While national parks are opening around Australia, the more cautious approach to the re-opening of one of the country’s most iconic attractions – Kakadu National Park – is drawing some criticism.
Parks Australia has re-opened the world heritage listed park from today, but many sites will remain shut, and camping will not be allowed in the park itself. It says it first wants to look at how it can manage the current regime, and to ensure that people were managing their social distancing.
Assistant Secretary of Parks Australia, Brant Smith, had told the ABC there was no timeframe for allowing camping at Kakadu, and he criticised the Northern Territory government’s easing of restrictions in Litchfield National Park, about one hour’s drive south of Darwin.
“Obviously we saw what happened with Litchfield National Park when a whole bunch of people came down; clearly those social distancing requirements were breached,” Mr Smith said. “We want to learn lessons from that and don’t want to make the same mistakes the Northern Territory government made there.”
However, there is some confusion surrounding the issue as it appears that camping is permitted at Cooinda and at Jabiru, both of which and are good bases from which to explore the park.
The staged re-opening of Kakadu has infuriated tour operators, and goes against the wishes of the park’s Board of Management.
Glen Hingley from industry group Tourism Top End said operators were sick of mixed messages from the Federal Government. He said many of his members would support the NT government being handed control of Kakadu, if promised federal funding was delivered.
“There is a lot of pragmatic sense in the park being managed by the NT government because it’s rangers on the ground who are looking for the resources and support, it’s the tour operators, it’s the residents of Kakadu who know they’d be dealing with bureaucrats who live in the Northern Territory,” Mr Hingley said. “We know that there are hundreds of millions of dollars that need to be spent in Kakadu just to get it back to where it was years ago … it’s fallen behind.”
Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, which is also administered by Parks Australia, is also open to visitors again from today. Walking tracks, sunrise and sunset viewing areas as well as some accommodation will be open as part of the park’s reopening, but guided tours and group activities will not be allowed.
Kakadont….!
Please explain??