The New Freedom Camping Legislation (and what it means)

For many years adventurous New Zealanders have been buying a vehicle to drive around this great country, exploring the many nooks and crannies with a sense of pioneering freedom. Camping was as simple as pull up and park up, with the unwritten rule that you respect the environment. This practice of driving round and camping where you want became popular with tourists and given our access to low cost vehicles (related to our proximity to Japan) was a viable way to experience New Zealand. The original unwritten rule has faded with the commercialisation of the ‘freedom camping’ practice and combined with the information gap making it difficult for tourists to access essential information is contributing to the current problems.

These problems experienced by some of the councils has been the catalyst for the need to create rules. Each council will have a different balance between what problems they are experiencing and the financial return they see from having freedom campers in the area. This is why councils have different views on the practice and why a national code isn’t in place, making it difficult for a freedom camper to understand where they can camp when they enter a new region. Not having this national code means that each area has different rules and until now the council hasn’t had the power to enforce freedom camping by-laws, rather less specific laws such as a local littering by-law.

What the new legislation means is that councils will now have the power to create certain by-laws targeted to freedom camping. The major point of differentiation between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ freedom campers is the self-containment issue, so we can likely see extremely tough restrictions placed by councils around vehicles that aren’t self contained such as vans and station wagons. Without a doubt it’s a changing landscape.. While in the face of a wave of negative comment  on freedom camping, it’s great to see the likes of Destination Rotorua (an area that is popular with tourists) announcing that freedom camping isn’t a problem in their area. This gives hope to the practice of freedom camping and preserving an activity that was forged out of such a pioneering spirit.