There have been few more polarising rural community issues in the last five years than walking access rights to public and privately-owned land.

From whitebaiter to deerstalker, high country run holder to lifestyle block owner, everyone had a firm and sometimes intransigent view on land access and their rights to it – or not.

Rural Women New Zealand (RWNZ) has been at the forefront of the debate from the start.

Some of the public dust has settled since the passing of the Walking Access Act 2008 and the subsequent establishment of the Walking Access Commission, chaired by John Acland.

But, in reality, this is a beginning, not an end to the access concept.

Recently the commission held the second of its stakeholder consulting group meetings to launch its draft National Strategy on Walking Access and draft Guide to Walking Access, or code of conduct.

RWNZ is one of the minority stakeholder groups which represent rural communities and the organisation’s private land owning members. But, RWNZ also recognises the need to keep a balanced perspective between the security, property rights and business concerns of those who live on farms and in small rural areas and the legal rights and aspirations of casual visitors and recreational users – within reason.

The purpose of the Walking Access Act 2008, says Acland, is to ‘provide the New Zealand public with free, certain, enduring, and practical walking access to the outdoors (including around the coast and lakes, along rivers, and to public resources) so that the public can enjoy the outdoors’.

The commission’s aim is to ‘work especially with local communities to make this vision a reality for the New Zealand public’.

RWNZ’s aim is to work with the commission to ensure that the interests of members, and those of the wider rural and farming communities, are also taken into account.

The draft Code of Conduct, or Guide to Walking Access, while a comprehensive and inclusive effort, has thrown up some inconsistencies.

RWNZ has asked the commission for a clarification of its mandate over and above the term ‘walking access’. In the guide, a page titled ‘Consider Others’ is devoted to information on what is appropriate behaviour when taking dogs, guns or motor vehicles into the countryside.

Other sections talk about picnicking, lighting fires and speed control when bike or horse riding.

There are positive recommendations, including the need for obtaining permission and negotiating with landowners or resident managers about appropriate access across private land, boundaries and unformed legal (paper) roads. Livestock and environmental impacts are also acknowledged.

But RWNZ believes that codes and strategies which clearly promote and encourage a wide range of ways to achieve access other than by walking, need to be more clearly defined and justified. Otherwise, goodwill between private landowners and other potential recreational land users could be eroded back to the days of confrontation and self-interest.

The Walking Access Commission, under recently appointed chief executive Mark Neeson, is now responsible for walkways, which were formerly under the NZ Walkways Act 1990.

It has also recently released a request for proposals for a Public Access Mapping System, which has generated a lot of interest from potential suppliers. The objective of the system is to graphically show areas of public access in an easily understandable and inexpensive format. The commission may in future establish a regional presence of access ‘agencies’ to provide local information and contacts.

In September it will be the turn of the public to have its say on the draft codes which can be found at www.walkingaccess.org.nz/

For Rural Women New Zealand’s responses see: www.ruralwomen.org.nz

•Liz Evans is vice president of RWNZ.