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Speaker 1: Kiwis could be forced to pay up to thirty dollars

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Speaker 1: to set foot in some of our most popular national parks.

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Speaker 1: The government's proposing it's just come out this morning introducing

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Speaker 1: an access charge to populent national areas natural areas. I

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Speaker 1: should say it could apply to tourists and US or

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Speaker 1: just tourists. They are out for consultation on this. They

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Speaker 1: say it will help maintain public conservation sites, and the

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Speaker 1: tariffs like this are used widely internationally. Meghan de Xantos

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Speaker 1: is Demixantos is with us. She's the president of Federated

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Speaker 1: Mountain Clubs. Meghan, thanks for being with me, good morning.

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Speaker 1: Do you support this?

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Speaker 2: Look, FMC is supportive of conservation law reform that we're

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Speaker 2: not supportive of domestic access charges.

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Speaker 1: They say it will only be in overcrowded areas. You know,

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Speaker 1: your Milford sounds, your Tongueriito crossings, that sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: So would it affect many Kiwis.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, I think that probably one of our biggest

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Speaker 2: concerns is that those areas are used by recreationists to

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Speaker 2: access other more backcountry areas. But one of our biggest

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Speaker 2: concerns is that most of our recreation community are actually

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Speaker 2: also volunteers on the conservation estate, and those access charges

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Speaker 2: will become a barrier for people carrying out that important

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Speaker 2: conservation work. So what some people don't know is that

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Speaker 2: DOC relies quite heavily on volunteers to do their work,

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Speaker 2: and the KIWIS actually also rely heavily on volunteers to

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Speaker 2: search and search and rescue services. So these people shouldn't

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Speaker 2: be expected to pay for the privilege of giving their

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Speaker 2: time for free to their community and nature.

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Speaker 1: Well that's a fair enough point. But surely they'd give

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Speaker 1: you an exemption. I mean, all of this is up

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Speaker 1: for debate, isn't it. That's the point of it. I

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Speaker 1: guess you'd get an exemption, surely if you were a volunteer.

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Speaker 2: Well you'd hope so. But that volunteers have also recently

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Speaker 2: been asked by docs to quantify their efforts, and so

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Speaker 2: you know, there's a certain irony and being a volunteer

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Speaker 2: and then being also expected to give you time to

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Speaker 2: prove and quantify what your contribution has seen.

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Speaker 1: What do you reckon about for it? You know, because

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Speaker 1: the climbers here in New Zealand, and trampers and people

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Speaker 1: who love the outdoors obviously do the same thing overseas,

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Speaker 1: and if you look at Yellowstone, they pay thirty two

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Speaker 1: bucks a day to go there, vamp and Canada National

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Speaker 1: Parks thirteen bucks a day. Mount Fuji is twenty three

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Speaker 1: bucks a day. If we charged foreign tourists, one are

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Speaker 1: you okay with that? And two do you think it

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Speaker 1: we're puttingnyone off?

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Speaker 2: I think that that we're more amenable to foreign access

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Speaker 2: charging than we are to domestic access charging. The thing

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Speaker 2: with domestic access charging is we risk pricing keyweeds out

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Speaker 2: of their own backyard, and also that disproportionately affects families

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Speaker 2: and those from low socio economic background. So our view

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Speaker 2: is that wild places shouldn't be places that only rich

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Speaker 2: people can visit. Obviously, people who are visiting from overseas

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Speaker 2: they have the means, and there's also infrastructure that has

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Speaker 2: been put in place to be able to facilitate their visits,

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Speaker 2: So we'd be more amenable to foreign only access charging.

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Speaker 1: All right, thanks so much for your time. Megan Demazantos

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Speaker 1: with us, the president of Federated Mountain Clubs. If you're

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Speaker 1: just joining us this morning, the government drop day at

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Speaker 1: five o'clock this morning, drop day discussion document looking at

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Speaker 1: charging Kiwis and or foreign tourists to visit national parks,

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Speaker 1: not paying just to stay the night, but also paying

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Speaker 1: to actually walk on the tracks that need to be

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Speaker 1: fixed up.

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Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge.

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Speaker 1: Listen live to news talks it'd be from five am weekdays,

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