|
Mountaineering is a leisure activity that consumes private property of the climbers. Reasons for the occurrence of mountain accidents in Taiwan are mostly human factors that climbers themselves do not attach importance to climbing safety and do not make full preparation before climbing. On the other hand, the costs of mountain search and rescue are fully borne by the Government, which reduces the risk cost of climbers’ mountain accidents and leads to frequent unfortunate events. However, the search and rescue costs of unexpected disasters happened through personal consumption of private property are borne by all taxpayers, both unreasonable and unfair. Due to issues like climbers’ overuse of mountain rescue resources, lack of funding for mountain search and rescue equipment updates as well as lack of search and rescue personnel training, this study suggests under inference and analysis by game theory that climbers should pay reasonable fees if they want to have a sound mountain rescue service. “User pays” approach should be adopted to cover the necessary expenses for mountain search and rescue, to train search and rescue personnel about searching techniques, and to be used as funding sources of updating mountain search and rescue equipment. On the other hand, climbers can be urged to make adequate preparation before climbing to ensure their own safety, reduce the possibility of mountain accidents, and curb the abuse of mountain search and rescue resources. For the unfortunate climbers suffering from mountain accidents, there will be rescue organizations with more sophisticated mountain search and rescue techniques, which can significantly improve the success rate of mountain rescue and achieve a more efficient use of mountain rescue resources. This study suggests that in order to effectively use mountain search and rescue resources, “user pays” approach should be adopted on climbers who use mountain rescue services. The fees can be used as the financial resources of rescue costs to cover search and rescue personnel’s salaries, to update and maintain soft and hard mountain rescue equipment, to provide supplies and medical aid, and to train search and rescue personnel.
|