The difficulty is always balancing accessibility to beautiful areas for people who don't have the wherewithal to hike for 2 days in rough terrain, with preservi

The difficulty is always balancing accessibility to beautiful areas for people who don't have the wherewithal to hike for 2 days in rough terrain, with preserving the wilderness aspect for those who can. I've found the biggest issue in preserving wilderness is helicopters and planes - they can easily cover large amounts of terrain in short time in a very noisy and intrusive manner. In NZ, we try to a) ensure the 'front country' has facilities for easy access by day trippers and that b) the 'back country' is not disturbed by commercial operations. In some parts, the balance tips further in one direction than the other - as an example, while walking the Milford Track[1], hardly a backcountry experience due to the very well developed tracks and facilities to cope with huge numbers of visitors, I still found the very frequent overflights by tourist charters detracted from the overall experience. It was still gorgeous, but the continual drone of tourist flights for people who didn't want to, or couldn't walk the track, detracted significantly. In my usual stomping ground national park, no commercial flights or landings are allowed, you can't even lead a guided walk. You still get the occasional private pilot flying through, and of course can't really do anything about the airliners flying to Australia, but the frequency is far lower than you find in the more commercialised areas like Fiordland or Aoraki Mt Cook. The Department of Conservation has a policy of focusing commercial activity in areas tourists want to be in anyway, so that the rest of the conservation estate is largely preserved for NZ citizens undertaking recreational activities. [1]: https://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/fiordland/places/fiordland-national-park/things-to-do/tracks/milford-track/ https://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/fi...