Parklands “Adopt-a-Trail” – Good Idea or Bad Idea?
For something as seemingly simple as moving a bit of dirt, trail-care is an extremely hot topic and everyone has a different viewpoint and strong opinions. I’ve heard countless complaints such as:
-
Kangarooiceus Judgmenticus
“There isn’t enough trail care days”
- “Your trail care days are on the wrong day/time”
- “Trail care days have too many (or too few) people show up”
- “The trails are being dumbed down/made harder”
- “Illegal trails, links, shortcuts are being built”
- “No signage and the maps are wrong”
- “The kangaroos are silently judging my Taser runs”
- and many many more.
So yeah, it’s a complex issue and there probably isn’t a silver bullet.
Introducing ADOPT-A-TRAIL!
This idea has been thrown around for awhile now and it’s used elsewhere but it hasn’t gained much traction yet due to our workload not giving us enough time to push it.
Basically the idea is that all the trails in Parklands are put up for grabs and people (or maybe teams of people) can nominate to “adopt” the trail and keep it looking swish whenever they get the time to do so. They do things like drainage, vegetation management and general maintenance. If they have a big repair/modification to make then they tell us and once we get QPWS approval we organise resources and get a team to head in there to help.
Some points of note are:
- Must follow QPWS policies – e.g. no unsanctioned new trails or features, no chainsaws, protect the flora and fauna and other users etc.
- No commercial interests/advertising e.g. having a bike shop adopting a trail is a great idea but the Nature Conservation Act forbids advertising in national parks.
- If a trail is currently designated as “Blue (intermediate)” then it must stay a blue. You can’t amp it up to what it was like back in 1995 or something (unless you get the nod from QPWS of course).
- Looks like our MTBA insurances will cover our trail care volunteers (whether a member or not) if they are doing a club organised trailcare event.
So what say you? Are you keen? Can you see any problems or issues? Email me at secretary@bushrangers.org
Michael Johns
Club Secretary
