Enough said
Regarding Cr Mate Radich’s letter of February 28; I absolutely agree with his statement saying it is ridiculous the Sweetwater aquifer is being used for irrigation while Kaitaia people are drinking water from the Awanui River.
However, it therefore begs the question, Why are they? I think he means they should be drinking water from the Sweetwater aquifer as long as it’s not from the aquifer in his and Mayor Carter’s back yard so to speak. Anyway, I’ve said enough on that subject.
It was interesting to see MP Kelvin Davis announce funding to Te Hiku Water Solutions to investigate a water storage scheme to support high-value horticulture production. I can find no information about them, however, with the extensive avocado plantings on the Aupouri Peninsula and planned plantings on the Pamu/Landcorp blocks in the Sandhills Road area, there will be the need for immense volumes of water for irrigation, and the aquifer resources are not infinite.
Recently a Chilean visitor who saw the avocado plantations up here suggested I and a friend take a look at what avocado production had done in Chile. Anyone who may have an interest might like to google “avocados in Chile, stolen water”. Far too much there to mention here. Rivers and aquifers have dried up leaving the smaller avocado producers, villagers and farmers without water while largescale growers take all that’s left.
Huge areas of avocado trees have died or become non-productive for the lack of irrigation, and many farmers have had to leave their lands to seek employment or truck in water to survive, and now it seems desalination is the only means of a future water supply in some regions.
Apparently it takes 70 litres minimum of irrigated water to produce one avocado there, and I don’t how that stands up here. With the advent of more and more drought years on the horizon it is a timely warning of what the future could be here if we’re not cautious and careful about how much ground water can be extracted.
I F BURKE RD3 Kaitaia
and businesses you need to thank, because these events do not run by themselves.
Far North Community Hospice would like to say thank you to: Ngai Takoto board, DOC, REAP, Bells Produce, RRT team, Paparore School, local radio station/ Media Works, Denise Piper — Community House, Hunting and Fishing, St John, LJ Hooker, Far North Community Hospice volunteers, Peter Jackson — Northland Age.
A big thank you to the walkers, old and young, for supporting and helping us do this.
MARGARET TOLLADAY AND THE FAR NORTH COMMUNITY HOSPICE
TEAM
than 30 species, hundreds of huia killed in the 1880s by Maori hunters only too glad to sell them for cash, commercial extinction today of the rich muttonbird colonies, the recent extinction of the Eyrewell beetle by Ngai Tahu destroying its habitat for a dairy farm. Some kaitiatanga!
Too many tribes today have become rich from the success of fraudulent claims to the Waitangi Tribunal, Ngai Tahu being a flagrant case, as there is ample evidence to establish. And no tribe has a monopoly on compassion, generosity, care and protection today, whatever she may call them. BRUCE MOON
Nelson the settlements that tribes are getting today are a shadow of what they should be receiving is woefully misinformed.
4) Are Maori indigenous? By their own admission they drifted here from somewhere else.
5) Currently many tribal authorities are registered as charities and pay little or no tax. What tax they do pay is at 17.5 per cent, whereas non-Maori counterparts pay 33 per cent. Yet Murupaenga-Ikenn wants more racebased privilege in advocating for tribes to be exempt from capital gains tax?
A vast number of those who are classed as Maori have more European ancestry than Maori. It is high time New Zealand stopped pandering to this clamorous minority cult. GEOFF PARKER
Kamo