Protesters oppose dairy expansion
Police yesterday arrested 12 protesters demonstrating against a large dairy farm development in the Mackenzie Country.
Sergeant Mike van der Heyden, of Temuka, said the activists were asked to leave the property but refused.
One of the protesters would not walk from the property so had to be dragged away by officers.
Police used bolt cutters and a portable disc grinder to cut the protesters free from the machinery they were chained to since early yesterday morning.
A police spokeswoman said the protesters were taken to Timaru Police Station and charges were likely to be laid.
Acting Mid-South Canterbury police area commander Inspector Natasha Rodley said officers tried to negotiate with the protesters.
The Simons Pass property, just south of Lake Pukaki, is said to be the home of a variety of native flora and fauna, including the endangered black stilt (native kak¯ı), of which there are only about 100 left.
Greenpeace sustainable agriculture campaigner Gen Toop said ‘‘for the sake of the Mackenzie and our rivers, industrial dairy expansion has to stop’’.
However, the property’s Crown leaseholder, Murray Valentine, said 40 per cent of the land on the proposed dairy farm was being set aside for conservation.
Valentine said they were at the end of a process which started in 2004. ‘‘We’ve seen a lot of legal hearings and all sorts of things that have gone on – all public – to get to where we’ve got to.’’