A neglected national park that serves only as a nursery for exotic pests and bushfire fuel is worse than having no public asset at all. Ongoing surveillance is required throughout these areas. The rangers who carry out much of this work also have a law enforcement role, since poachers and wildlife smugglers will always risk their illegal activities while a demand exists. People charged with the responsibility of managing these areas need to constantly monitor population sizes and age structures to ensure that the carrying capacity of the habitat is not exceeded. The principles of resource management are now relatively well understood, but the most important practical difficulty, as always, is finding the money to enable the work to be done.
Wages generally represent the biggest cost.
The present trend in finding the necessary money is to chase the tourism dollar. In some instances, this also includes hunting and fishing. Unfortunately, although people seek this experience, there are practical limits imposed by such things as the level of discomfort to which paying customers will voluntarily subject themselves. The more toilet blocks, souvenir shops and safely constructed lookouts and trails that are located in these places, the less authentic is the experience. Similarly, even when such facilities are not provided, there is a strict limit to the levels of exploitation the environment can sustain before its authenticity is obliterated by footprints and discarded litter.