Kiota.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. Over the coming weeks, many Kiwis will be heading to our national parks and great walks for their summer holidays. But if you're doing that for a cheap summer break, enjoy the free ride while it lasts. The Department of Conservation is one point sixty five billion dollars short.
Every year on what it needs to.
Cover its responsibilities, and the government is looking at a number of ways to swell docks coffers. Environmental advocates say an overhaul is needed, but they're nervous about what squeezing money out of public land will mean for protecting nature. And that's without considering what it might mean for your next holiday. Today on the Front Page ends at Harald's senior writer Derek Chang is with us to discuss the
changes coming to dock land. First off, Derek talk us through what the Minister is proposing.
Well, this is in a bunch of Cabinet papers and advice to the Minister that got released kind of under the radar. The government's announced that it's going to trial charging for car parks at various really iconic sites. They've asked for public feedback on charging access to other sites, which might include Kiwi's, it might include overseas tourists only
that they want to know what people think. But the whole system change, and it's going to be a vast system overhaul, the biggest since the Conservation Act in nineteen eighty seven that has kind of been flown under the radar a bit because what's really at stake here is what are the principles of conservation? Will they be changed? Will squeezing money out of public conservation land? How will
that affect protecting nature and protecting the environment. And that money needs to be squeezed because Dock the Department of Conservation has a fraction of what it needs to cover its responsibilities, and that's its biodiversity work, that's it's visitor network. You know, there's like almost fifteen thousand kilometers of trails all through the back country, including like really popular sites like the Great Walks or super remote sites in the back of the Tara Rus or wherever, and it doesn't
have the money to do that. And the papers that have been released really may be at the unsustainable financial footing that the department is on and the need for more money. Obviously, this is a government that is hell bent on fiscal restraint. DOCS already shared one hundred and thirty jobs this year to meet its savings target. It's scaled back some of its climate change work, It's slashed
some of its biodiversity programs. It's trying to meet the fiscal restraint and at the same time, the gap between the money it has, which is flatlining and coming years, and the money it needs, which is billions a year. To be frank, that gap is widening and widening and widening, which means that DOC does fantastic work, but it's falling further and further behind on what it wants to do in the biodiversity space and the recreational space.
How much is DOG short every year on what it needs?
Well, it gets around six hundred and fifty million a years is annual budget. Eighty three percent of that, or about five hundred and forty million, comes from the Crown. It raises money, obviously, people pay for huts, they pay for camp sites, they purchased concessions. Concessions is like, for example, the Skifields on Rupey, who a very expensive private guided
walks on the rout burn. Everything down to like I want to fly a drone in a national park and I need to apply for a concession for that, So it guess money from concessions. It gets money from the International Visitor Levey. That's the tax on foreign tourist which appli to like sixty percent of our foreign tourists. Australians are exempt, some Pacific Islanders are exempt, and that money that charge has gone from thirty five dollars to one
hundred dollars in October. The government hasn't really decided on how to use that extra money. It's one hundred and fifty million roughly extra money a year and the Conservation Minister time of Potucker, really wants all of that money to go to conservation, but the government hasn't hasn't said anything about that yet. So six hundred and fifty million a year. Half of that goes to biodiversity, about a third of it goes to the Visitor Network, and the
rest goes to various other things. Like the doc leaders at the committee yesterday said that is like a million different it fragmented it systems that they're trying to consolidate. For example, in one of the cabinet papers, it talks about how ideally it would have two point three billion dollars a year to do all this responsibilities. Now the Minister has actually told me that that is only for
its biodiversity work. So currently doc spends about three hundred million on buy diversity and at once two point three billion. So it's two billion dollars a year short just for the biodiversity work. And we're not even talking about the visitor network. So on current funding, a third of the visitor network is totally neglected. There's no money for it.
We'll get more onto the concerns over land, but I guess most people associate doc Land with the great walks or their holidays or like you said, those backcountry areas. And we are about to go on to our summer breaks. So is there a focus here on getting users to pay more for what they get out of the sites.
It's definitely. That's definitely in the documents, and I should stress that nothing has been decided. There's public consultation at the moment on things like access charges for five iconic sites. That's Aldaki National Park. Friends Joseph glacier Kiffikoven for amand or the Tongua Alpine crossing and if its sound, and you know, most of the visitors to those sites are international visitors, and the government wants to know who should be charged, if they should be charged, how much should
they be charged? Should it involve Kiwis and the cabinet papers also talk about the principle of paying for the private benefit of being in these places. But you know, principally that's quite shaky ground because you could very well argue that if you drive out to the coast and it's not the private coast and you look at the ocean, you get a private benefit from that. Should you be paying for that? If you ask an average qv on
the street, I'd bit ninety nine point nine names. Another time they'd say no. So having to pay for a private benefit on public land is a contentious issue.
Hwis as a first right, I think we're entitled because of everything that's been contributed to have access to the bush, and there's no doubt about it. We're trying to encourage a healthy populace and one way of doing that is making it really as sensible people no matter who they are we're one people, one country, and they should all be entitled to it as their birthright.
A toilet charge has been suggested as well.
Derek, how serious is that proposal.
Well, this was earlier in the year where doc officials were making suggestions about how we can squeeze money out of visitors on public conservation land. One of the suggestions was an amenities charge users use of firewood, toilets, barbecues. That's not something that made it into the minister's cabinet paper. Theyre also suggested a conservation tax ring fenced for conservation work like pushing prices up for fertilizer pesticides for example.
That's also not something that's progressed. I mean, the government is very averse to new taxes. But having said that, there's a lot of other stuff in there that made it into the cabinet paper by complex things like a biodiversity credit system. There's making use of carbon capture, you know, selling carbon credits on the voluntary in the emissions training scheme and the volunteer carbon market is trying to get
cashlest donations. That actually trialed this in funik Faiki last year, where they made almost seventeen hundred dollars in a month just with a payWave at the visitors center saying hey, we need money. Did you enjoy the pancake rocks? How about you donate something and partnering with a whole bunch of different organizations and you know, and this is some way to mitigate the neglect of the back country assets.
You know, hunting groups, mountain groups, tramping clubs. You know that they love these huts and they volunteer to go and maintain this hut or that track or clean out this toilet. But if you're relying on volunteer work to maintain that, then I mean, how far.
Is they going to go?
From July, doc increased the price of Great Warp facilities, hut and campsite prices rose by eighteen percent, except for Paparoa, which was six percent.
It was the first RICE review in four years. But now do you think there's a chance we'll see another increase quite sooner?
Well, the documents talk about a three year review of prices, and it makes it quite clear, not just with the Great Walks, but at popular sites in general. The funding from that's generate the revenue that's generated from those sites, and does not bridge the gap on what dock needs to maintain them. So again their decisions have been made. But the vibe of these of the direction is that those prices are going to go up. And a lot of the revenue that DOC gets is from overnight trips
and day trips, day hikers. They get to enjoy the dock estate and they don't pay for anything. So one way to try and create revenue from that, and we can argue whether that's you know, that's right or not, and whether it should be an inalienable right as a New Zealander to go to these places for free. One way to get them to pay for that is to have access charges. And you know should say the access
charges are quite common overseas. If you go to national parks in Australia, Canada and the US, it's quite common to pay to enter Yosemite Valley in the US, for example, or to get a national park's pass an annual pass. New Zealand is an outlier in that we don't have that. However, it's been like a bit of a Kiwi tradition and something that's quite sacrosanct. And there are other examples like in Peru at least a decade ago when I was there.
If I went to Machipichu, it cost me money to enter and it cost me money to take the train to and from there. But if I were Peruvian, that was all free. So there are different ways of handling this in some countries to say, wow, some places should be free for nationals to go and others you know, clearly want to make money out of it. Well, I mean making money is probably arguable is trying to generate enough money so that the places can be looked after.
Fully support it, specially if it helps maintain and preserve the beauty.
Of the national parks you guys have here in New Zealand.
The number of tourists that are accessing these places sort of demands are user pays type model five.
Dollars, six dollars, even up to ten I think wouldn't be wouldn't be.
A big deal.
Well, the proposals are out for public consultation, that is, charging for access to some public conservation land and the idea of modernizing conservation land management.
First off, what on earth.
Does that mean? And what have environmentalists been saying?
Well, it's quite complex, but the change to the management systems. I guess it can be. It covers a broad range of things. One is the house that cow concessions are managed. There's four thousand on concessions. They're generally run on a first come, first serve basis. They're undercharged dock charges for processing and application, but the charge only covers a fifth of the costs associated of actually processing. It could charge market rates for the use of public conservation land, but
they don't. Basically, a first come, first serve basis model doesn't really take into account whether an activity a concession activity, is appropriate for that land and what value it brings, if any conservation value it brings to where it's meant to, you know that concession is meant to take place. So environmental groups agree that the system needs a massive overhaul.
Concession prices, application devices, processing fees all have to reflect the costs of going through all those applications a market rate for using public conservation land. The minister also wants to charge mining companies rental fees, which is common again overseas, but which mining companies in New Zealand don't have. He also wants to increase the bond that mining companies pay. This about eighty mining operations, exploratory or otherwise on public
conservation land. He wants them to pay a high bond for any remedial work to repair any damage from the mining operation. At the moment that costs. You know, it hasn't moved for a long time, and it's fair to say that any business activity of commercial operation on public conservation land is severely undercharged. Those commercial operators should probably expect those fees to go up. When that would happen, it's probably a few years away. The public consultation process
at the moment finishes in February. The Minister will then make decisions later in the year and bring forward an amendment builder to alter the Conservation Act. But really what's underpinning the concerns from environmental groups is this the nineteen eighty seven Conservation Act, which spells out the values for conservation and that is the protection of nature. It also says fostering recreation, and it says allowing tourism, allowing but
not promoting tourism. There was a real separation between commercial and recreational and you know, the Department of Conservation wasn't really meant to be involved in tourism at all just only allowing it, and so far is it aligns with conservation values. Squeezing money out of out of public conservation land really pushes the department into maximizing return from tourists
who come here and enjoy the conservation space. So the concern is that it's a massive shift in conservation value towards money making, and there hasn't really been any talk about what are the checks and balances in place, will decisions be made, what will they be informed by the latest science, or how much money can be made, what will that mean for our environment. That's not to say that,
you know, it can't obviously improve the environment. The min'ster clearly thinks that's the case, simply because doc is so cash strapped, and you know, implementing all of these things will give Dock more money. But that's a big We don't really know, and a lot will depend on the public consultation process.
Listen, Ruth, this is a no brainer. Everybody does it around the world. It's long overdue. Why on earth do you guys need to consult on it? Why don't you just do it? I mean, it's not unusual for the government to up charges. They just up charges the other day on the International visitor leaving. So why don't you just do it?
So?
Okay, good question this one. We actually need to change the law to make it clear that we can introduce you.
Yes, so whatch you don't need to ask permission to change the law to change it.
Well, the Minister wants Doctor be financially sustainable by twenty twenty six, but we've already spoken about that a best between the amount of money it has and what it needs, and that's only exacerbated by hefty bills, say from extreme weather events. How can they possibly think that that funding gap will be bridged in.
Just a year.
Well, it's probably not going to be bridged in a year because you know the car fees, for example, that trial is not going to start till the summer of twenty twenty five, twenty six. Any access fee to any place is going to require a legislative change, so it's going to take some time to build up those revenue sources.
The documents. One of his cabinet papers also talks about if all of the proposals were implemented, it would still only bring in up to two hundred million dollars a year and a large chunk of that is just from the International visitory. If we think about the shortfall just in that biodiversity, if we think about that two point three billion dollars that DOC wants just to do its biodiversity work, and if we add two hundred million a year onto its annual budget, it's still one and a
half billion dollars short. So financial sustainability there is still a giant question mark. But that's not to say that DOC wouldn't be super stoked with the extra two hundred
million dollars a year. Of course they would be, and they would be able to do a lot more with that, but that'd still be really short of where it wants to be in terms of the money it needs to help the ninety four percent of reptile species, eighty two percent of bird species that are threatened with extinction, all of the visitor network assets that are depreciating and just being neglected. So this is another part of this strategy
is that there's not enough money. So the Minister really wants to hone in on what is high conservation value, and then the visitor network that's the great walks, that's the popular hikes, the Instagram places or whatever, you want to call it, and we'll just leave the rest because
not many people go there. And in the biodiversity space, we don't really know what that looks like yet because DOC has been building up this biodiversity planning tool where it can measure the conservation value of this project or this project or this project. But as I was talking to Forest and Bird Chief Executive Nicolatocki, and nature is really complex. You know, there might be a paddock that has a couple of dozen threatened plants in it, and if you build a fence around it and it costs
fifteen hundred dollars a year, great, great return. But what about the half a million dollars they spent on killing a stoat on one of the remote islands off of the South Island where there were thirty carcopar Is that a good use of money? How do you weigh this?
And that?
It's like, I don't know, it's not just so like apples and oranges. It's like a ampewter monitor versus a navy vessel. It just seems like completely different spheres, of planetary spheres of trying to value totally totally wildly different things.
Thanks for joining us.
Derek.
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzadherld dot co dot enz The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also a sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in to Morrow for another look behind the headlines.