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	Freedom camping – something’s going to give
	By GEOFF ENSOR - 01 April 2010

Two years ago in response to growing community unrest about freedom campers TIA spearheaded the formation of the NZ Freedom Camping Forum, bringing together representatives from 20 organisations including campervan companies, councils, the NZ Motor Caravan Association, Tourism NZ, Department of Conservation and the Police.

We discounted banning freedom camping outright, given the number of unintended and unwanted repercussions it would have. A ban would impact negatively on Kiwis who regard freedom camping as a birthright of sorts; it would penalise the majority of overseas visitors who appreciate and respect what New Zealand has to offer; and it would be impractical given the scale and complexity of our road network. A ban on non-self-contained vehicles would again be difficult to manage and could create the perverse outcome of more cheap vehicles being bought by campers.

Our approach instead has been to welcome well-managed freedom camping, but not tolerate the minority of Kiwis and international visitors who are spoiling it for everyone else.  The message we need to push to freedom campers is ‘Assume nothing – always ask a local about where and how it is permitted.” While some level of enforcement may also be needed by councils, we want to minimise the need for regulation through strong, consistent information to freedom campers.

The Forum has created a suite of educational messages and material, including the freedom camping website. We’ve also developed a set of guidelines to assist councils to establish their freedom camping policies. One of the guiding principles is that campers must have immediate access to, or on-board, toilet, wastewater collection and rubbish disposal facilities.

The problem is that the message isn’t getting out there. It’s not good enough that two years on from creating this strong  message base, it is not being consistently pushed by those who have the most influence over freedom campers –  this includes the campervan companies who arguably have the greatest opportunity to influence a positive outcome.

The Forum is set to meet in late April, and the focus of that meeting will be to get unconditional commitment from all operators that they will treat this issue as one of their highest priorities and take full responsibility for getting the message out there.

A lot of the controversy raging around freedom camping is to do with whether campervans are self-contained or not. But the reality is, freedom camping is getting a bad name across the board for the actions of a few campers and the inaction of some stakeholders to drive home the educational message. 

This is one of the top priorities for TIA and we are doing everything we can to make this a more acceptable visitor sector, one that is recognised for the real value it brings to New Zealand. The average stay of freedom campers is 15-20 days. They spend a lot of that time in camping grounds, they undertake activities and for many communities they are an important source of tourism revenue.

But unless the educational messages to freedom campers are promoted by all stakeholders across the country, it seems likely that a regulatory regime will be installed by central government. If that happens, our tourism industry will be all the poorer for it.