FROM THE EDITOR
Yeah, OK, I can just see some of our ‘stauncher’ brethren standing around those classic public bar ‘leaners,’ mouths open, lips flapping ten-to-the dozen about how “no bloody judge is going to stop me and my mates having fun!”
Which is exactly NOT the sort of result which the rest of us need if we are to continue to enjoy the odd mud plug.
The reason is simple. We’ve been ‘outed’ – by the sounds of it too, by one of our own. And bar doing what the New Zealand Four Wheel Drive Association (NZFWDA) and Valley 4WD Club have done – which is accept responsibility for their actions, plead guilty and take what I can only call a couple of unprecedentedly large fines on the chin – there’s little else to be done; for the moment anyway.
What am I talking about?
For the benefit of those of you who have been living under a rock (or out of cellphone and internet range deep in the South Island High Country more likely), for the past two to three months both the NZFWDA and member club the Valley 4WD Club were fined in the Wellington District Court late last year for offences arising from two charges relating to breaches of the Resource Management Act during the Deadwood Safari National Trial in November 2018.
The crime?
Damage to a tributary of the Mangaroa River and unconsented discharge of sediment into a river system.
The fines?
The Valley 4WD Club’s (levied in October last year) was a cool $ 60,000 plus costs.
The NZ4WDA’s (levied on December 12 2019) was $ 38,000… plus costs.
That, in a vernacular most readers of the mag will understand, is a ‘shit-ton’ of money, and you’d have to ask yourself, “Does the (draconian) punishment fit the (let’s get very real here, the miniscule, microscopic, even) shape and size of the ‘crime’?”
NZ4WD magazine columnist Peter Vahry has been vocal for a long time now about the responsibility all of us in the 4WD fraternity have for behaving responsibly and being extra careful when it comes to dislodging sediment and the effect that action has in discolouring otherwise pristinely clear water downstream.
However, in his column in this month’s mag, he compares and contrasts these latest (4WD) fines with those levied on other groups and organisations in other circumstances and indeed does find some (my words in this case) alarming disparities.
In saying that, now is not the time for threats, recriminations, etc. As Neville Dunton, NZFWDA President, said in a statement to members on behalf of the NZFWDA Executive Committee:
“The NZFWDA reminds every NZFWDA club and member, and indeed every person who drives off-road, that they must comply with Regional and District Council rules pertaining to water bodies, streams and rivers as well as to the wider environment.“
The bottom line?
We have been warned. And the ball is now firmly in our court. We can run around like spoiled little brats and pout ‘But it’s not FAIR, I SHOULD be able to do anything I want to…“or we can swap out our nappies for a pair of big boy pants and accept that sometimes we have to make the odd concession as individuals for the greater good!