be changed to bring it in line with the Conservation Area legislation and allow DoC to close places, as much as I dislike this possibility.
Yes , correct ,and anybody can take a dog into a National Park and only get diversion .....good Tui ad!
