Footloose - Parks Ethos (September 2006)

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I’ve been lucky enough to do a bit of travelling in my time which has included spending more than a fair share of my travels in national parks and other reserves not only in the 15 countries we’ve visited in Africa but also in the USA, Canada, Europe and SE Asia. Really it’s the main reason we travel – cities have no genuine attraction for us, albeit there are places we enjoy within the concrete jungles we end up in.

Then there are the assorted Australian experiences I’ve had within the many varied and magnificent national parks, conservation reserves and other like areas of public land we have in this great country. What has struck me though in recent years, especially after a couple of visits to the south west of the USA, is the differences between the experiences we have overseas and the ones we have within the Australian parks system. Nearly always the experience is better in the overseas parks and I wondered why?

While in Texas what really struck home was the mission statement of the state’s park organisation. It read:

‘…. to manage and conserve the natural and cultural resources of Texas to provide hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation opportunities for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.’

I like it! Yeah, I know we can all cite red-neck Texan jokes and it is the home of the Bush clan, but they still have an impressive array of parks in the state.

Back home I went onto the web and checked out the US National Park Service mission statement which reads pretty similar:

The National Park Service preserves unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the national park system for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations.

You can see that and more at: www.nps.gov/legacy/mission.html

That brought me to the point of wondering about the ethos and the stated roles of the parks managers in Australia and that’s where I found a big difference. In Victoria the Parks Victoria website states:

Park's Victoria's Charter is to manage parks and other assets on behalf of the State and is empowered to do this under the Parks Victoria Act 1998.

Pretty non committal in many ways I guess, but importantly, people, whether present or future generations, don’t get a mention.

In NSW the functions of the NPWS are, as detailed on their website:

To conserve protected native animals and plants throughout NSW:

To protect and manage Aboriginal sites;
To promote community awareness;
To investigate and acquire land;
To manage historic places;
(and finally),
To manage parks and reserves for enjoyment and conservation; and,
To protect and manage wilderness throughout the state.

Once again it seems people are well down the list of priorities! In fact going by the stated role, people’s enjoyment and appreciation of our natural heritage is almost an after thought and is, at best, the second last stated role of the NSW Parks department!

No wonder we have a park situation here in Australia that sees vast areas of public land being closed off to the public with no recourse for that to be changed. And I always thought it was a lack of money closing off land; it seems the problem is much more deep seated than that and it goes right to the core of park management. Would it be going too far to suggest that academics, greens and even rabid conservationalists have penetrated to the highest echelons of the parks service in all states and we, the general public, are being left on the outer?

Now that national parks are taking up a bigger and bigger percentage of public land (in Victoria some 4% of the State in the early 1970s was national park, while today approximately 16% is proclaimed national park land), maybe its time that the parks departments in all states take a close look at their role and start managing land for the people’s enjoyment and recreation!

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