Keep your cows out of our creeks!

GREENS CALL FOR STANDARD FOR STOCK EXCLUSION FROM RIVERS

The Green Party is calling for mandatory stock exclusion from rivers within five years, in light of a voluntary scheme launched by Greater Wellington Regional Council yesterday.

"No one has a right to degrade our public waterways in the pursuit of private profit," said Green Party Co-leader Dr Russel Norman.

"Voluntary measures are great, but insufficient. We need regulation to ensure that /all/ farmers prevent stock from accessing our rivers where they cause immense damage."

Dr Norman was responding to /A Guide to Managing Stock Access to Waterways in the Wellington Region/, launched yesterday by Greater Wellington Regional Council in partnership with industry groups. The guide was purely informational and did not cite regulation.

"Our waterways belong to all New Zealanders. It should not be up to farmers to decide whether to protect them. There is no excuse for allowing stock to erode our riverbanks and defecate in our waterways," said Dr Norman.

"The documentary /River Dog/ has highlighted the problem of stock in waterways in the Wellington region, however, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The problem is nationwide. Yet many councils, including Greater Wellington Regional Council, continue to rely on voluntary measures to address the problem.

"Voluntary and information campaigns are great, but they need to be backed up by mandatory minimum standards that are enforced.

"No one would suggest we rely solely on TV advertisements to keep people from drink driving, yet that is the approach we are taking to protecting our rivers from the degradation caused by stock access."

The Green Party recently released a plan to make New Zealand rivers and lakes clean enough to swim in again. One element of this plan was to implement nationwide standard which would exclude stock from all waterways within 5 years. The Greens would also assist farmers with the cost of excluding stock from waterways by creating a fund of 100 million dollars a year for five years. This would be used to match farmers dollar for dollar for their fencing and planting expenditure.

"Excluding stock from waterways has been shown to significantly improve water quality within three years," Dr Norman said.

Our Men in Black are cheats!

"The All Blacks cheat in spades. Half of their tries in the Tri- Nations have been set up by blatant cheating"

Mark Reason writes a very interesting column in today's various papers, revealing that the All Blacks cheat as a matter of course and describing how, when and when they employ cheating as a way to win their games. As someone who doesn't usually read commentary on the rugby at any level, Reason's article was a bit of an eye opener. I wonder how his revelations will go down with die-hard sports fans like Inventory 2 and his rugby-mad followers.

Here's the link.

Have you been wondering why it snowed?

Even Auckland copped a flurry or two. Odd. Climate change is responsible for the cold blast that swept the country and we in turn for that change.
From the comments on a Standard post, Macro explains it well:

Macro …

30 August 2011 at 5:21 pm

And you know why grumpy?
“The severe southerly outbreak this week is also being blamed on changes in the polar vortex – the ring of westerly winds encircling the Antarctic.
The Southern Annular Mode (Sam), which measures the strength of the vortex, has been strongly negative this month. That means the westerlies are weaker than normal, allowing polar air to break out and head north towards New Zealand. ”
And what might have caused this??
Well:
to quote Dr James Renwick who is the expert on this..
“National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research principal climate scientist James Renwick said the Sam was likely to remain negative for the rest of the month before flipping to positive values in September.
“It is very strongly negative right now. [Air] pressures are high at high latitudes, with ridges of high pressure extending towards South America, east of South Africa and towards Hobart, but we have very much lower than normal pressures to the east across the central Pacific,” he said. “So we end up with this big southerly flow, and with this pattern I would expect we would see more of these big highs at high latitudes to the west. That means more southerlies … are on the cards.”
You see these big highs that come across from Australia have to form somewhere and you know what? Yeah! They are the result of a warming world – just as the large depressions are a result of a warming world. That air that raced directly down to Antarctica wasn’t cold on its way down. And to quote the 2nd law of thermodynamics “Heat never flows from a colder to a hotter” so, It lost heat – to Antarctica – and gained heat in NZ dropping snow in Auckland.
Changes in the SAM – it’s part of that which is generically called “Climate Change”.

Oil men on the make

NoRightTurn has a post on the just-released National Energy Strategy [PDF] about which I/S says,

"While the government has switched the ordering of the goals, so that it no longer puts finding oil first and the environment last, it has also put a much greater emphasis on its quest for oil, with an extended preface about how important oil is, and the simultaneous release of a report on how much money the government could make out of it."

So he's far, far from impressed and his comments make me think of the recent attention we have been receiving from the Oil industry down here in Southland, with articles and letters from the heads of the potential drilling companies, some of which I've covered here. Leaving the Energy Strategy for a moment, I'll post two letters from today's Southland Times that were penned, I presume, in response to the statements of the Oil Men earlier in the week.
'We can't afford an oil disaster'
The over-riding message from Shell NZ's chairman Rob Jager is that production in the Great South Basin won't be starting for some time, so people shouldn't be worried (August 24).
  But BP's Deepwater Horizon was an exploratory rather than a production rig, and that disaster has so far cost US $24 billion to try (unsuccessfully) to undo the damage done by the millions of barrels that poured into the Gulf of Mexico.
  This country's clean and green reputation would be lost forever well before a similar spill was plugged, or had simply run its course - 6000 ships were involved in the gulf cleanup. We would never muster anything like that number here.
  Mr Jager also claims that Shell is "committed to minimising any potential effect on the environment" - a laughable assertion, comming as it does from an oil company.
  The world is frighteningly close to a state of runaway climate change, and going to extreme lengths to get at new supplies of fossil fuels - including Southland's lignite, an extraordinarily dirty and inneficient source of energy - will only bring us closer to that point.
  The handouts the oil industry currently gets from the Government should go instead to helping New Zealand  enter into the global clean technology race. Already, more money is being invested around the world on renewable energy generation, than is invested on fossil fuels.
  Southland, which has a wealth of renewable energy options, is well placed to capitalize on that.
  If we do not act now, New Zealand will miss out on our best opportunity yet to secure true prosperity for ourselves, and those generations to come.
SIMON BOXER
Climate Campaigner
Greenpeace NZ


Safety isn't certain

Shell NZ's chairman is being extremely disingenouos when he likens the sort of oil drilling that his company wants to carry out off the bottom of the South Island, to Taranaki's inshore oil and gas industry (Letters, Wednesday)
  The deepest well off Taranaki is under 330 metres of water, and most are under less than 150 metres.
  Shell's permits in the Great South Basin cover a seabed as deep as 1700 metres.
  Given that a diver cannot descend below 200 metres to fix a gushing wellhead, there's no comparison between an inshore Taranaki well and a deep-sea oil well.
  Mr Jager's management patter about 'modular systems' and 'multi-layered' control systems is also pretty hollow, when you consider that as he is boasting about his company's plans, and of its dedication to the environment, one of his company's oil rigs is leaking oil into the North Sea. It took Shell 9 days to stop that leak.
  That's despite the North Sea rig being in just 95 metres of water. The deeper the water, the harder it is to stop a spill: the oil gushed from BP's Deepwater Horizon wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico (which was under 1500 metres of water) for four months until it was brought under control.
  It is standard procedure for the oil industry to promise high safety standards before an accident, but then deliver weak excuses when things go wrong.
  In the case of the spill in the North Sea, one of Shell's technical directors is quoted as saying: "It has proved difficult to find the exact source of the leak because we are dealing with a complex subsea infrastructure and the leak seems to be coming from an awkward place surrounded by maritime growth."
  I would imagine that a similarly bizzare excuse would sound pretty chilling if crude oil was washing up on Stewart Island's beaches for instance.
JAY HARKNESS
Auckland
 

Right-leaning Green

Paddy Lewis posts this great photo of Gareth Hughes, Green hit-man, and his wonky conk, earned in a scrap with the Diplomatic Corps. I like a devil-may-care Green and Gareth's bent snout shows that he's no cream puff and will mix it up when there's a need for mixin'.
Paddy has the details of the deviated hooter and how it was massaged into it's new orientation in the sports section of his sporty blog Credo Quia Absurdum Est (what sort of poncey, interlectual name is that anyway - thought Paddy was a hardman?)

Today's vista

The estuary and the sky look like this today.
Rain threatens.

Cheers!

Tide's out but it's still there!
(It glows at night!)

The old Pie House

This poor old house is decaying fast, due to the owners fiscal situation and it's kinda sad, given that it's a land-mark of sorts for the town. Sitting on the corner opposite the high school, this once neat and well painted house served as the 'pie-house' where students could go of a lunch time, and buy a pie, probably one of the town's own Hopgood Specials.
Those days are long gone and so, by the looks of it, will be the pie house.

Fictitious advertising

This car pulled into the high school car park just as I did and I noticed it straight away. That's got to be the mark of good advertising. I'll check out their website later today.

Robert Muldoon had it right, ok?

Some thoughtful bloke is asking us to think of Muldoon as being a wiser man than many would give him credit for.
What do you think?

Darkhorse writes:
Interestingly enough it is the compulsory super schemes that are at the root of all of this – they take money from Joe Average and give it to a bunch of people who have to make a substantial return on it – this has generated vast capital flows that live in the speculative realm and fuel the Ponzi scheme. I read a commentator in the US recently who has finally twigged that when the Boomers cash up their savings there will be a huge capital draw down and a resultant loss of value as the number of buyers in the capital markets of the future will be far fewer than the number of sellers – and also they will be much poorer thanks to the boomer generation filling the world full of debt that our kids will have to pay back (if the system doesn’t collapse first).

It doesn’t matter whether we fund our superannuation from taxes or capital returns in the end the same bunch (our kids) have to pay the cost either through increased taxes or increased prices. Taxes are likely to be both safer and more efficient. We should instead have been investing in infrastructure that would grow our economy but we spent the past three decades borrowing agianst it instead and spending up large.

Helen C and Michael Cullen actually did more to get NZer’s into debt by allowing

unfettered inflation of the property market etc than Muldoon did. At least Muldoon left us with a whole lot of useful infrastructure. Muldoon was the last Prime Minister to leave a legacy we would actually miss if it was to disappear. Imagine NZ without the Waitaki Power Scheme and without Manapouri and the Clyde Dam and the many other energy infrastructure assets built during that time. Muldoon did some awful things and some really stupid stuff too and he surrounded himself with dimwits and worse but he was the last prime minister we had who actually did anything useful as leader of the country. He just wasn’t good at organising it or selling it to the people of NZ.

We canned him for the failures in his process but in doing so overlooked the logicin his purpose. We have had as a result nearly thirty years of government that is afraid of governing and who have left it to the “markets” to decide – and that is as responsible as a ships captain letting the wheel go and blowing before the wind – with the same end result – we end up on the rocks.

Muldoon actually foresaw what is now occurring – he was just thirty years early – and was primarily spiked by the Americans de-stabilsing the oil market by fostering an over supply that produced a twenty year glut of cheap energy. If oil had stayed at around $30 per barrel in 1980 dollars (which is where it should have been) all of those investments he made would have seemed very far sighted. They will be yet.

Darkhorse

But what if there is a spill!

I've asked Shell's chairman Robert Jager, "What will Shell do if there's a leak from their rig in the Great South Basin?"
By way of reply, Mr Jager waxed lyrical about his splendid company and the benefits they would bring to New Zealand, but neglected to answer my question.
I asked it again a week later, in the 'letters' column of the Southland Times.
In response, the enigmatically named John Pfahlert, Executive Officer Petroleum Exploration and production Association wrote:
"Your correspondent Robert Guyton (August 26) seeks an absolute assurance the Great South basin drilling will not result in a spill along the Southland coast. 
  Such certainty is rarely achievable in any aspect of human endeavour.
  However, he has sought details on practical steps which the industry would take to prevent an accident, and I can help him there."
Mr Pfahlert goes on to direct me and any readers interested, to a website which has information about the prevention of blowouts and other accidents that might beset an oil rig.
But still he failed to answer my question, as Mr Jager before him had also failed to do.
I'm asking Mr Jager and Mr Pfahlert,
WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF THERE WAS A SPILL?

Perhaps I need to write a third letter.

A cast (of thousands)

This latest in my series of images of poo, comes from some worm.

Sofa so good (it's out there!)

Strange extrudence

Odd goop on gorse log.

Tooth and claw

Across Southland the mallards are nesting. Unless you look though, you'll not notice them, so secretive are they and so well camouflaged their nests. This one was in the middle of our West Plains orchard, amongst the cock'sfoot grasses. The stoat that ate every one of the eggs wasn't fooled though.

Farmers get snotty.

It was like reading a manuscript from the Dark Ages, when witches were burned and blood-letting used to cure every ailment. The Southland Times article entitled "Farmers vow to snub regional council over Waituna solution"  left me aghast.
Surely it couldn't be true - that the farmers who met behind closed doors to beat out a response to the situation they find themselves in over a dying lagoon at the bottom of their catchment came up with: "ES has shown it has no forward thinking, and no planning ability, in relation to both farming in the catchment and also the state of Waituna" as spouted by the spokesperson for the grumbling farmers, following the meeting. It's been a long time since I've read such reactionary, ill-informed foolishness as that statement from spokesperson Crack! She goes on:
"They said right from the start they want to point the finger. But it's not farmers who are charged with looking after the state of the region's waterways."
The Southland Times would have been better to have interviewed a fence post.
"This is a big backward step" said ES chairman Ali Timms. For once I agree unreservedly with her.
* The whisper is that Ms Crack was 'badly misquoted' in the article. That would explain a lot, if true. I await further developments.

Another Phil Ure classic!

Phil on dairy cows and their p*ssing, sh*tting ways

"the real freedom campers"

Booyah!

The Hollow Men

Just watched the film on Maori Television.
The stench of rotten politics clung to this story of the National Party's cynical and calculating power grab that lead to the situation we find ourselves in now.
Great film-making, sad tale. The sight of Georgina Te Heuheu and Katherine Rich getting dealt-to by the National Old Boys machine was perhaps the most stomach churning aspect of what went down, but I've a particular interest in the Brethren connection, so glibly denied by Brash and Key - straight to camera, cold-eyed lying.
Nothing has changed and now we've another election just ahead.
Trust the polls do you?
And Key?
Brownlee? Collins? Joyce? Bennett? English?
I've a bridge...

The Catlins coast is famous, we are told, for its lonely beaches all laid about with sealions and elephant seals and it's intact coastal forests.
That may be so, but it sure depends on where you look and how you squint your eyes. As I drove through today, under blue skies, taking the time to stop for a closer look than streaking through offers I found that it wasn't all pretty by any means. I looked at farmland, green and rolling and wondered about the story behind it. And I saw this:

It all looked like New Zealand in the colonial days when the land was being broken-in. I guess in the Catlins still is. In some paddocks, a tree or two had been left, probably as shelter for the livestock. This is just as poignant to me, as I know that this tree (below) is not going to reproduce, in that paddock at least, and its days are numbered, due to the effects of trampling by hooves.
So that's the Catlins, quite raw and, like the West Coast, very sobering for someone who likes forest.

Owaka workshop

I'm about to leave for Owaka, about 2 hours away, where I'm running a workshop on pruning and delivering a score of grafted apple trees back into the district for the purpose of adoption. The venue for the workshop is Earthlore in Hinahina Road. The two permaculturalists who are developing Earthlore have a charcoal kiln that I'll be taking a close look at.

I'm taking my camera with me, and Geoff and we have time to stop and shoot. The weather is fine and we have a map. Should be without incident :-)
Calling in at Otahuti, Wyndham and Tokonui as we go, to deliver and collect trees of various sorts.

How deep is Key?

Paddling


Pool

Valuable old books

ArchDruid Michael John Greer, blogged recently about the value of owning old children's books, or rather, children's books written and published more than 20 years ago. His reasons for promoting those works are fascinating and can be read here. I took note, though I've already collected a lot of the kinds of books he describes and have a book shelf stuffed with marvelous 'old-fashioned' books that I read from if called upon to teach younger children.
Yesterday, I bought another, from a second-hand shop of the sort I like to pop into in search of my next necktie or woven basket, real-steel hoe or spoke-shave. I found a copy of Olga Marshall's "The Fringes of the Sea". I'd never heard of it, but it's cover-art was gorgeous. The inside pages feature nudibrachs, sumptuously hand-drawn and coloured.

Inside the book, I read about many wondrous things and one of the most fascinating was a little crab called 'melia'.
"Melia live on coral reefs and arms itself with two anemones, one in each pincer. It uses these anemones as 'guns' when it is in danger. Few of it's enemies come withing striking distance of these formidable weapons." writes Olga. Though I don't believe that what she's says about melia is true, I enjoy the mythology and atmosphere of her writing and would have loved it as a boy. I'll be more than happy to give this book to my grandchildren when they appear of the scene.
Here is the little crab in question.

Save the lake - properly

AMBULANCE AT TE WAIHORA LAKESIDE BETTER THAN NO AMBULANCE AT ALL 

Russel makes some very pertinent points with this press release. 

The Green Party is welcoming the Government's announcement to clean up Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere but is asking how the proposal will be effective in light of the proposed dramatic expansion of intensive irrigated dairying in the catchment of the lake.

"It is great that there is a plan to clean up Te Waihora and there is a lot in the plan I agree with. However, the measures will not succeed if the Government continues to allow an increase in pollution flowing into the lake," said Green Party Co-leader Dr Russel Norman.

Canterbury's Te Waihora is the country's fifth biggest lake and is the most polluted.

"We welcome the formal recognition and stronger role Ngāi Tahu will play in managing the lake," said Dr Norman.

"However, I am concerned that the proposed changes won't be enough.

"If the Central Plains Water and TrustPower irrigation schemes proceed, the resulting expansion of the dairy industry will dramatically increase diffuse nitrogen pollution, overwhelming any gains made by improved farming practice, and cause Te Waihora to degrade even further.

"Scientists have shown that land use intensification, such as putting more fertiliser and cows on our land, is the primary reason for water quality decline in New Zealand.

"The plan announced by the Government and Ngāi Tahu today is a welcome step towards a clean Te Waihora, but to make it happen, we need standards for clean water as well.

"We need standards for clean water that limit the amount of pollution flowing into our rivers and lakes, otherwise we will be forever throwing taxpayer and private money towards clean-up initiatives."

"We note that once again that the taxpayer and ratepayer are paying the lion's share of the clean-up cost, making the case yet again that we need a price on irrigation water to fund these clean-ups," said Dr Norman.

Setting standards for clean water is part one of the Green Party's three part plan to make New Zealand's rivers and lakes clean enough to swim in again. The other elements of the plan are to introduce a fair charge for irrigation water, and to support water clean-up initiatives such as riparian planting and sewage treatment plant upgrades.

!Ynnuf

Cartoons featured on Right-wing blogs often seem lame to me. Farrar had this one up today and it's pretty funny. He must've had someone choose it for him :-)

Stay inside, keep the windows closed!

I got out of the car to try to capture the shadow of a manky old macrocarpa as it fell across the side of an old shed. I was immediately wrapped in the stench of cow sh*t - it reeked! There was a big effluent pond not so far away but I think the air was too saturated with stink for it to have been from a source like that, so I'm presuming some farmer was spraying the stuff from a travelling irrigator. I often wonder what filling the air with particles of cow sh*t might be doing to the health of humans living in that cloud, or passing through it.
I suspect it's not good.
Time will tell.

Waituna meeting ('huge step backwards')

Pip has this to say:
(Pretty sensible it is too)
12:37 am Aug 26 2011

This is such a complicated issue, but coming from both sides of the fence (a farmer and an environmental scientist) I think that we all need to step back and look at the bigger picture. Yes, for years both farmers and environmental organisations have been guilty of misusing the local resources and failing to recognise the impact that we are having. And now, as a result, we are faced with the need for an 'ambulance at the bottom of the hill' as R put it. And whether we like it or not, this ambulance is Environment Southland, as they have the expertise, resources and where needed, the enforcement to address the problems that we are all responsible of creating. Arguing and blaming each other achieves absolutely nothing but wastes time that could be spent on trying to solve issues we are facing as a region. In my opinion, having a farmers only meeting is a huge step backwards. The emphasis in the past has been placed on including all parties (Federated Farmers, Dairy NZ, Environment Southland and local farmers etc) in discussion. I can understand why the different parties involved are getting frustrated, but no single party can solve these issues without the support of the others. It is heart breaking that while we are arguing over who is to blame, this internationally recognised wetland, continues to suffer.

Rimu school orchard

I spent the middle of the day working with a team of 10 year-old's at Rimu school, planting out apple trees beside the school hall. Our Open Orchard project donated the trees (and my time) to the school, because...
one of the school's students offered a suggestion to a wealthy businessman in Invercargill who was looking for a good idea for a section he owned that had become vacant (gang house burned down, the usual...) Breigh wrote to him describing the values of a community orchard. Our businessman liked the idea, awarded her the cash prize but didn't go ahead with the orchard idea. We thought it still deserved to become real, so we donated the trees and Breigh's school provided the space for the orchard. Today therefore, was planting day.
Here are Breigh and her friend, two of the team of eight who dug, planted and pruned. The local newspapers had reporters there, so there'll be a follow up to this post, I'm sure.

This ghost, right there, in the sky!

What the!!

This footpath at Waimatuku comes to a surprising halt.

Today's skies

Glowering they were.

And the sun flared.

Closed doors at Waituna meeting

The exits and entries were locked and barred at last night's meeting of Waituna catchment farmers, or so we were advised through this article in The Southland Times earlier in the day. There's kick-back, it seems, from farmers who don't like being told what to do. In this case 'what to do' is advice to stop contributing to the demise of the lagoon at the bottom of the catchment. Councillors were not invited. Or rather NOT invited. I hope there will be a leak of some kind, not of cow shit, silt, phosphate or nitrate into the Waituna Lagoon, but information about the discussions between het-up famers. I'd like to know if there were pitch-forks, for a start!
The Times article attracted 6 comments and I've represented them here for your information.

6 comments

Waimatua   #6   04:21 pm Aug 25 2011

Clean dairying. Yea right. The farmers and ES are each culpible for allowing this to happen. It is possible to farm in a clean manner by being proactive and carrying out good farming practice. It is not rocket science just common sense and hard work. These farmers do need to accept that what they have done and what they are doing is a major cause of the problem.

Syd   #5   04:20 pm Aug 25 2011

As the son of a dairy farmer, it sounds like some of these dairy farmers are too stupid to speak up. Involve yourself in the solution, or it may be imposed upon you.
If you deny there are issues with the lagoon, then organise a farmers only swimming sports day, for all the family but especially your pre-schoolers.

R   #4   01:02 pm Aug 25 2011

I'll tell you now, the information shared in meetings like this will be the most effective in helping to solve the problem. Farmers in the catchment are being proactive, ES don't have a clue. Jo2lo, if ES had been doing thier job in the first instance there wouldn't be an issue. They are nothing more than an ambulance at the bottom of the hill. I don't blame the farmers in the catchement for being upset, everyones an expert, happy to put the boot in pity they have no idea of the whole issue

Tarnz   #3   10:55 am Aug 25 2011

Hahaha and it couldn't possibly be the city sewage being pumped into it that's causing the problem. Idiots.

Amanda Broughton   #2   10:38 am Aug 25 2011

Stop shitting in our rivers! Some farmers are competent and don't allow this to happen, damn right you should be told how to farm if the way you have been doing it is ruining the environment. That lagoon does not belong to you, and you have no right to ruin it forever. And what on earth would the farmers be 'making a stand' over? Let us farm the way we want to, let us pollute then claim its not our fault? Educate yourselves on environmental issues and do us all a favour.

jo2lo   #1   09:01 am Aug 25 2011

Oh you poor diddums.
Stop allowing your fertiliser run-off into streams, restrict access of your stock near waterways, and manage your effluent controls better, then as the water quality improves the public opprobrium will also dissipate.
Gathering together and collectively whining isn't going to fix the problem. Get you heads out of the dark and manage your farms so that the environment is properly protected. If you then see your neighbour still polluting the nearby waterways you can put the boot into them, not the agent monitoring the water quality.
It is not Environment Southland's farming methods that makes the water quality suck.

Strong-willed young women lead the way

Hollie and Dayna prepare for austere times

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Students to live on $2.25 a day in poverty challenge 

As students prepare to live on $2.25 a day for a poverty challenge, some social agencies say poverty is a growing reality for some Southlanders.Aparima College students from years 7-13 start the challenge on Monday to raise awareness for extreme poverty.Student organiser Holly Guyton said the challenge was important because students needed to understand how other people lived in the world.

"For some people that's their whole life and if they're really hungry they can't just ask their mum for food, because they have no food," she said.
Southland Food Bank Charitable Trust chairman Peter Swain said the number of people living below the poverty line in Southland had increased by 20 to 30 per cent in the past six months.
This was because of seasonal work in the south and review of jobs at Inland Revenue.
Once the seasonal workers got behind, they struggled to get back on top of things, Mr Swain said.
"There is a percentage in Southland that is struggling and, unfortunately, some will always struggle," he said.
The challenge the Aparima College students were undertaking would highlight the poverty situation, and be an eye-opener for the students, he said.
The students plan to pool their money to buy the cheapest food from the Riverton's South Coast Environment Centre.
"Oatmeal for breakfast, rice for lunch, and maybe a carrot for dinner," Miss Guyton said.
But she was not expecting the challenge to be an easy one, normally spending between $10 and $15 a week on lunches.
"No more sushi for me. We expect withdrawal symptoms ... going to have to bolt the fridge shut," she joked.
When asked whether she could survive on $2.25 permanently, she said possibly for a month, but it would get desperate.
"It's definitely going to be more challenging than we expected," she said.
"We're pretty strong-willed and I think we can do it, but it won't be easy."
- The Southland Times

FYI Frackers

Fracking will require approval says council

ALEX FENSOME

Any attempts to frack in Southland will need resource consent, the regional council has pledged.
Councillor Robert Guyton said Environment Southland would not follow the same course as Taranaki, where until recently the controversial process did not need consent.
A European Union report into the effects of fracking was given to Environment Southland councillors last week, Mr Guyton said.
"I noticed in Taranaki it is now requiring a consent and I wanted to make sure Environment Southland is further ahead of the game on that. The staff did some great work finding out about it."
The report, compiled by the EU's policy department, investigated the human health and environmental impacts of fracking.
It noted the unavoidable impacts include "area consumption" for drilling pads, parking and turning areas for trucks, gas processing and transport facilities.
Possible environmental impacts, based on a study of cases in the United States, include groundwater contamination due to blowouts, spills or leaks, the report said.
"In extreme cases leading to explosion of residential buildings ... leading to salinisation of drinking water is reported in the vicinity of wells."
It recommended the EU came up with regulations governing fracking to ensure the environmental impact is monitored.
Acting Energy Minister Hekia Parata had previously said fracking was covered under the Resource Management Act and New Zealand's regulations are based on international best practice.
"There are some flaws in the report and it focuses on a different part of the world," Mr Guyton said. "But in general it's good to get some facts and getting hydrocarbons is going to become very pressing – we as a community need to be well schooled."
Councillors decided any Southland fracking operation would require a consent.
The Taranaki Regional Council's resource management director, Fred McLay, said fracking had been used in its oil and gas industry for years, but only recently became an issue.
Taranaki fracking had taken place kilometres under ground, and the council assessed there was little threat to aquifiers due to its depth, so did not require a consent.
"We thought the activity was pretty minor and we still think that," Mr McLay said. But in the past six months the council had changed its practice and now required resource consent.
The council had not made a mistake in handling fracking, he said.
WHAT IS FRACKING?
A widely used practice in the oil and gas industry, fracking involves the injection of millions of litres of water and chemicals into a coal seam or oil reservoir.
Subjected to huge amounts of hydraulic pressure, the fracking fluids force the gas or oil bearing rocks to break apart and release their bounty back up the well to the surface.
It can be used to both improve the flow of oil wells and extract gas trapped in rock seams.There have been concerns it risks contamination of groundwater by fracking fluid leaking into aquifiers.
It has brought widespread protests in the United States.A protest group,
Climate Justice Taranaki, began protesting against its use in the North Island.Fracking could take place in Western Southland to access potential coal seam and shale gas resources.

There'll be protests ... maybe

'Greenpeace has attacked Shell's move into Great South Basin oil and gas prospects, saying it risks environmental disaster.
The pressure group refused to say if it will protest exploration of the Basin, as it did off the East Cape earlier this year, but said its protests against deep-sea drilling would continue.'
 Read what Greenpeace might do if the long-winded Mr Jager gets his way.

What is the problem?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words so these nine mugshots must speak volumes.
Why has this selection of Environment Southland councillors (plus a CEO) ended up on the front page of the local rag (and why are some absent - not photogenic enough?) Must be some sort of problem, the Times journalist Scott Mackay opines, and he's right, there was. The article (here) describes what went down and readers are left wondering who has the right of it and what that spat cost us. Those details are not included in the article and there's not much to be read in the faces of the outlaws on the wanted poster.
The scrapping between the chairwoman and the chief executive is described as a dog-fight, but I'm not sure Scott has chosen the best mammal to use as a metaphor here.

Hard shell

I wrote a letter to the paper, questioning Shell New Zealand about their ability to contain an oil spill in the Great South Basin should that occur. I kept it brief, as is my wont.
Shell's NZ chairman didn't! He effused at great length - the long-playing, extended version, longer I'm told by devoted readers of the letters to the editor section of the Southland Times, than any letter before it, about his company's excellent record and good intentions. I too have never seen the likes.
Today, a reader, one Edith Jones, wrote:

"How come we are limited to 250 words and Shell gets three columns?"

Mr Shell NZ could learn a lot from Ms Jones.

I've sent a follow up question to the editor.
It's quite brief.

Fire, he bellowed!

It's very difficult to photograph bellows. Or a pair of bellows. It's not 'bellow' is it - use the bellow to get those embers glowing - but 'bellows'. They're an awkward shape. Not for bellowing, in which case they are perfectly designed to blow and puff. I have been until now blowing cheekily into my wood fire,  whenever it faltered, and my family were growing increasingly concerned that I'd faint and fall head first into the flames and be disfigured, charred maybe, so they bought me a pair of bellows (or a bellow - still not sure). They're delightful. Brass, leather and wood, with delicate poker-work (appropriately enough) on the 'handles'  wood mice and blackberries and brass dome-headed nails holding things together. They work beautifully and I can blow without pause and not feel at all light-headed. Watch out wet wood! Here I come. I try always to burn tinder-dry logs but occasionally a damp one goes on. I watch for salamanders but so far, nowt :-)
Here they are, the puffin' things. Or at least as much of them as I could get into the frame.
Watch out below!

Morning toii

I got me an invite

Don sent me a letter, inviting me to the blessing of the briquetting plant.
That's very thoughtful.
I'd love to come Don.
See you there!

Unemployment - figures!

Here are the figures I was looking for on youth unemployment. I found them at NoRightTurn.

"New Zealand currently has an appalling youth unemployment rate: according to the latest Household Labour Force Survey, 65,700 people aged between 15 and 24 are unemployed - 17.4% of the total. Faced with a problem of this scale, you'd expect the government to be doing something about it. But their response is absolutely underwhelming. To help out the 65,700 unemployed young people, they're funding an extra 326 places in employment schemes. That's less than one place for every twenty people who needs one. Meanwhile, they've slashed training and capped tertiary places, meaning that young people have little option other than the dole. "

Makes for dark reading doesn't it.

Where do I sit?

John Key says, if you are being attacked by the far Left, and lambasted by the far Right, you must be getting things about right.
Far Right blogger David Farrar calls me a dumb f****.
Chris Trotter from the Left says I'm a poor, sad b*stard.

I'm spot on then, according to Key :-)

Drain #1

An un-titled post

An un-lovely post

U needa brush

Of course you do! To flossie-up your cob of juicy, yellow corn before it goes into the pot for cooking and what better brush to brush with than one that's made from a corn-cob!
I bought one. I needed one, just as I need a thneed.
Made in China.

The 2 states of Harry

The Rubber Wool Cup

"The economic benefits of the Rugby World Cup may have been wildly overestimated by the tournament's backers, a senior academic said yesterday as the Reserve Bank hosed down expectations of a $700 million boost to the economy.

So we've cooked the books to pretend that 95 000 rugby fans were coming when it's really just 15 000 to 25 000 rugby fans who will be actually turning up, drunkenly pissing off and annoying the normal 70 000 tourists we would get anyway."

Bomber thinks it's a crock.

Through Clare Curran's magnifying glass - a Green

Comment of the day (and it's only ten to ten)

Interesting how advocates of user-pays scream blue-murder when the suggestion is made it be applied to them..
..they should be more honest..and call it other-users-pay…

phil(whoar.co.nz)

Colouring-in fun for the birthday boy!

Clash of the Titans/Storm in a tea-cup

An OIA request from The Southland Times to the office of Nick Smith for a letter the Minister sent to Ali Timms, chairman of the Environment Southland council reveals that the chair and the ES chief executive 'had issues' and some of those centred around a visit by Mr Keogh to Nick Smith's office.
Hardly the stuff of scandal.
I'm thinking tiny flurry in a bone china cup, rather than titanic struggle.
Environment Southland is keeping 'tight-lipped', according to the Times. Chairman Timms certainly is at any rate. She says she cannot comment.
Mr Keogh did however, speak to the newspaper, saying that there was a closed-door meeting and mediation, which is true enough. Guarded comments all round though and I guess the public will be none-the-wiser for the article.
The reporters will no doubt be knocking on the doors of the councillors today, seeking comment. It'll be tight lips there too I imagine.
Is this something the public has any interest in at all?
I guess we'll see.

Tuatapere

This kind of pruning

And this

And this

Hence the (potential) need to hide.

Royal Palm Turkeys

Over the past few days I've spent most of my time in the garden, pruning. I've been using a saw, rather than secateurs, so you can imagine the scale of the operation. When Robyn returns from Nelson this afternoon, her eyes will fly wide open. I may need to make a hasty retreat. In the manner of men with saws everywhere, enthusiasm sometimes over-rules discretion, but as I often say, it'll grow back.
 All the while I've been out there, I've not once heard the raucous cries of the Guinea Fowls that previously made my outdoor-life a misery. Their schrawking seemed only to irritate me - no one in my family noticed it at all, unless I drew their attention to it but lately, nothing. The sound of Guinea-fowl-absence! I'm taken aback. I think my neighbour has done the considerate thing and re-located his noisy birds! If that's the case, I'm eternally grateful for his thoughtfulness. He emailed me recently and there were pictures attached. He's a breeder of poultry and these Royal Palm Turkeys are the latest birds to join his menagerie.
They're certainly spectacular!
I hope they're not noisy.

Slater racing

Of all the sports I've been involved with over the years, slater racing is the one that I love the most. There's nothing quite like watching a slater scuttle as quickly as it can toward the finish line, though often they fail to finish for one reason or another. I've even seen one race end with a slater being eaten by a duck!
Excitement over a slater race can reach fever-pitch leading up to the event and the keenest punters will even bet on the result of the race - sometimes hundreds of dollars are won or lost as a result. Some slater races attract national attention and feature some well know personalities from the slater world.
If perchance I hear of any slater races of note, I'll feature them here for any others of you who follow such spectacles.
(Hint for newby slater race fans: never put money on the oversized slaters. They just can't hack the pace.)

Satire - it's all it's cracked-up Toby

The Dim-Post does satire (very well).

Balancing the ledger

To be fair, John Minto on Q&A came across about as convincing as Tolley.
Both seemed blinded by their own ideology.

Beating the rats of the sky

Here's my solution to the 'kereru problem'.

Tolley: Black is white - agree/disagree?

Tolley's on The Nation making a complete fool of herself!
Here's an example: Asked about schools that are refusing to toe the line over National Standards Tolley said of the education political lobby she believes to be responsible,
"It wouldn't matter if I said 'black was white', they would disagree!"

Good Lord!

What a clanger!

Tolley's interview is an absolute embarrassment.

Dr Seuss

This ti kouka wears the shaggiest coat I've ever seen on a cabbage tree.
There'll be a whole community of creatures living in there.
Spiders really love that environment.

Plum thief

This bird's been stealing my plum crop all day - feeding on the blossoms one by one, nipping them off and sending my crop to his (or her) crop.
It's very annoying! It's bad enough that late frosts can take out plums in their infancy, but this harvesting happens before the buds even burst!
Nets are the only answer it seems, but netting now just seems crazy.
Tomorrow, I'm going to have to do it.