Letter to the Editor, Tuesday December 23, 2014

Enjoying life

Freedom camping irks (In brief December 16) - in defence of the camper van, bus, motor home people that park up on the DOC-managed area south of the now bollard and fenced reserve area, most are older retired New Zealanders enjoying life as they should.

I am often in the area, and have never seen any evidence of litter there.

The motor home association folk actually had a beach clean-up day recently, and good on them.

If anyone wants to see litter, look no further than the roadsides in the region, where plastic bottles, soft drink cans, fast food packaging, dirty nappies etc line the drains, and most eventually end up in the sea.

Or take a walk along any of the tracks into the scrub off Ramp Road, Inland Road, Lake Ohia Road, and many other roads in the north and you'll find old fridges, driers, washing machines, kids' push chairs, paint cans, old iron, building materials and all manner of crap, and it wasn't dumped there by freedom campers.

As for dune damage, it is minimal and on an area of 100 or 200 metres along a beach that is 17 kilometres long.

Of more concern should be the erosion along Tokerau Beach, where sooner or later many of the Norfolk pines will topple on to the beach.

Let's not forget, all these visitors spend a dollar or two while in the region, and every dollar coming north should be welcomed.

In Western Australia, the authorities had an attempt at banning freedom campers, but this just caused them to seek out-of-the-way spots where there were no refuse facilities, and of course out of sight and out of mind, piles of rubbish accumulated in the bush.

They then decided that it was far better to provide designated freedom camping areas where refuse could be collected and they had some measure of control.

In the next few weeks camping grounds will be full to capacity and there will be many holiday-makers seeking somewhere to stay, and that is one of the factors that exacerbated the out-of-hand situation on the reserve area at Ramp Road last year.

There just aren't the camping areas there used to be.

Perhaps a friendly, more welcoming approach might be the way to go regards litter, with signs at the Karikari turn off and on beach accesses, welcoming visitors but asking them (and residents), nicely, not to throw litter on roadsides or leave on beaches and reserves or dump rubbish off-road.

Similar notices could be handed out to fishermen, beach visitors, picnickers etc. by the newly-appointed beach wardens.

For dumpers and litterers, instant fines for offenders could be a foreseeable possibility, but then that would need 20 trips to Wellington for someone and a special sitting of Parliament undoubtedly.

Season's greetings to all.

I F BURKE

RD3 Kaitaia