Philippa Stevenson: Orange ribbons say you're everything but welcome

They're out there - orange ribbons tied to farm gates and signs that read "ask before you walk".

In song, one yellow ribbon was a sign of welcome. "Do you still want me?" sang Tony Orlando and his love did, emphasising the degree by tying a hundred ribbons around that ole oak tree.

The orange ribbon protest organised by Federated Farmers, which is set to culminate in a petition delivered to Parliament on Thursday, conveys the opposite message.

Should a walker come down a country road humming that "I'm comin' home, I've done my time, I've got to know what is and isn't mine," they will find - according to the Feds - that it isn't the publicly owned rivers, beaches and bush surrounded by farmers' land.

The farmer lobby group's Action Orange protest, launched at last week's Agriculture Fieldays, has been sparked by Government plans to introduce a bill to Parliament before the election.

It would establish an agency, dubbed the Access Commission, and a process by which access across private property to significant public waterways could be negotiated for walkers.

Rural Affairs Minister Jim Sutton says the aim is to ensure all New Zealanders have free and secure access along the coast, rivers, lakes and mountains while respecting the interests of property owners.

Farmers, says Fed president Tom Lambie, see the proposal as a confiscation of their property rights and are alarmed at the increased risk it poses to their security and livelihoods.

Likening their farms to a factory floor, the Feds, who represent 18,000 of the country's 70,000 farmers, say landowners should have the final say on who crosses them, when and under what conditions. And, providing walking access quickly leads to demand for everything from dogs and guns to vehicles to be allowed in.

Generally, farmers feel the system ain't broke so don't try to fix it.

They reckon 92 per cent of farmers - when asked - already allow visitors to cross their farms and because of increasing concerns about crime, biosecurity, health, safety, and cost they should retain the right to be judge and jury on access.

But two years ago a fellow farmer concluded things were indeed broken and some fixing was necessary.

John Acland of Mt Peel Station, near Geraldine, a former chairman of the Meat Board, headed a committee set up in January 2003 to examine walking access in the New Zealand outdoors.

It concluded that current legislation and other arrangements were inflexible and insufficient to meet the expectations for access now and in the future and a better approach was needed.

When I spoke to Acland yesterday the Fed protest had just gone past his Geraldine door. Two years after his report was finished its recommended negotiated process had not started and he was disappointed and frustrated that things had got to this sorry state.

Acland sympathised with the Feds but said: "If nothing is done, in 10 to 20 years' time there will be real issues of access. They are issues that need resolving."

The Feds might claim that 92 per cent of farmers allowed access but he challenged the organisation to deal with the 8 per cent of farmers who did not.

The number of farmers blocking access was rising and it was arguably their properties that surrounded the significant waterways to which access was wanted, he said.

In the Waikato, prominent farmer Bill Garland has not hung out his orange ribbon and in recent days has, as usual, allowed several groups to cross his property, which borders Mt Maungatautari.

The Feds protest is raising important issues but not, he believes, about property rights.

The problem is one of compatibility between recreational interests and farming, he believes. It's one that is becoming increasingly fraught.

It's good that townies explore the countryside and potentially reacquaint themselves with rural life and work but that needs to be balanced with rising pressures on farmers to meet product quality assurance standards, he says.

In fact, Garland believes the growing web of regulations in which farmers increasingly find themselves has sparked the Action Orange protest. The access issue has become a flashpoint.

The Government needs to strengthen the relationship between recreational land users and farmers, he believes.

As the proposed Access Commission looms as yet another money-gobbling bureaucracy, it behoves more of us to contribute to a solution for our walks in the park and beyond.

The alternative? "Stay on the bus, forget about us, put the blame on me ... "