Let’s lead by this coal mine’s example
Murray Chapman and Peter Watson’s letters about environmental damage from pine trees are very worrying. The forestry industry, like farming, must take responsibility for the pollution it is causing. It must clean up the mess it is creating, especially wilding pines.
My demands are reasonable. Recently, I visited the Stockton opencast coal mine near Westport, and took the accompanying photo. The native flora in the foreground is not there by accident. It was planted by the new owners, Bathurst Resources, trying to repair years of neglect by state-owned Solid Energy.
Stockton is an example of what can be achieved with competent and conscientious management.
I hope for all our sakes that Marlborough’s forestry industry can follow the Bathurst example before our beautiful province is even more polluted. scattered, often by OSPRI, on the pretence that possums spread bovine TB among cattle. Marlborough is free of TB except for Molesworth Station, publicly owned and ‘‘managed’’ by the Department of Conservation. It’s ironic the only Marlborough farm with TB is the Docmanaged Molesworth. Molesworth’s open country is poor possum habitat, holding low possum numbers. Yet
OSPRI, okayed by DOC, dowsed Molesworth with 1080, killing deer and, no doubt, birds.
On the Wairau’s Northbank, in 2009, 1080 was aerially dropped over large areas, after OSPRI and DOC claimed possums introduced TB to the area. The real reason was bovine TB was introduced by transportation of Tb-infected cattle from Inangahua (West Coast) and Clarence Reserve.
1080 has been devastating on native birds, and also game bird species such as quail and chukar (Himalayan partridge). Why is Fish and Game silent on 1080?
1080 was invented in 1926 as an insecticide but shortsightedly became a ‘‘pest’’ poison. It kills insects, vitally important for pollination and as food for insectivorous birds
(such as robins and fantails). It’s an ecosystem poison.
DOC and OSPRI commission scientists to do ‘‘paid’’ science, putting scientists in the awkward position of not ‘‘biting the hand that feeds them’’. Two retired US scientists, Pat and Quinn Whiting-o’keefe, analysed DOC’S paid, commissioned science and said ‘‘1080 is toxic to all animals (killing) large numbers of native species of birds, invertebrates and bats’’.