Heed Gluckman’s water report

Sir Peter Gluckman’s report on the health of our freshwater is comprehensive and drawn from several scientific sources. It follows a similar OECD report last month.

Eight years earlier an article was published in this paper that examined farming trends and practices and recommended a farming strategy to meet climate change and freshwater degradation.

A comprehensive submission was made to the then minister of agriculture with a recommendation for diversification and changes in farming methods, especially near water.

The minister denied the need for such a strategy. Since then, we have seen countless dairy conversions in Canterbury on largely unsuitable land and the plundering of our water for intensive irrigation.

Chickens are now coming home to roost.

It is time for a new strategy and new vision in Government. Terry Huggins Geraldine

Enough of more

Gluckman’s report rightly lays the blame for the degradation of NZ’s waterways on human activity – not irrigation or dairy farming – but all human activity. Irrigation and dairy farming are bit players.

Much has been written about the state of the Selwyn River. The population of the Selwyn district has increased from 33,642 in 2006 to 56,200 in 2016 – perhaps this increase goes some way to explaining the present situation.

Gluckman questions the efficacy of NZ’s capitalist economic model, which relies on the concept of ‘‘more’’. Recent Press headlines, ‘‘More police’’ and ‘‘Lyttleton expands’’ are examples.

Perhaps it is time to consider the concept of ‘‘enough’’. WD Wrigley Leeston