charge for access to national parks?

Tongariro crossing is a bit of a beast in its own right of course. There's not another trip like it in a NZ NP that gets that level of traffic on a daily basis so hard to use it as a basis for arguments either way. (Though individually it would provide a situation where it was relatively simple to require tickets/permits and to enforce their requirement, especially in peak season.)

you havent seen key summit or routeburn flats in summer then....

Hi @philipw. I'm certainly not meaning to say that it adds up in any logical way. Only that in the traditional logic of people who pay tax, or fees (like concession fees), there's often a strong belief that they deserve everything they want back for it irrespective if how much they've actually paid versus how much the stuff they claim to deserve really costs. It's similar logic as New Zealanders arguing that they should have preferential treatment to park access because they pay tax to fund the whole things whereas "visitors don't". Not to suggest necessarily that New Zealanders don't fund the bulk of it. They might. But actual real numbers are very rarely quoted in these arguments. They're usually fuelled by simplistic emotionally charged declarations about how "we've already paid through our taxes and they haven't".

@Waynowski, I admit I have not as I generally avoid such busy areas but I would be hard pressed to imagine they were as busy as the Tongariro Crossing was on the day I happened to be on it.

An interesting alternative view. Tourists come here The vast majority stay in hotels eat in restaurants and do package tours. Often the tour guide has an expensive consession from Doc. In a 1 month stay they probably pay just in GST up to double what we pay total in tax. Then they are replaced by the next tourist who does the same. Even the argument in the recent news that they buy a hut pass then use it continuously doesnt wash because they buy a 6 month pass use it for a month then the next tourist buys another. The argument that tourist are not paying their fair share has more than a few holes in it. The catch is calculating what an average tourist is actually spending as once it goes into gst it just disappears into that great big consolidated fund never to be seen again. Maybe gst is a good thing. The user pays answer to this and every other question might just be knock 10% off everyones income tax and increase gst by an equivalent amount. That way you pay you contribute. This is just a random thought it needs work to make it practical

99% of the National Park area barely sees a single person, our parks are anything but overcrowded. Sure it is possible to hen peck a handful of popular tracks but they are the exception rather then the rule. I would go as far as say that the majority of tracks are suffering from being underused, rather then being overused.

Its hard to imagine remote access points into national park, and also forest parks, will produce much income. the cost of collection will be more than income. The busy high use places costing a lot to maintain seem to be the issue, routeburn, tongariro etc theyre used by mainly international visitors (I think0 so why not charge, to recover some of the cost of providing facilities

Back Benches (late night pub-based politician panel debate show) had a short segment last night considering the conflict between tourism and parks. The Youtube clip's at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2EkUetCYx0

As a tourism operator who pays concessions on every single person we take on DOC land, I am going to tell you that only a small percentage of tourists pay anything towards NZ conservation. Why? Backpackers. Now, I've backpacked in many countries, but for some reason (whether it's the niceness of Kiwis or a reflection of the newer generation of backpackers in general I'm not sure) but backpackers here do ANYTHING to avoid paying for ANYTHING. Backpackers pay for three things: skydives, bungy jumps and alcohol (slightly simplified, but not by much). It shits me to tears! Does anyone else ask to see the hut pass or ticket of overseas travelers when you meet them in huts? Because I do. And it angers me how few pay anything in any form. And not only use but in many ways often abuse facilities. I'm not sure the best way to affect reasonable fees that get utilised effectively, but I do know that if this country does not start differentiating between general tourists and backpackers and figuring out a way to charge and if needed penalise the backpackers who cause the greatest impact on the environment for the least amount of investment, the country is in for some difficult times. I absolutely believe in user pays, and making no bones about policing it (but no guns/hand cuffs, of course). Users need to pay. That fact is simple. Implementing it, not so much...

Going by @mapom's point about concessions which I think checks out (see discussion on page 2), tourism concession payments don't directly go to the conservation estate either. DOC's required to collect them in the same way that the NZTA collects speeding ticket revenue, but the collected money goes into the government's general fund --- not to DOC or to anywhere specifically linked to conservation. It's up to Treasury and ultimately Cabinet Ministers to decide if that money goes back to DOC in any way proportional to the concessions that were collected.