VIC - Campground vandalism causes closure

[Bob]

Todd,

Whilst I agree with you to a degree, also look at it from the point of view of the Parkies. Every monday morning you go out to a location and find it trashed(either rubbish left behind or vandalism), it would get pretty disheartening. Then you have budget restraints, you have to spend money that could upgrade other amenities continually repairing one place.

I know this will ruffle feathers, but we all need to take responsibility and ownership for these places, I am not a fan of dobbers, but if we see people doing the wrong thing we need to get license plate numbers and report them. I don't advocate approaching people that do this sort of stuff, as it might get you into more trouble than you need. But a quick call to Crimestoppers or something similar might see idiots like these finally get their wings clipped.

My thoughts

Mark

I agree...............

[NP99]

Camera's in place........arrests made.......before the judge........just promise not to be a f'wit anymore........on ya way.......cycle starts again

[MC97GQ]

Camera's in place........arrests made.......before the judge........just promise not to be a f'wit anymore........on ya way.......cycle starts again

NP99,

We could start a whole new thread on truth in sentencing in our courts, but that's probably best left elsewhere.

But you are right.

Mark

[Jaycee]

Todd,

Whilst I agree with you to a degree, also look at it from the point of view of the Parkies. Every monday morning you go out to a location and find it trashed(either rubbish left behind or vandalism), it would get pretty disheartening. Then you have budget restraints, you have to spend money that could upgrade other amenities continually repairing one place.

I know this will ruffle feathers, but we all need to take responsibility and ownership for these places, I am not a fan of dobbers, but if we see people doing the wrong thing we need to get license plate numbers and report them. I don't advocate approaching people that do this sort of stuff, as it might get you into more trouble than you need. But a quick call to Crimestoppers or something similar might see idiots like these finally get their wings clipped.

My thoughts

Mark

I too understand how frustrating and disheartening it must be for the parks staff, but by closing these areas down all they are doing is giving up vast areas of our country to these degenerate criminals to do with as they please. If the vandals are willing to destruct public property like the original post indicated, a locked gate and a "closed sign" is not going to keep them out - quite the contrary... Now they have free reign to do as they please because they have very little chance of being seen by anyone.

The best thing we can do with these areas is actually use them, patrol them, make it known that these sorts of actions are not and will not be tolerated. These sorts of cowards won't do anything wrong if there are honest people around to see them.

If we see a friend or acquaintance do something stupid tell them to pull their head in (many groups of vandals has one or more people in the group who don't agree with the actions of the group, but who don't say anything for fear of being ridiculed).

Insist that our authorities follow through on trying to catch them and prosecute them rather than surrender and spend all our resources on harassing and trying to exclude the honest law abiding citizens they are employed by (us!).

[threedogs]

@ Jaycee they are closing these places down at any opportunity they can get and for any reason.
We as in Victorians need to fight to keep what tracks we have ,left open and not give the powers that be
any excuse to close them. If that includes me dobbing in a young / old buck doing donuts in wet grass or
other mindless stuff like leaving crap everywhere I will take regos ,times etc and pass it on. WTF should I/we be punished because
of some mindless idiots. Rule one dont give the powers that be any fodder whats so ever to close tracks.
We have the best 4WD destinations in Australia being the High country, Even our camp up the Murray is littered with Shite everytime
we roll up,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Take your Shite home and dump it in a roadside bin, plenty on the side of hwys.
Cost nothing to keep a site clean, and ppl will thankyou for it behind your back,,,,,,,,,,,Pay it forward

[Jaycee]

@ Jaycee they are closing these places down at any opportunity they can get and for any reason.
We as in Victorians need to fight to keep what tracks we have ,left open and not give the powers that be
any excuse to close them. If that includes me dobbing in a young / old buck doing donuts in wet grass or
other mindless stuff like leaving crap everywhere I will take regos ,times etc and pass it on. WTF should I/we be punished because
of some mindless idiots. Rule one dont give the powers that be any fodder whats so ever to close tracks.
We have the best 4WD destinations in Australia being the High country, Even our camp up the Murray is littered with Shite everytime
we roll up,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Take your Shite home and dump it in a roadside bin, plenty on the side of hwys.
Cost nothing to keep a site clean, and ppl will thankyou for it behind your back,,,,,,,,,,,Pay it forward

I couldn't agree more threedogs.

Although the vandals and criminals are the catalyst for a lot of these closures, and we should do everything in our power to stop them, as you suggest, the more important issue in my mind is that the public servants we employ to manage our parks and forests have been allowed to think that these parks and forests belong to them and they are doing us a favour by allowing us to use them. It really annoys me that as a community we accept the fact that these bureaucrats and politicians can lock us out of vast areas of public land because they are too lazy and or incompetent to enforce existing laws against a small percentage of visitors to these areas who do the wrong thing.

As a society we are giving up far too many rights based on fear mongering and lazy reporting by sensational media and power hungry politicians. As the honest law abiding majority, we need to make a stand and tell them that we expect these public servants to fix the problem without taking away our civil liberties in the process or we will find new public servants who can!

[NissanGQ4.2]

Todd,

Whilst I agree with you to a degree, also look at it from the point of view of the Parkies. Every monday morning you go out to a location and find it trashed(either rubbish left behind or vandalism), it would get pretty disheartening. Then you have budget restraints, you have to spend money that could upgrade other amenities continually repairing one place.

I know this will ruffle feathers, but we all need to take responsibility and ownership for these places, I am not a fan of dobbers, but if we see people doing the wrong thing we need to get license plate numbers and report them. I don't advocate approaching people that do this sort of stuff, as it might get you into more trouble than you need. But a quick call to Crimestoppers or something similar might see idiots like these finally get their wings clipped.

My thoughts

Mark

Agree with you Mark, I would hate to be a ranger going out each day and finding amenities destroyed and rubbish left around the place, but also believe ( this is just my view ) that places will still slowly get closed down regardless of vandalism or budget restraints. Can you imagine the amount of money the government would save having these places closed........ no need for road grading, no need to have a ranger remove rubbish etc. Most NP, State Parks are free or cost little to enter so realistically its not making them money.

I really don't understand the mentality of those that find that it would be fun to destroy amenities put there to give them some luxury while out camping and really don't understand why someone could be so lazy not to take there rubbish with them and dispose of it properly.

When I went to the Tuff Truck Challenge the other week to camp for a few days and watch the 4b's compete I took my own rubbish bags with me, every car going in was given a big black plastic bag 2 put there rubbish in and there was plenty of bins around the place. The amount of cans and rubbish left on the ground during the event was disgusting. Even driving out on the last day the amount of rubbish bags left by the side of the bin was a sad sight, I would hate to be the one cleaning up the place after the event. All my rubbish went in the bag supplied and came home with me........... was not hard 2 do at all

[macca]

Going back a few years we were camping at Swans Crossing a little north of here. A great spot with room for heaps of camps and some great 4WDing nearby.
On Sunday morning the Forest NSW truck turned up to check the place and put bog roll in the dunny, empty the bins etc.
The blokes name was Col and he actually built this camp many years ago and loves to see people use it.
He also told us of a place called Cobrabald which is an absolute gem of a spot which we have visited every year since, again he built the camp and its facilities there as well.
But he was sad to inform us of a third little gem he built has been closed as it was close enough to Port MacQuarie for the Drop kicks & Dickheads with their Doof Doof cars to get there and destroyed the place.
We have seen the access road to it and has been torn up pretty bad by a Forests dozer so will never be opened or accesible again.

National Parks up our way have closed heaps too, but its financial which truly sucks. They dont have funds to keep access for all so we with capable vehicles are locked out too.
The biggest issue is for them to call it a Wilderness Area, that's it you can only walk in there. Mostly it started happening in the time of Bob Carr, our run and hide Premier that has floated to the surface as Gillards forign minister, he is supposed to be a greenie bushwalker that hated tyre tracks left in his patch so we were simply excluded.

I hear what you say TD but lose the "my State" bit, this is a national issue, we have to start somewhere but as usual no one in authority is listening.
There is an election coming up that you could use your vote as an encouragemnt to a party that has your recreation in mind.

[paulyg]

Maybe there could be an ad campaign, similar to the drink and drive, your a bloody idiot, trash a campsite your a f...wit.

[89gqpatrol4x4]

Agree with you Mark, I would hate to be a ranger going out each day and finding amenities destroyed and rubbish left around the place, but also believe ( this is just my view ) that places will still slowly get closed down regardless of vandalism or budget restraints. Can you imagine the amount of money the government would save having these places closed........ no need for road grading, no need to have a ranger remove rubbish etc. Most NP, State Parks are free or cost little to enter so realistically its not making them money.

I really don't understand the mentality of those that find that it would be fun to destroy amenities put there to give them some luxury while out camping and really don't understand why someone could be so lazy not to take there rubbish with them and dispose of it properly.

When I went to the Tuff Truck Challenge the other week to camp for a few days and watch the 4b's compete I took my own rubbish bags with me, every car going in was given a big black plastic bag 2 put there rubbish in and there was plenty of bins around the place. The amount of cans and rubbish left on the ground during the event was disgusting. Even driving out on the last day the amount of rubbish bags left by the side of the bin was a sad sight, I would hate to be the one cleaning up the place after the event. All my rubbish went in the bag supplied and came home with me........... was not hard 2 do at all

Not hard is it! The thing I don't understand is that 99.9% of people who do this wouldn't just sit a home watching the tv and throw there empty cans and chip packets on the floor, so why do they do it when their out. How lazy and selfish are people getting!