This thesis addresses the critical issue of balancing conservation needs with economic goals in the context of mass tourism, with a focus on New Zealand's national parks. It investigates the lack of adaptive structural change in park management despite pressing concerns of potential environmental degradation. The National Parks Act 1980 remains the guiding policy, with limited scholarly recommendations incorporated into plans. The research uncovers that the reluctance or inability to reform stems from cultural factors and an absence of continuous policy reform processes.
In bridging this gap, the thesis introduces the concept of externalities to analyze national park governance, revealing the marginalized role of stakeholders due to the prevailing park policy. Over-tourism emerges not only from high visitor volumes but also from this exclusion, leading to a disconnect between top-down management strategies and the park's dynamic needs. Stakeholders then self-organize in response to policy and market demands, contributing to overuse and over-tourism.
New Zealand's cultural influences play a significant part in managing the 'backcountry,' with primary policy documents treating national parks as largely inaccessible to mass tourism, pushing the tourist industry beyond park borders. Lessons from nations that have adopted environmental governance could provide valuable insights for New Zealand, whose discussions on the subject are lacking.
The thesis aims to explore over-tourism arising from inflexible management practices and the lack of environmental governance policies tailored to mass-market tourism, focusing on Tongariro National Park as a case study. It examines the role of externalities, marginalized users, and stakeholders in the current management plan, while also demonstrating the emergence of a large tourism sector outside the national park’s control.
Finally, it proposes a 'frontcountry' framework that incorporates externalities into governance, integrating previously excluded stakeholders for a positive impact on addressing over-tourism issues. Although largely based on literature and policy analysis due to Covid-19 restrictions, this research aims to illuminate the causes of over-tourism in New Zealand's national parks and propose sustainable solutions by developing a framework that ensures stakeholder inclusion and considers externalities in park management.

1. Background and Research Goals 1
1.1 Background 1
1.2 Research Motivations 3
1.3 Research Aims 4
1.4 Research Limitations 5
2. Literature Review 7
2.1 New Zealand’s National Parks and Management Mechanisms 7
2.2 The Backcountry 8
2.3 Environmental Challenges in New Zealand’s Nature Tourism 10
2.4 Economic Motivations in New Zealand’s Nature Tourism 11
2.5 Externalities 12
2.6 Environmental Governance 13
3. Tongariro National Park 15
3.1 Geography of the Park 15
3.2 Management Structure of the Park 16
3.3 Economics of the Park 18
3.4 Socio-Economics of the TNP region 19
3.5 Maori Co-Management Rights 21
4. Analysis of Externalities 23
4.1 TNP’s Policy Oriented Externalities 23
4.2 TNP’s Problem Oriented Externalities 26
4.3 Solving Externalities Using Environmental Governance 29
5. The ‘Frontcountry’ Framework 31
5.1 Frontcountry Model 31
5.2 The Frontcountry Model in Tongariro National Park 32
6. Discussion 35
7. Conclusion 37
References 39

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