Fees for national parks?

By Natasha Simons

HOBART -- Entrance fees to National Parks and botanical gardens are inevitable according to Tom Crossen, the national president of the Royal Australian Institute of Parks and Recreation.

Speaking at the Institute's national conference, held here from October 5 to 9, Crossen said that the high costs of looking after heritage areas justified a user-pays system.

“In other parts of the world you have to pay to go to see gardens, but in Australia people have always been used to having access to public open spaces without paying”, he said.

However, a spokesperson for the Environmental Youth Alliance in Hobart, Zara Duniam, said she was outraged by the proposal.

“The public already pays for the maintenance of national parks and gardens through their taxes. They should not be asked to pay money on top of this when so much of their taxes go to useless things, like the salaries of government officials.”

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