Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Fish & Game strops Environment Southland
Here, in a series of images necessitated by the lack of on-line cover for The Southland Times' Opinion pieces, is today's expose by Bryce Johnson.
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13 comments:
The next step is for Regional Councils to be able to control land use. In Southland, as elsewhere, limits are being reached in the environments ability to absorb pollution.
Good on Bryce Johnson, he and F&G have done a lot of good work for rivers over the years.
The problem with the process of all the parties sitting down & talking, is the expectation of compromise, of gaining middle ground. We can not compromise the environment anymore.
Greed always seems to win out over The Commons.
That's it Jonesy!
Your first sentence sends shivers of fear mixed with stubborn rage, down the backbones of our land owners. Don't expect the farmer-friendly Government to show some spine here though, they want the farmers' vote come November. The water ways in the meantime, just receive those blessings.
Bobby, thanks for posting this, it is indeed telling, Bryce is not known for pulling his punches re water quality and here is no exception.
In fact it is articles in the Fish & Game mag that I receive that woke me up, or at least made me more aware of the issue of dirty dairying.
Some do not like F&G due to their pro hunting, and fishing stance, but they are a real voice for the freedoms of citizens, their recent articles inregard to access to fishing etc are also an eye opener.
I get around various regions on my travels and I know that some councils are stronger and more proactive than others.
Some dairy farmers (generally older more established dairying families) take their responsibilities as citizens seriously, by the fencing of streams and planting of borders etc. It seems to be the larger newer players in the game that are running roughshod.
I feel for the Waituna, in the sense of it's too bloody late now, without some real strong political will.
Yes.
I see that Michael Faye is heading a consortium to buy the 16 Crafar farms.
Well at least we will know who to pressure to get the farms to change their ways of waste management.
As they say, the best way to make the perfect whitebait fritter is to fence and plant.
Ha!
12 years ago I won a kilo of whitebait in a raffle and turned it down, because accepting it was incongruous with my work developing a wetland for their protection.
The others in the room thought I was a fool. Except for the person who took the prize in my stead :-)
Akshully, given that I am involved in making whitebait sustainable, I ought to have taken them :-)
Perhaps.
It's here for reading online as a PDF
http://kvisit.com/Sg6LAAQ
Your pdf is much better than my bits and pieces Kylie. I'll use your in future.
After looking at all the information about Waituna lagoon It would be interesting to limit artificial nitrogen on farms As the deteriation of waituna escalated from 2007. farmers having the promise of a higher payout simply applied more urea Fonterra through dairy nz have been actively promoting bag nitrogen and saying very little about how their farming advice reduces clover content hence the need for nitrogen applications. The reality is very little is heard of clover fixation which is a dirty word to fertilizer companies
That's very interesting Anonymous. Talk of capping nitrate inputs is 'dirty talk' and mustn't be heard, it seems.
The ES scientists say nitrate levels entering the lagoon need to immediately fall by 50%. Farmers have greeted that news with horror. Same for phosphates. Same horrified reaction.
Dairynz, scientists and farmers are quite ignorant about nitrogen use Excess free nitrogen in soil(result of artificial application)tends to displace other free nutrients in certain soil types Where many experiments are on going at Lincoln there is very little displacement because of soil type The waituna catchments very hard clay soils with no natural drainage (Hence many tile drains)or peat soils(very leachable)poses the problem Most of the problem in waituna is overuse of nitrogen and sediment You only have 3 streams going into Waituna. Currans creek only has 1 dairy farm (and they have consent problems) it would be interesting to compare streams going into Waituna. So I think Waituna is very solvable nitrogen cap 50units of n /hectare
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