Responsible Freedom Campers Accreditation widens scope

Responsible Campers Association Inc has today announced changes to its Responsible Campers Accreditation program.

The changes came about after discussions with Councils as well as other stakeholders and confirms that the need to educate is far more important than separating Kiwi’s from tourists.

Spokesperson for the group, Mr Bob Osborne said “5 weeks since the launch and with overwhelming support for the program, we reviewed the program and looked at what improvements could be made to it. We had already made several changes to questions that were confusing and did a tidy up of the website”.

Recent changes are to open the program up to all, not just kiwi’s as the program had been launched for kiwi’s only. Changes have also been made to the website setup, so people do not have to enter personal details prior to accessing the education program and quiz.

The program is available to all campers as defined by the Freedom camping Act eg; those that camp within 200 metres of a motor vehicle accessible area, which can include Hunters using 4 x4’s to access hunting areas and divers etc spending a week end around the coast, as well as locals wanting a night at the beach.

Mr Osborne said “The changes reflect the need to educate people - that is by far the most important objective of the program. We became aware people were not accessing the education or quiz due to having to provide personal details - so we changed that. For the same reasons we decided the program needed to be opened up for all that Freedom Camp in New Zealand, it is education that is needed not certification of the mode of camping. The ability to make these changes demonstrates another big advantage of this program - the ability for it to stay relevant with changes being able to be made in a matter of hours, not months or years as is often the case with Government Legislation and NZStandards. The website has averaged over 30 hits per day since launched.”.

Feedback about the program has come from a number of sources including;

** Department of Conservation "can clearly see the amount of effort and research that has gone into producing the website and the level of detail is impressive".

**Hon Kelvin Davis (Minister of tourism) "I encourage you to continue to work with those Councils to progress your program and help better mange camping in their regions".

The program is available to all at www.accreditedcampernz.com

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