Green women

I was, by very kind invitation, guest speaker at the Green Party policy conference last night in Invercargill. I had a blast, reminding myself and many in the audience, of incidents from our shared green past. Once I was done (my ramble took about an hour, by which time I had covered a lot of ground, in a zig-zaggy kind of way) I was pretty wrung out. As I regained my composure and drank a glass of complimentary red wine, I enjoyed some delightful conversations with these Green MPs; Mojo Mathers, Holly Walker, Julie Anne Genter, Catherine Delahunty and Eugenie Sage. What charming, engaging and self-assured women they are!

State of the Environment, state of the country

Radio New Zealand reports:



The Government is stopping the five-yearly State of the Environment report.

Put together by the Ministry of the Environment, the report is the largest stock-take of trends relating to land, water, air, plants and animals.

The next report was expected in December, but the Government has decided instead to look at the basic data for each area.

Environment Minister Amy Adams said the ministry is continually tracing environmental performance using 22 core indicators and the change is to ensure new information is released as it comes to hand.

Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Jan Wright said that is not good enough, because the data is not compiled, analysed, or compared.

Dr Wright also said she was unaware the report was being scrapped.

Green MP Eugenie Sage said the Government is just trying to keep New Zealanders in the dark about environmental problems.

This seems a cynical and disgraceful action by a Government widely considered both anti-environment and anti-transparency. 

Who, I wonder, would defend this latest action?

Water Wars in the Hawke's Bay

Something from Eugenie Sage that my fellow Councillors and staff at Environment Southland would find interesting to read. The Hawke's Bay Regional Council has a big issue on its hands - or at least the ratepayers of the region have some thinking and digging to do.
Is the HBRC confused about its role? Are the Water Wars well under way already, as Alan Liefting suggests?

"There is something strange and disturbing going on in Hawke’s Bay involving the proverbial fox and the hen house.

Hawke’s Bay Regional Council (HBRC) is the enthusiastic principle promoter of the $230-million Ruataniwha Plains water storage scheme, a project which would see a 77 metre high dam and reservoir built on the Makaroro River to irrigate another 30,000 hectares of on the Ruataniwha Plains, and a dam and irrigation scheme on the Ngaruroro River.

The functions of a regional council are quite clearly spelled out here.

It would seem that a majority of HBRC councillors and senior staff are confused about their role as an environmental regulator, instead taking on the role of an economic development agency and irrigation promoter."