Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - More crowds for NZ's national parks

Sorry about that, tasmangirl. I don't know what went wrong. I just found it again and it seems the link is the same:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12058027
In case the above link doesn't work again, this was the title of the NZ Herald article: "1.7 million tourists in 12 months: Can New Zealand's environment handle it?" (24 May, 2018, by Jamie Morton, Science Reporter).

Some excerpts from the article,:At Franz Josef Glacier, numbers over the period grew 9 per cent to 750,000, with the glacier valley receiving about 6000 visitors a day during peak season and at times a 30-minute wait for car parks...Milford Sound continued its trend of about 9 per cent growth annually over the past five years, with more than 4500 visitors on its busiest days and 810,000 visitors for the 12-month period...Roys Peak, near Wanaka, had a 27 per cent increase, with more than 75,000 people visiting, resulting in queues for photos at the now famous rock overlooking Lake Wanaka...Visitors to the Hooker Track increased by 35 per cent and numbers to Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park are estimated to be about 945,000 in the year ending March 2018, showing a 17.5 per cent growth from 2016/17." The article doesn't mention noise pollution caused by increased helicopter flights or the growing number and growing size of cruise ships entering Milford Sound (and other areas, such as Akaroa, Picton and Otago harbours). Tourism is great for New Zealand but the article makes a good point that natural areas have to be protected from degradation caused by overuse.

Even Stewart Island enjoyed a "bumper season":
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/the-south...tourism-season

I had no idea that Croatia had gotten that popular, either. But I'm guessing that, like New Zealand, these huge crowds are mainly around during peak seasons. A friend of mine tramped up to Roy's Peak a couple of weeks ago and said while there were other trampers, it wasn't crowd and they didn't have to queue at the top for a photo. The photos she showed me were incredible, snow all around that beautiful lake.

It can spoil the experience of being in nature when there are so many other people around. NZ might have to think about capping the number of visitors to certain areas. One of the prettiest places I've been is Australia's Lord Howe Island and only 400 people are allowed onto the island at any given time.