We are not visitors
Original post
The latest FMC newsletter contains the following paragraph which resonates with me, and I suspect with many of us. It is a fundamental question, but so relevant when thinking about questions of management, access, and paternalistic attitudes toward managing public behaviour. We are connected to the land.
Here it is:
FMC is strongly supportive of a community collaboration approach to conservation in New Zealand, preserving our natural taonga is all of our responsibility. The quid pro quo of that though is that we are not visitors. We are asking DOC to recognise, "that while DOC has expertise, and responsibilities under the Conservation Act 1987, the underlying relationship between DOC and the public in regards to public conservation land is one of “equals”. This requires DOC ceasing generic use of the noun “Visitors” and instead uses the nouns “public”, “private”, “tourist”, “people” or “human”.
Absolutely. I have never considered myself or my family to be visitors to the wilderness...
Time to revise the terminology DOC.
"People"? Yes, that is a little closer to the mark. For myself at least. Born in Dannevirke, live in the country, I call myself a New Zealander because that is what I am. We New Zealander's think differently about our country because it is where we belong. If a further breakdown is needed to be made it should be 1. "New Zealand People", 2. "Non New Zealand People", or at a pinch "Tourist".
Keep it simple stupid.
Otherwise the list will go on forever and Doc will revert to something else, equally non generic as they cannot be bothered taking the time to check the list for the appropriate generic term to comply with the laid down protocols for those to which they are referring.
Now, doesn't that sound like a nice governmental expression.
Geeze! What will come up next.
I like to think of myself as a "back country adventurer" though I haven't been doing too much of that lately.
While we are about it... what do people think of the creep into the DOC vocabulary of the word "trails". We already have a perfectly good word for that and that is "tracks".
Would have to be pretty pedantic to differentiate between track and trail... they are both the same imo and have no preference.
wagons ho.... saddle up there...
It's just semantics. Words come and go but the meaning remains the same. Don't get hung up. Look for the big picture not the minor details.
I don't get bothered by 'trail' but they're not synonymous to me. A track is some form of eroded residue consistent with an intended way of going and usually artificially constructed (there must be a better way of phrasing what I mean). A trail is just something that can be followed.
I still get irked when I see 'hiking' but I think that's more about what the word represents to me than the word itself.
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| Forum | The campfire |
|---|---|
| Started by | matthew |
| On | 21 February 2017 |
| Replies | 24 |
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