When mountain bike riders clear unauthorised trails, move earth and install jumps in a patch of bushland, they’re the baddies, right? Not necessarily. Every visit to the wilderness causes an impact, and the challenge for conservation managers is balancing that while trying to help people maintain a connection with nature. Ann Jones reports:
Did you make a cubby house when you were a child? Did you climb trees, dig holes, drag branches and smell the leaf litter as you went about playing in the bush?
That experience was both ecologically destructive and imperative for the future of conservation.
Let me explain … More