Editorial: Three reasons not to increase the pricing of NZ Great Walks

Mitre Peak casts a reflection on the water along the Milford Track. Photo / Getty Images

EDITORIAL

Starting from this year, a hut on the Milford Track - one of the country’s Great Walks - will set New Zealand residents back $92 a night. This is, as Herald travel journalist Thomas Bywater wrote in a recent piece, a far cry from the $3 maintenance fee Kiwis were asked to pay for the same walk in the summer of 1992.

While the cost of living skyrockets and there are many price rises worrying the average person in New Zealand, this feels like just one more on a long list of things becoming increasingly unaffordable - but it is also not one to ignore. In fact, raising the cost of NZ’s Great Walks has potential ramifications for the social fabric of the country.

Fees for walkers on the country’s top tramping routes are to increase by 18 per cent from April. This will be the most significant fee increase in the Great Walks network’s three-decade history.

According to the Department of Conservation, which runs the network of 10 multi-day tramps and serviced huts, the price hike is down to rising maintenance costs and inflation. That is understandable, as the walks are increasingly popular and track maintenance does come at a cost.

However, there are many reasons why this fee increase is bad news for New Zealanders - and a good case for why the government should take on that extra expense, rather than pass it on to the hikers.

Firstly, the cost of living means Kiwis are forced to tighten their purse strings and, as such, things like holidays (even domestic ones, let alone overseas travel) and leisure activities, in general, are harder to fit into a family’s budget these days. For families with the Great Walks on the bucket list, this fee increase will force them to reconsider exploring their own backyard.

Secondly, it is well documented that spending time in the outdoors is an essential tool to keep our mental health and wellbeing in check, particularly through times of stress. Making the outdoors harder to access is not the way to help Kiwis look after their own welfare.

Finally, the world is in a climate emergency and we are all being urged to look after it. This is a time when governments everywhere should be supportive of all and any measures to help people reconnect with nature. It is much harder to get people to prioritise or care about things they don’t feel close to. Getting Kiwis engaged with nature and conservation is an essential part of raising the next generation to look after our whenua.

Hiking one of the Great Walks is already not a cheap endeavour, once you work out all the gear needed and the travel to and from the trails for most people. They’re also highly sought after hikes (and for good reason, they are insanely beautiful) and, as such, getting a bunk in some of the huts can get tricky sometimes.

We need to be knocking down barriers of access to the outdoors, not putting them up further, or else we’ll risk leaving our precious land to be explored only by foreign visitors who can afford to do it.