The rise of "pointless" rock stacks are angering some in the bushwalking community, who believe they impinge on the natural environment and can lead hikers astray.

Rock stacks are a familiar site in wilderness areas the world over, but their presence for aesthetic purposes and artistic social media photos is becoming controversial.

Known as cairns, they date back to the Bronze Age, when large rock stacks were constructed and used for burials.

Large cairns have also been built on top of mountains for surveying purposes or as memorials.

In modern times, smaller cairns have been used as landmarks for navigational purposes by bushwalkers when there's no obvious track to follow.

Instagram rock stacks 'disrespectful'

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But social media is influencing their use, with people making their own stacks for Instagram photos.

Some wilderness groups are campaigning against what they call disrespectful cairns, and avid bushwalkers have reported knocking them down.

They say moving rocks can disturb wildlife habitats and also goes against the leave-no-trace principle.

Landscape photographer Nick Monk said cairns were an accepted and historic part of the landscape in nature and were still used to mark paths.

"The building of new cairns is actively discouraged in parks and reserves in Tasmania, and indeed in lots of places around the world," he told Lucie Cutting on ABC Radio Hobart.

He said rock stacks were popping up in natural areas around the world for purely aesthetic purposes.

"Rock stacks are not cairns in the traditional sense of marking a way, except maybe to mark that someone has been there and decided they needed to build a stack to show they were there," he said.

"I don't call those stacks cairns, I just call them rock stacks, and their main purpose is simply for aesthetics."

Mr Monk said people visited parks and reserves to remove themselves from human influence.

"By putting in stacks of rocks you're immediately showing there's been a human presence," he said.

New cairns can confuse

He said he had knocked down inappropriate cairns, but warned that people should take care not to remove those which mark walking tracks.

"By building a stack where there's a cairned route, someone could follow the wrong stack that someone has put there for a pretty Instagram post."

Hobart Walking Club president Geoff O'Hara said he wasn't too fussed by the artistic stacks.

He said they were usually more ubiquitous in areas frequented by tourists rather than serious walkers and the difference could be spotted easily.

"A rock cairn used for bushwalking is just a few rocks thrown together marking a route and you can generally see the next one 50 metres ahead.

"They are usually only two to three rocks thrown together.

"The rock stacks don't really worry us."

Geoff O'Hara says walkers will go out of their way to visit cairns like this one on Proprietary Peak, south of Queenstown. ( Supplied: Dan Broun )

Mr O'Hara said the historic cairns were "spectacular".

"We'll climb a hill just to go up and look at a surveyor's cairn," he said.

Bushwalking guide Cody McCracken also said he wasn't fazed by them.

"People have been using them for a long time; if anything, they've possibly reduced in their frequency," he said.

"I guess there are more people bushwalking than ever so it's more obvious to the general public that these things are being created.

"I wouldn't personally create them, and in most instances I won't follow them as they can often lead you astray."