A guide to recreation and historic heritage terms

Groups and professions often use the same words and phrases to have completely different meanings. This glossary is intended to provide DOC staff and the public with a common understanding of the terms used by the Destination Management Framework programme.

Affordable
Providing facilities at visitor destinations that are affordable, means they can be built and maintained using existing resources available to DOC. This includes government funding, revenue, business partnerships and volunteer effort.

Backcountry
Those protected natural areas that are not accessible by 2-wheel drive vehicles or regular scheduled ferry of aircraft transport. These places form the interior of the larger park, and may require foot access or specialised transport (helicopters, rafts, mountain bikes).
Refer to Front country to identify the difference between these two terms.

Business rules
The way the department does its ‘business’ – that is the rules that govern how DOC undertakes its functions.

Complement
Providing opportunities that don’t duplicate what already exists, but rather add to or complement the range available.

Conservation management strategies (CMS)
The purpose of a CMS under the Conservation Act 1987 is to put general policies into practice for the places and resources DOC administers on behalf of New Zealanders. This includes the Conservation General Policy 2005, which requires each CMS - amongst other things - to:

• identify how to integrate management of places to achieve national conservation outcomes•
• coordinate planning between conservation management strategies and plans
• identify outcomes at places.

The CMS tells the public how DOC manages places. In particular, how DOC integrates its various functions at specific places. They are a key conservation management tool, a conduit through which DOC implements legal, policy and strategic goals.

CMS are also recognised under the Resource Management Act 1991 – their content is considered when plans are developed under that Act, such as by local government agencies.

Demand driven
DOC can provide particular types of destinations by understanding the public’s demand for opportunities. Being demand driven means that DOC will provide experiences that the public want, rather than providing an experiences that anticipates what the public may find appealing.

Destination
A destination is a geographically defined location which has a range of values and attractions defined by people familiar with that place, They refer to these values and attractions when they are planning or going on holiday or a short visit.

Different people use ‘destination’ at a different scale, eg New Zealand is a destination for overseas visitors; or a city can be a destination for marketing purposes.

In the Destination Management Framework, DOC will be using ‘destination’ to be a collection of ‘sites’, ie management unit such as a car park, a road, a picnic area or a track, that collectively form the basis of the opportunity for people’s visitation. This is the scale that DOC will be working at when managing facility provision and promoting specific places to visit, but will also be working at larger geographic scales to ensure context is understood and other community and stakeholder groups are included in planning.

In general conversation people will use the terms destination, location and place interchangeably.

Experience development plans
An experience development plan (EDP) is an initial, critical and concise investigation and guidance exercise aimed at unlocking the secret or potential of a visitor product’s identity. The purpose of the EDP is to illuminate the high-level relationship between the proposed visitor experience and the visitor or market demand.

Front country
Those protected natural areas that are accessible by 2-wheel drive vehicles or regular scheduled ferry of aircraft transport, and the associated facilities.

Refer to Backcountry to identify the difference between these two terms.

Gateway destination
A gateway destination provides opportunities that encourage people to start recreating in the outdoors, and learn about conservation. ‘Gateway’ is a term used to mean ‘introduction’. These are places where there are opportunities to undertake several activities that are easy to do, appealing to many people especially children, and provide learning opportunities.

Historic heritage
Historic heritage is what still remains from the past. It can be artifacts, physical structures, vegetation or places where historic events occurred, as well as related cultural practices.

Icon destinations
Icon destinations form the backbone to the New Zealand tourism product for overseas tourists and New Zealanders. They are the ‘must-see’ places that provide memorable experiences.

DOC’s proposed icon destinations will provide quality experiences that complement other destinations managed by other agencies or businesses. Together these icon places complete the tourism attractions of New Zealand.

Investment
Investment means the resources put into managing a place or opportunity. Resources may be time, people and/or money. Investment is more than just putting money into something hoping for a greater return, although this concept clearly applies.

Location
See destination.

Local treasure
Local treasures are places that are valued by people at a more local scale, and local treasures support regional outdoor recreation needs.

Natural heritage
Natural heritage is made up of the landscape, rivers, dunes, mountains, lakes, estuaries, beaches. It also includes living systems such as birds, animals, insects, bush, freshwater, wetlands, mangrove forests and marine ecosystems.

New Zealand character
New Zealand character is those factors that reflect what is good about New Zealand society, its history, culture and landscapes. While our society is obviously diverse and becoming more so, people are able to express what they think is special about the places they like, and themes are obvious in popular media. DOC aims to understand these views, and profile and protect the relevant values that are present in or associated with public conservation areas.

Opportunities
Providing a range of products or services that fulfill the needs of the public.

Optimise
DOC needs to optimise the range of destinations it manages so that it can provide the most cost-effective mix of opportunities, while also ensuring that the mix meets the wide range of interests that people hold for public conservation areas.

Outcomes at place
Outcomes refers to the benefit that New Zealand will gain from managing a place (a destination, an island, a park etc).

To focus on outcomes at place is to identify how we want that place to be managed in the future, eg healthy forests, lakes, rivers, seas, accessible to people to visit and contribute, peace and quiet in some places.

It also means what we want people to gain from doing this, eg appreciation of inspiring scenery, satisfaction at completing a challenge, refreshing time out with the family.

Participation
When people engage in outdoor recreation and tourism, or use outdoor settings for their choice in leisure they are participating. Participation includes activities that have a cultural function such food gathering or travelling ancestral pathways, activities that are voluntary contribution to managing conservation areas, education groups and commercial recreation.

Place
A place is an area identified in conservation management strategies and plans for the purposes of integrated conservation management. Place is largely used in CMS context. See conservation management strategies.

Quality experience
A quality experience is gained by people when they visit a public conservation area that is as close to as possible to what they desire. While people differ in their preferences and views on what makes a quality experience, there is often a common view that people hold in relation to key factors such as perceived sanitation, service level, and appropriate behaviour of others.

In providing for a range of preferences, each different opportunity should enable a quality experience, some being challenging and having only basic facilities, others being easily accessible and having well developed facilities.

Ideally, where people are being encouraged to visit, the settings should all be appealing and the facilities provided should be those necessary for people to use and enjoy that place.

Recreational opportunities
Providing recreational opportunities means offering a range of different visitor experiences. These experiences can range from providing a simple walkway you could push a wheelchair along near a town to providing a hut in the remote backcountry that takes many hours or days of tramping along a rugged track to get to.

Service standard
Service standards are the specifications that describe the minimal and maximum level of effort or style of construction to suit what the typical user of that place would expect.

Service standards include specifications for safety and include industry standards, when applicable. Factors such as width and steepness of tracks, provision of cooking and heating in huts, and the types of information to include in signs.

Values
Values are what make a destination special to visitors. Values reflect cultural significance, historic heritage, natural heritage, recreational opportunities and the scenic and landscape attractions at that place.

Visitation
Visitation refers to the scale or number of people visiting a destination.