Rescue plan for outdoor Kiwi holiday

Private operators may be invited to tender to run camp grounds on conservation land, as the Government strives to preserve the traditional New Zealand beachside holiday.

Today in Wellington, Conservation Minister Chris Carter will unveil six options the Government will consider as possible ways to reverse the plummeting number of campsites available to holidaymakers.

They are understood to include opening up Department of Conservation and other publicly owned land to be used as campsites. It is unlikely the Government will set itself up in the camping ground business, preferring to tender for others to run the sites.

Last March National leader Don Brash called for DoC to buy 25 more camping grounds and lease them to private operators. While buying land would be an option, it is understood Mr Carter favours expanded use of publicly owned land over a potentially expensive buying of coastal and lakeside real estate.

This year Mr Carter commissioned a review of existing DoC camping facilities. While the review was long intended as a companion project to 2002's upgrade of DoC tracks and huts, it was accelerated by Mr Carter after a slew of camping ground closures and sales.

The results confirm anecdotal evidence that finding a beachfront site to pitch the family tent is getting harder, especially in the North Island.

Nationally, the overall camping capacity in New Zealand has dropped by 6 per cent in the past 10 years. However, the decline in camping capacity has been more pronounced in traditional holiday spots, with a third of the commercial camping capacity in the Coromandel swallowed up by developers.

Auckland, the East Coast, Hawkes Bay, Rotorua, the central North Island and Waikato/Bay of Plenty are other areas where a drop in camping capacity has caused major concern.

The department already owns more than 200 vehicle-accessible campsites. In January Mr Carter told the Herald that if the campsite review recommended as many as 100 new sites be opened up, that was a number he would be comfortable with.

Whichever of the six options the minister favours, the plan will not be put into action until next year.

One thing DoC will have to consider is the balance between preserving access to the seafront and potential damage to valuable conservation areas through increased visitor numbers.

Green Party conservation spokeswoman Metiria Turei said that whenever conservation land was used for tourism, harm to the environment was always a potential problem.

"We would be concerned that they be very careful about what land they use, that it's not land where having human activity on it would have a huge impact on precious biodiversity values."

Simply turning DoC land into camping grounds would not solve the problem of falling camping capacity, and Mr Carter needed to ensure coastal properties received better Government protection, Mrs Turei said.

"It's not just that we're losing camp grounds, but that we're losing particular kinds of areas with their own particular history to inappropriate coastal development. That has to be sorted."

However, the Greens supported increasing campsites, saying the more people who got to enjoy the natural environment the better.