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Government to open up Conservation Land to Grazing?

(11 posts)
  • Started 1 year ago

  1. Tawaki
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    15 March 2010 Otago Daily Times: Agriculture Minister David Carter has just announced that the Government may look at opening up some conservation land to grazing as a way for DOC to generate income.

    Speaking to a gathering of 300 farmers in Central Otago last week that allowing strictly controlled (surgical??) grazing to licensed farmers on DOC land could be a way to generate income from the conservation estate.

    "That to me makes perfect sense " David Carter told the High Country Federated Farmers High Country Committee 2 yearly field day in the Nevis Valley on 10 March.

    When challenged that voters sympathetic to conservation outnumbered farmers, Minister Carter replied that most people had conservation sympathies but were rational and realised the need to balance economic necessity and conservation.

    A Government proposal to allow mining of conservation land was an example, he said. There was the expected outrage from organisations such as the Green Party but once details had been explained, most New Zealanders accepted it was a resource that should be looked at, he said.

    The Minister also spoke about water management, saying New Zealand had an abundance of water but it was not always available at the right time or in the right place.

    http://www.odt.co.nz/news/farming/97526/govt-considers-issuing-grazing-rights

    Posted 1 year ago #

  2. Kaipara
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    I reckon most New Zealanders do NOT accept that our conservation land should be opened up to grazing to generate income.

    The prospect of cattle and sheep trampling more rare plants, destroying wilderness habitat, and passively polluting runoff to yet more wild rivers, is NOT one that most NZers would accept.

    Carter is right, most people are rational and realise the need to balance economic necessity and conservation. But he's wrong that this means we want our conservation land, desecrated, trampled, and destroyed by grazing (or mining too!). River flats are important to keep pristine as part of keeping our wilderness margins and wild rivers pristine.

    A rational balance of economic necessity and conservation is realising that conservation lands have an intrinsic and aesthetic value that far out-weighs the need to descrate them for a few more dollars in Government coffers.

    This government should be assessing and valuing the ecosystem services (eg. air purity, carbon storage, erosion control, flood mitigation, etc) of our wild places and if necessary adding the value of the intangible, intrinsic and aesthetic features that New Zealanders at least are able to recognise and value in their wild places.

    Posted 1 year ago #

  3. Tawaki
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    The Government's plans to open up National Parks to mining are being justly criticised throughout NZ. The cartoonists have never had such a field day. Political commentators have slammed the Governments handling of the issue. The Government's decisions not to safeguard our treasured protected Parks and Reserves are now even getting coverage in international media and are damaging our international profile for tourism.

    Maybe it was always the Government's intention to fly the mining kite as a smokescreen while it moved in more sinister ways to erode conservation protection. Its underlying agenda might be to starve DOC of funds and to do immediate and lasting damage to legally protected Conservation and National Park lands by opening these up to grazing, justifying this as a fund raiser for DOC.

    There has been little media or even Green Room interest in this thread, yet David Carter's announcement above is very worrying as is the predictable failure by the Minister of Conservation to express any opposition to the proposal.

    Opening up conservation areas to grazing can be just as destructive as the logging of a native forest. Regenerating forest seedlings, shrublands, palatable plants such as native herbs, tall tussocks and wetland plants are very rapidly destroyed once a herd of cattle of flock of sheep are put inside the conservation fence.

    Conservation campaigners like Sir Alan Mark have worked so hard to get New Zealanders to understand that grazing can be just as destructive of native ecosystems as is the clearfelling of a native forest. The network of "no grazing" high country parks finally achieved over the last 10 years was a living testament to decades of effort by Alan Mark and so many Forest and Bird and conservation campaigners.

    This is all now at risk.

    We will, of course, be told that the grazing will be very carefully managed and sensitive (even surgical??). What actually happens is usually very different.

    In the Te Anau basin 4 years ago, DOC Southland, under great pressure from Federated Farmers and politicians to provide drought relief, opened up conservation areas and river bank marginal strips to grazing. Where the grazing was monitored by DOC, in most cases the grazier exceeded the allowable stock numbers. The intent was to provide a safety valve for farmers hit hard by drought. One farmer to the contrary went out and actually bought in store lambs from outside the region so that he could fatten them on his new DOC grazing land.

    The decision also sent a powerful message throughout NZ that DOC land is available for farming neighbours to graze, all you have to do is push the politicians hard enough and they will give in.

    I'd like to hear what other readers think about the pressure on DOC to raise funds by grazing conservation land and the implications of this for nature conservation?

    Posted 1 year ago #

  4. maungawhau
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    I'm stuck at the wrong end of the North Island - so can't comment on your question, except to say: the implications are huge. I just heard of one Crown Research Institute that fired 30 research staff, and is now hiring 30 business staff. Now they work under a profit model. If research can be run that way, why not conservation? (That's a hypothetical question that a money lead govt might ask.)
    So which is the biggest threat: grazing on conservation land, mining on conservation land (both schedule 4 and other non-protected), or simply underfunding conservation work/DoC ?

    Posted 1 year ago #

  5. matata
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    I'd simply put it as making the conservation department a commercial department of economic development.

    Posted 1 year ago #

  6. Tawaki
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    Sometimes Government encouraging the grazing of conservation land, allowing unauthorised grazing through these conservation lands through underfunding DOC and directing DOC staff to go soft on compliance and focus on "pretending to run revenue focused businesses" are all linked.

    If you underfund DOC so that it doesn't have field staff and redirect those staff away from the field, then grazing of DOC's lands by its neighbours may occur without DOC staff even being aware of it.

    Compounding the problem is the Minister of Conservation and the Director General of DOC telling DOC staff to do their utmost to curry favour with farmer neighbours. Furthermore DOC's DG sees "compliance", the legal enforcement of DOC's legal responsibilities, as something he doesn't want his staff to focus on.

    Fewer staff hamstrung in their duties and told that there are untouchable issues is surely a formula for a widespread conservation disaster.

    PUBLIC HOLIDAY EXPLOITATION OF CONSERVATION LANDS IS THERE A PATTERN?

    Unfortunately it doesn't take long for neighbours to take advantage of this weak approach by DOC especially during public holidays when the neighbours knows that DOC staff will mostly all be on holiday.

    Just under a year ago, on Anzac Day, I photographed hundreds of sheep grazing in a reserve that had been just acquired for DOC in a very famous part of the high country. The sheep were deliberately mustered into the reserve by the neighbouring farmer. When DOC was advised of this, they phoned the neighbour and asked that the sheep be taken out of the new DOC reserve. They eventually were removed and no other action was taken by DOC.

    Two days ago, Easter Monday, I discovered hundreds of sheep grazing in a totally protected DOC managed Wildlife Refuge wetland. They had been there for days. They had wrecked the wetlands and destroyed the native tree planting done in the reserve by a high school and by conservation volunteers. Using nearly $50,000 of public conservation funds and donations, the wildlife refuge had been fenced 3 years ago to exclude stock from this beautiful lake. The public funds were also used to build a stock water system so that the farmer's stock did not have to drink from the lake and excrete and urinate in the lake and make it muddy. The land adjoining the lake is owned by the University of Canterbury that prides itself on its teaching of environmental science but isn't very good at putting its theories into practice.

    I mustered the stock out of the Wildlife Refuge. I have now advised 7 people in DOC and 1 in the Regional Council about how the stock got in, why the fence needs to be improved and above all why there needs to be DOC staff out ranging to make sure it doesn't happen again. I received back 4 email "out of office" replies from DOC staff telling me that they were on leave. Two days later I have yet to receive even a single email from DOC staff advising that any action will be taken. yet they are entrusted with protecting this key wetland reserve!

    It would also be nice if one day DOC and Conservation Minister Wilkinson could get as tough with farmer neighbours wrecking our conservation reserves as it has apparently been with foreign lizard smugglers and kereru shooters

    Posted 1 year ago #

  7. Kaipara
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    I hope the MinCon gets a lot tougher with farmer neighbours wrecking conservation reserves than with those latest law-breakers !

    The 3x lizard smugglers got 18 weeks and 15 weeks in jail. No fine. No-where near the 6 month potential jail term. No fine. The smugglers must be counting the days til they can have another go ! Where was the lesson of a decent jail term and sigificant fine for taking our protected and CITES noted wildlife !? What do people have to do to incur the maximum sentences !!!??????

    The Kereru shooters got a lot of public condemnation both here and overseas, and mention has been made of the maximum fines of $100,000 etc for killing absolutely protected wildlife, but so far, it seems no charges have been laid....

    Or was that your point !?

    Posted 1 year ago #

  8. Tawaki
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    I thought that at least they got some penalty as punishment for their actions. I take your point though that despite them undertaking a pre-meditated, carefully planned theft of totally protected animals, the fine was very light relative to the maximum permissable penalty.

    I'm not sure what penalty the Crown prosecutor was seeking in these cases and whether it was the Judge who gave the light sentences or whether the judge gave them what the prosecuter was seeking. If the latter we need to ask Crown Law/DOC why they didn't seek the maximum term. In terms of the Norwegian pigeon shooters, I'd hope that a prosecutions are still in the pipeline.

    I only referred to the lizard smugglers as a comparison to the illegal graziers, because at least they got prosecuted. In my many years experience with DOC, they are totally reluctant to take charges against anyone who wrecks and destroys habitat/ecosystems and instead just ring their hands, talk about the need for "education" and ask them please not to do it again.

    Yet as we all now know wrecking habitat by grazing, burning, draining, logging and clearing is just as sure a way of killing species as is going out and deliberately shooting them.

    Forest and Bird started as an organisation in 1923 determined to do something about the uncontrolled shooting of native birds. (It was called the Native Bird Protection Society). The leaders of Forest and Bird soon realised though that habitat destruction was an even higher priority issue because without habitat there were no birds.

    It is fantastic today that Forest and Bird remains an ecosystem/habitat champion rather than being captured, as DOC has in many parts been, by a desire to be seen to be saving the cute and cuddly individual species. It sometimes seems that the main objective of this species conservation is mostly to provide photo opportunities for politicians.

    Posted 1 year ago #

  9. kauri
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    ha ha ..... yeah photo-op environmental management - that about sums it up !

    Posted 1 year ago #

  10. Tawaki
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    "I mustered the stock out of the Wildlife Refuge. I have now advised 7 people in DOC and 1 in the Regional Council about how the stock got in, why the fence needs to be improved and above all why there needs to be DOC staff out ranging to make sure it doesn't happen again. I received back 4 email "out of office" replies from DOC staff telling me that they were on leave. Two days later I have yet to receive even a single email from DOC staff advising that any action will be taken. Yet they are entrusted with protecting this key wetland reserve!"

    It is now another 6 days later.

    The Regional Council (ECan) Rep made contact on Easter Tuesday and is looking at finding money to improve the 50metres of fence to keep stock out of the DOC managed Wildlife Refuge. Moreover he has run a terrific hundred person strong volunteer day on April 10 pulling out wilding pines. Inspirational stuff with all these good people coming to help and keep the high country free of weed pines and firs.

    Unfortunately still, no one from DOC has made any contact about all the stock in the Wildlife Refuge. They must all still be on leave!!

    Posted 1 year ago #

  11. matata
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    Out looking for other jobs?

    Posted 1 year ago #

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