TATTY COLLECTION
Whether it’s fair or not, who would mind paying $15 a year if it meant acquiring some new books to replace the ancient and tatty collection we have at present? I was surprised the Minster of Conservation could even hold a straight face while pretending the Government cared about rata and pohutukawa at a press conference regarding the myrtle rust outbreak and the devastating impact it could have on these beautiful vines and trees. Already up and down the rugged Northland coastline you can see the skeletons of dead and dying pohutukawa ravaged by possums. It’s the naked truth for everyone to see. Deep in the forest rata have been decimated and the critically endangered white flowering Bartlett’s rata that only grows near Cape Reinga has gone from 34 trees to just 12 left in the wild. Possums here are in plague proportions, and even from satellite imagery you can see the carnage of dead trees. DOC has been stripped of over $50 million each year, and the forests are dying for it. What really annoys me, is it could be so good. It’s a great feeling to save a forest. We have the
best most diverse forests in the country that should be full of native birds.