The Yangshuo Access Initiative is still not formally established so I will use this forum to communicate my thoughts on crag access issues in Yangshuo. Presently, guiding companies are competing to secure for themselves long-term leases to the base of Wine Bottle and a few other popular crags. Guiding companies are commercial entities out to make profits; their guiding businesses have never been profitable enough to afford anything near a stabile lifestyle and many of the owners have been trying to improve the situation. Fair enough.
One potential way for them to earn more money is to acquire rights to use a crag and then to monopolize access and to charge fees to anyone who climbs there. If they have a legal claim to using the land exclusively, these claims could be protected by the courts and ultimately by the police. Most laws in western societies are exactly that, they protect property rights. Property rights were obtained for Golden Cat Cave and quite a few people believe it has been turned into a gold mine for the guiding company that operates there. Thus, the race might be on to acquire the rights to other popular areas: Wine Bottle, Thumb Peak and White Mountain have all been mentioned in my discussions.
If this is the future pattern, we can expect the villagers near the other crags will also want to lease the land-use-rights to their crags; it may become the norm both in Yanghsuo and in other parts of China. If this is the way things are going, I do not think the climbers, even if we all band together, can stop it. I do not see the government getting involved in the issue on the climbing community's side. I am proposing that the YAI actively get involved in the process and try to secure the leases to the crags and to ensure that these leases will be upheld in a court of law.
Up till now, we have not really tried to grapple with this access issue because we were not forced to. That might be changing. The YAI will represent independent climbers in crag access issues and it is our goal to open access to all independent climbers. Guiding companies may want to use some of the crags to make money and I think this is acceptable as long as there is an understanding that the rights of independent climbers come first. In fact, I imagine the guiding companies will want to become members of the YAI. I need some feedback on this so your comments are welcome. I could also use some support in getting a website off the ground. Thanks, BK
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