Blog: MSC Collaborates with North American safety agencies
By: Nz Mountain Safety
Tags: Hiking, Outdoors, Safety, Environment, Canada

Blog: MSC Collaborates with North American safety agencies

Trip Report: Last year I spent four weeks in Canada and USA on a research trip engaging with organisations who play a role in land-based outdoor recreation safety. The trip was made possible with the generous support of the Mountain Safety Council and as a 2018 recipient of a New Zealand Winston Churchill Memorial Fellowship.

Olympic National Park, Washington State

Over the course of my travel, I met with a range of organisations covering a diverse variety of land-based outdoor recreation activities, with the common theme that they were all relevant to the prevention-focused work of the MSC and my role as Partnerships and Insights Manager.

The aim of my travel was to engage with organisations who play a role in public outdoor recreation safety (prevention), with two primary objectives:

To learn about prevention strategies and initiatives used in North America, with the intention of applying these ideas in New Zealand and, To share examples of successful land-based outdoor recreation prevention strategies and initiatives used in New Zealand.

While travelling I met with representatives from organisations such as the British Columbian Wildlife Federation, AdventureSmart Canada, BC Parks, Parks Canada, Canadian Avalanche Association, Avalanche Canada, Jasper National Park, Banff National Park, US National Parks Service, Olympic National Park, North Cascades National Park, US National Forest Service and Mt Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.

“Too often, we have a habit of spending time developing our own solutions to problems rather than looking for partners who have already developed proven techniques. In May 2018, I met with Nathan Watson of the New Zealand Mountain Safety Council to share information, best practices, and strategies related to statistics, data analysis, emerging trends in safety and visitor risk, emergency management, and communications tools. This valuable partnership has continued and as we look to update our data analysis and communication techniques to improve prevention strategies, we will continue to share best practices with the NZMSC”. — Lucas Habib, Visitor Safety and Compliance Officer, Parks Canada

Lynn Canyon Park

As well as these meetings I also had the opportunity to get outdoors and experience many iconic destinations as a visitor and recreation participant. The combination of meetings and personal experiences contributed to my research findings.

Through these experiences, I have developed 8 primary findings. My full trip report, prepared for the Winston Churchill Memorial Fellowship, provides a more in-depth discussion on each of these. In summary, the 8 primary findings represent prevention strategies and initiatives that could be implemented to improve outdoor safety in New Zealand:

A participant focused track grading and communication system Track condition updates and public reporting tool School curriculum integrated learning resources Implement new ‘safety funnels’ (or refine existing) Emotive signage Game Animal classification International Prevention Symposium The ‘Red Chair Effect’

Valley Of The Five Lakes, Jasper National Park

“It is really exciting to connect with somebody who shares my vision and enthusiasm for evidence-based prevention work in outdoor recreation and I am looking forward to future collaborations.” — Pascal Haegeli, PhD. NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Avalanche Risk Management Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada

I hope that those who read my report will find the key learnings and recommendations to be interesting, ideally inspiring discussion and further thinking.

Additionally, I hope that my experience inspires others to pursue a Winston Churchill Memorial Fellowship and I encourage everyone to consider this unique opportunity.