The Otago Conservation Board will take its concerns about
freedom camper pollution to a national tourism body but has
not ruled out continuing to advocate for a nationally
consistent response to the problem.
On the advice of the New Zealand Conservation Authority the
board, at a meeting at the Sinclair Wetlands at Berwick
yesterday, decided to take their concerns about waste
disposal by commercial tourist campervans to the New Zealand
Tourism Industry Association.
The Otago board had wanted the authority to initiate a
nationally co-ordinated investigation into the commercial
tourism campervan industry, undertake an assessment of the
costs and benefits associated with it and consider options
for further Government action.
The authority told the board that that was outside its role
and suggested the tourism association would be the
appropriate group to follow up the matter.
Otago chairman Hoani Langsbury said the board would send the
association a similar letter to the one it had sent the
authority and attempt to engage the association's Freedom
Camping Forum before its meeting later this month.
"We accept it isn't theirs [the authority] to take on board."
He said there was no point asking for the authority's advice
and not taking it, but that did not mean the board would not
talk to government ministers.
"With . . . upcoming events like the World Cup, Dunedin is
short of accommodation," Mr Langsbury said.
He hoped by that time a nationally consistent approach to the
problem could be developed.
- rebecca.fox@odt.co.nz
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