A New Zealand law allowing people to poo in public — so long as they do not think they are being watched — must be tightened, says a freedom camping association, amid long-running allegations that campers are to blame for much of the human waste in the natural environment.
It is currently an offense to defecate or urinate in a public place — other than in a public lavatory — but if the person can show they had reasonable grounds for believing they were not being observed, they could escape a NZ$200 (US$125) fine.
The Responsible Campers Association said the law should also require people to show they conducted their business at least 50 meters from a waterway, and the waste is buried to at least 15cm.
“It is not so much the action which creates concern, but the visible after-effects,” group spokesman Bob Osborne said.
The group started in 2017 to advocate for freedom campers — people who stay free of charge on public lands — on the basis that the mode of camping should not be targeted, but rather the behavior of campers.
Freedom camping has hit the country’s headlines in recent years over concerns about its effects on the environment, especially when it comes to campers’ personal waste.
Reports regularly crop up in local media linking freedom campers to increases in excrement and toilet paper littering at popular tourist destinations, while some local councils have opted to ban campers from hotspots altogether.
Frictions between campers, locals and the government peaked in late 2020, when New Zealand Minister of Tourism Stuart Nash told national broadcaster RNZ that freedom campers in non-self-contained vehicles “pull over to the side of the road and ... shit in our waterways.”
However, Osborne said it is unfair to blame freedom campers for the country’s public poo problems.
“There is no evidence linking any specific group to this undesirable practice, which affects travelers every day all over New Zealand,” he said.
The group said that more toilet facilities for travelers would be the best long-term solution.
Freedom camping reached its peak in 2019, just before the country shut its borders during the COVID-19 pandemic. Government data recorded roughly 245,000 freedom campers that year, and of those, 91,000 were New Zealand residents.
Nash said last year that the government would crack down on freedom camping, including harsher fines for those behaving badly, and tougher restrictions on where campers can park.
The rules are to be introduced in parliament this year, in time for what could be the country’s busiest summer season in more than two years, with the borders fully reopening to tourists.
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