A paper road is a road that is legally established and recorded in survey plans - but which hasn't necessarily been pegged out. Paper roads often border or cut across private land. They can be key points of entry to nationally treasured resources (forests, parks, rivers, coastlines, and lakes).
The current debate about public access to the great outdoors (see Accessing the outdoors) has put paper roads in the spotlight. Some landowners are concerned that greater use of paper roads will lead to a loss of privacy - with an increase in rubbish, erosion, and injury to livestock on adjoining private land.
These concerns have led some landowners to block public access completely, which is illegal.
Why are they there?
The majority of paper roads were established in the early days of settlement - in particular, in the period of provincial government (1854 to 1876). Before a piece of Crown land was sold into private hands, surveyors marked out a road to border or cross the property. The demand for land exceeded the availability of surveyors so - rather than stall the settlement of New Zealand - roads were drawn directly on to survey plans. These "paper roads" are legal roads, but many have never been built.
Unformed roads were also traced alongside waterways (the coast, rivers and lakes).
Paper roads like these were meant to provide for future access to natural resources set aside for public use. "Road" was just a useful name for publicly reserved land; no one really intended to build these paper roads.
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