Trampling plants, damaging rock art, risking your life: taking selfies in nature has a cost

• Driven by social media algorithms, many of us now flock to natural places for the best selfie background.
• But what happens when our pursuit of the perfect selfie starts damaging nature – or even ourselves?
• Many people have been severely injured or killed by taking risky selfies and photos in dangerous locations.
• As our new research has found, Australia’s land managers are often at their wit’s end trying to keep people safe in nature.

Selfies make a new brand of tourist

• As one land manager told us:
  We noticed a massive increase in the number of people, and the kind of visitor that we were getting.
• We’re getting a lot more people who are maybe urban based, didn’t spend a lot of time in national parks, weren’t particularly familiar with the concept of bushwalking Land managers told us these new kinds of tourist were motivated to seek out photos and selfies.
• The problem was, many were willing to ignore warning signs or bans on drones to get their photos.
• People definitely, more so now than ever, I think, are coming for the photo.
• They’re not coming for a bushwalk and to look around at the trees and to experience nature.

Safe selfies?

• Perhaps the thorniest challenge for land managers is accommodating increased interest while keeping people safe.
• As one land manager told us:
  They want to get a photo without a fence in it.
• Look at me with my toes over the edge of the crumbly sandstone cliff.
• Nature-based content on platforms like Instagram and TikTok often performs very well, giving other would-be influencers the incentive to seek out new locations.

What can we do?

• As a result, there’s an urgent need to communicate risk and safety information in novel ways which resonate.
• The tools land managers have are often preventive – barriers, boardwalks and signs, coupled with punitive measures such as fines.
• Better risk communication, as New South Wales authorities are doing with time-sensitive risk warnings for Figure Eight Pools, may help.
• He is affiliated with Surf Life Saving Australia and Surf Life Saving NSW.