[talk-au] Paths in Illawarra Conservation Lands

[forster at ozonline.com.au]

Hi Frederik

This reminds me of a thread that I started on this list about 2 years  
ago. It related to illegal mountain bike tracks in Lysterfield Park,  
Victoria Australia.

The construction and use of unauthorized trails is illegal with large  
penalties (though I have never heard of a prosecution). An issue is  
that mapping these trails encourages use and consequent environmental  
damage. There is also the risk that innocent users will think that a  
mapped trail is legal and get prosecuted.

The compromise was to mark the trails as access=no but not delete them  
till they had been made untrafficable for sufficient time to become  
overgrown.

Since then the pressure from the mountain bike community to has map  
everything has reduced,  presumably the mountain bike  community has  
realized that OSM is one of the tools the authorities use to locate  
illegal trails.

The policy in OSM to map everything that exists ignores the fact that  
not all mapping is in the community interest. I would like to see a  
more nuanced policy. We might see a policy that addresses the following

Private land and the right of privacy
Military land
National Parks
Other public land.

Thanks
Tony


> Hi,
>
> the DWG was drawn into an edit war regarding several paths that were
> mapped in this area:
>
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/-34.3740/150.8761
>
> The argument is about in how far the (largely north-south running) paths
> are "illegal" and whether they need to be removed from the map because
> they would lead to people trespassing.
>
> The argument is two-fold; part applies to the paths that are on private
> land where, I understand, it is the land owner's prerogative to allow or
> disallow whatever they want, and another part applies to the paths that
> run into NPWS managed conservation lands.
>
> These paths were originally tagged "foot=yes" and with no further access
> descriptions; one had an "mtb:scale" added.
>
> From reading the Illawara Escarpment Plan of Management
> (https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/-/media/OEH/Corporate-Site/Documents/Parks-reserves-and-protected-areas/Parks-plans-of-management/illawarra-escarpment-state-conservation-area-plan-management-180505.pdf)
> I get the impression that mountainbiking on any paths not explicitly
> open for it is illegal. But what about walking - the plan says a lot
> about maintained walking tracks but it does *not* explicitly say that
> walking is limited to these.
>
> There's also a published "draft strategy" for mountain biking in the
> area, however I don't know in how far a draft strategy would influence
> the current legal situation.
>
> Anyway, for the time being I have added an access=no to the paths on
> private land because the landowner doesn't want people to use them and I
> guess it is their prerogative; and I've removed the explicit foot=yes on
> the other paths (becasue I'm not sure) and added a "bicycle=no" to close
> them for mountainbiking. My changeset:
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/74355243#map=16/-34.3750/150.8730
>
> I would however be grateful for any input from the Australian community
> on this matter.
>
> I've also been told that NPWS were keenly looking to sue whoever
> publishes "illegal" trails or uploads them to OSM; in fact such a legal
> threat was the reason why DWG got involved in the first place.
>
> Bye
> Frederik
>
> DWG Ticket Ticket#2019090110000071
> --
> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
>
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