As of this year, training in backcountry skills and bushcraft by the Mountain Safety Council will be a thing of the past. The organisation is cutting its volunteer-run courses to focus on messaging to the masses. Matthew Pike asks if this is the right direction in which to go
John Greenwood has been a volunteer instructor for longer than many of us have been alive. He began devoting his time to the Mountain Safety Council (MSC) in 1967, at a time when Keith Holyoake was in power and Brian Lochore was the All Blacks captain. In this time he’s given countless outdoor enthusiasts the skills to confidently conquer their backcountry dreams and the ability to pass this knowledge on to others. But the 76-year-old is flabbergasted by the organisation’s decision to stop courses in the likes of bushcraft, river safety and risk assessment, which it has run since it first formed almost 50 years ago. Instead, the MSC has decided to focus on getting key messages to the millions who enter the New Zealand bush each year, rather than detailed instruction to a far smaller number. It has also decided to remove its regional offices. “I couldn’t believe it,” says Greenwood, who was first told of the changes around seven months ago. “I remember thinking ‘they must be out of their minds to get rid of the volunteer input’. It seems crazy to us.” Greenwood believes there are certain skills and messages that can’t be learnt from a book or a sign. He uses the example of river crossings, where good heads got together in the 1990s to devise a safer way. They realised it was better to use the pack as a float and Greenwood remembers the first time he was taught this technique. “The river was swift and deep, and three steps in it swept my feet off the bottom,” he recalls. “I was told to keep my feet moving like I’m pedalling and I came out the other side. I thought ‘by God, it works!’ After that we had an absolute ball. “You can’t learn things like that from a book. You have to get your feet wet with guidance from an instructor.” Greenwood believes instruction leads to lives being saved. “By doing the training you reduce the number of accidents. If we don’t do it, the numbers will go up again, I’ll bet you.” But CEO of the MSC Mike Daisley believes the courses weren’t working on a national level because they only reached a small number of people, and numbers, if anything, were decreasing. “In 2013 we trained 2500 people, in 2014 we trained 1800 people. This is a continuation of a trend of decline not just in the MSC courses but in outdoor education nationwide. “We’re putting a huge effort behind putting messages in front of people. According to Statistics New Zealand, a million people regularly participate in the outdoors and three million do so occasionally. That’s the group of people we need to reach to broadcast how to be safer.” The organisation already transmits messages to the masses, such as ‘Tell someone your plans – it may save your life’, and the message to hunters: ‘No meat is better than no mate’. It wants to invest more resources to these campaigns, utilising a range of channels to achieve this, from big media campaigns to working more closely with partner groups, such as the New Zealand Alpine Club, to get specific messages to specific groups of people. [caption id="attachment_2989" align="aligncenter" width="982"]
