Lately there’s been much discussion about New Zealand’s Department of Conservation not being well enough resourced to manage the rapidly increasing number of international tourists interested in parts of the conservation estate. Most recently, Stuff reports on concerns being expressed by Conservation Boards about a looming crisis “with tourists placing increased pressure on already stretched resources”.
I might write more about it soon, but meanwhile here’s some data I’ve compiled from the last 13 years of DOC Annual Reports. It shows the division between recreation spending, natural heritage spending, and everything else. The combined total each year is funded from a combination of Crown Revenue (provided directly by the government) and Other Revenue.
The numbers behind the chart, taken from DOC’s Annual Reports from 2002 onwards, are below. More detail can be obtained by consulting those reports. Prior to 2002 DOC described its allocations differently, so that’s where I stopped. Recreation expenses jump majorly in 2003, because that was the year when the government announced an injection of $349 million over 10 years for retaining recreational opportunities.
| Year Ending (June) | ||||||||||||||
| 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | |
| $000 | $000 | $000 | $000 | $000 | $000 | $000 | $000 | $000 | $000 | $000 | $000 | $000 | $000 | |
| Recreational Opportunities | 49015 | 93504 | 94148 | 103163 | 109087 | 111014 | 119200 | 121048 | 123325 | 131716 | 139454 | 137950 | 144169 | 137428 |
| Natural Heritage | 90482 | 97859 | 106525 | 112144 | 121459 | 135641 | 143695 | 158690 | 153736 | 154753 | 154775 | 154354 | 162995 | 161241 |
| Other | 34820 | 34017 | 40454 | 31001 | 38283 | 33492 | 32034 | 32733 | 35830 | 32352 | 38456 | 43564 | 39673 | 60052 |
| Total Revenue | 174317 | 225380 | 241127 | 246308 | 268829 | 280147 | 294929 | 312471 | 312891 | 318821 | 332685 | 335868 | 346837 | 358721 |
Enjoy.
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