Our worst polluter left to grow
I’ve had a lot of feedback about the report in the paper regarding the toxic state of the estuary
Dairy farming (politically correctly referred to as intensive farming) occupies 55 per cent of the estuary drainage capture area.
This type of intensive farming has exploded since the 1990s.
There are too many dairy farms for our ecosystem (both water quality and atmospheric) to sustain.
So, how did we get to this position?
All farm conversions to dairy or dairy farm extensions require a consent via Environment Southland and its independent Land Use Commissioner panel.
Environment Southland is in the process of setting a new set of rules via a new plan (yet to be approved). While this may make it more robust to get a consent, new conversions or extensions will continue, but maybe at a lower rate. So, the number of dairy farms (and impact on the environment) will increase year on year.
The consents set the number of cows that can be farmed on any consented dairy farm.
What is not available, is the ability to restrict the number of dairy farms. So, that 55 per cent will increase.
There is only two ways that that 55 per cent will drop.
(i) the international milk powder price drops and stays low, forcing some dairy farms into liquidation (which I do not want to see) or
(ii) our government passes a new law stating there are to be no more dairy farms or increased herd numbers anywhere in NZ.
I will be long dead before that happens unfortunately.
Central Government is prepared to tackle the uncontrolled impacts of smoking, freedom campers, pokie machines, immigration levels, tahr numbers in the high country, animals on private sections, coal and old wood fires etc.
Yet the worst polluter is left to grow, in the name of our GDP and wealth it generates.
It is time to consider when enough is enough, if the cost is to be a loss of our environmental wealth.
A philosopher said a few years ago, future wars will be fought over clean water.
He is so right.
Nobby Clark Spokesperson Invercargill Ratepayers Advocacy Group
Abridged – Editor
1080 warfare
Warfare is good for business. And no more so than warfare on behalf of birds.
When the Department of Conservation declared the kea as the Bird of the Year it was clear it was imperiled.
With a helicopter pilot speaking out on the elimination of the kea in the Earl Mountains it only confirms what most already know. Predator Free 2050 is a failed 1080 war leaving its blood stained legacy – a trail of local extinctions and biodiversity deprivations in its wake.
Far from retreating in defeat DOC has declared 2019 as Year of the Mast.
An imperative as the following year is election year for this politically unpopular war.
It can then be scaled down with victory over whatever noxious pests they claim they are fighting. Only to have them re-emerge a year or two later.
What is there about 1080 logic that evades rationality?
D L Langer
Euthanasia
Maryan Street’s optimistic claim that the Seymour Bill will pass is based more on wishful thinking than on objective fact, with a rich vein of calculated spin running right through it.
Firstly, consider the way Street talks up the prevalence of legalisation. She would rather the reader did not know that fewer than 5 percent of jurisdictions worldwide have legalised euthanasia, and that the vast majority of such bills fail.
In 2015 the UK Parliament voted across all parties to overwhelmingly reject the legalisation of assisted dying. This barely rated a mention in our New Zealand media.
So much for Street’s words ‘‘the trend is clear and it will inevitably happen’’.
Regarding the likely result of a referendum, Street should not be so confident. Remember the flag referendum which was thought to be a no-brainer to succeed?
Add to this the fact it would share the platform with the equally-contentious issue of cannabis decriminalisation. Many New Zealanders are already wary of the pace of social engineering legislation and in the spirit of ‘‘enough is enough’’, simply vote ‘‘no’’ to both.
Finally, Street’s claim that the bill includes ‘‘strict criteria’’ is a wonderfully ironic punchline which would be funny if not so dangerous.
Stephen Francis