Posting this here as most NZ bushcraft sites are dead and this is as close as it gets.
Does anyone know to what extent you're allowed to practice bushcraft in NZ?
EG making shelters etc.
Or do you really just have to buy some land with bush on it before you're given free roam to do what you want?
Hi @Murdoch.
In terms of nationally held public land you should be fine, as long as you don't start chopping trees or breaking off living branches, leaving rubbish around, letting contaminants seep into the water, or anything. Leave only footprints, etc etc. Keep in mind, also, that sometimes fire restrictions are in place, so check that before leaving if you have any reason to doubt.
As for getting around, National Parks and Conservation Parks (including Forest Parks) and other Conservation Areas are all legal entry under the National Parks Act and the Conservation Act respectively, with very few exceptions where there might be good reason to lock people out. Normally that'd be for ecological reasons, and its rare. There are legal provisions in some places for areas of parks to be closed off for safety reasons (whatever that means), but I'm not aware of it ever having been done on a significant scale.
You're not legally required to stick to tracks in either of the above types of parks. You're normally allowed to camp wherever, as long as you don't break other laws like unreasonably causing damange. National Parks which include Great Walks, however, have bylaws which prevent camping within 500 metres of the defined Great Walk tracks. Occasionally there are also camping restrictions in other places.
Reserves (managed under the Reserves Act and often set aside for very specific purposes, sometimes not) are hit and miss for public access. Sometimes they're completely open for roaming, other times they're locked down and any access might be restricted to specific defined pathways.
This post has been edited by the author on 25 June 2015 at 11:01.
Yeah see I'd like to build a bush shack, just out of arm sized totara, but I guess that's cutting trees down lol
Ah, okay. In that case you might be out of luck (legally) if you want to build anything.
You'd probably need to buy some land, or find a land-owner who doesn't mind letting you.
This post has been edited by the author on 25 June 2015 at 12:17.
Yeah I guess so, do you know any sites that would be best for that? The only bushcraft sites I found in nz the most recent post was Aug 2014, so it was pretty dead
I'm guessing you mean http://bushcraft.org.nz/ ? Yeah it doesn't look very active.
You could try the fishnhunt forums, which are very active and more than a few hunters have a side interest of bushcraft and survival sorts of things. http://fishnhunt.co.nz/ Other than that I'm not really sure, myself.
Why do you want to build a bush shack?
Its quite ok to build a bivy for emergency shelter.Its quite ok to leave heading back home to late that it becomes an emergency but I think you mean something somewhat more grand than that.
When I was a kid we built quite a few shelters in pine forests but really most pine forests are privately owned and they sometims get a bit funny about people wandering through without permission. Lighting fires in a private pine forest could get very expensive very quickly.
To use already dead branches is probably ok but keep it out of view of any tracks and follow basic normal rules on fire liter etc. Totora is not a good choice as it takes too long to return to nature. Kanuka and beech would be better
How long were you thinking your 'shack' might last? Who might share it?
I know of about 200 existing 'shacks' (normally called huts) on public land, just waiting for someone to walk up, take responsibility and save them from disappearing.
In a round-about way DoC is now paying (all expenses) for us to helicopter in and screw a few sheets of iron back on ... to our shacks in the back country.
I know some one who got to split local cedar for the cladding.
