Planting native trees on conservation land - where is the public process?

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Planting native trees on conservation land - where is the public process?

(34 posts)

Started 2 years ago

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Crazy government schemes, stealing conservation land, Iwi target conservation land, Treaty Ministr covets DOC land, 40, 000 hectares of DOc land, ETS Scheme madness, DOC land 4 sale?, Native logging again?, 30, 35, 000ha or more?

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Tawaki
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"Native Trees are to be planted by Iwi on up to 30,000 hectares of conservation land as part of gaining Maori Party support for National's Emissions Trading Scheme"

What conservation land and where?

What native plants or tussocks are already growing on that land?

Can Forest and Bird tell us if they have been consulted about the proposal and where it is to take place?...after all they have regular meetings with DOC and DOC needs to be open about how it is managing our lands on our behalf and not just be flogging them off to appease politicians?

Is this a genuine effort to sequester large quantities of carbon in native vegetation and soil or is it just a whacky job creation scheme with hopelessly muddled objectives supported for political expediency?

Are we going to see bulldozers and teams of people in 4 wheel drives in remote parts of New Zealand dozing, chopping down and burning kanuka and tussock shrublands to plant totara or beech?

Is there any good evidence that planting native trees in this way is as effective at storing carbon as is just allowing the natural regeneration of these areas to take place without human intervention (apart from keeping out the sheep and cattle and controlling the pests)?

Is there to be a public process in the identification of what Conservation Lands are to be handed over for this purpose or will this be mandated through the ETS empowering legislation and the public will get a "fait accompli"?

The Minister of Conservation needs to urgently come clean about what parts of wild New Zealand are scheduled for what seems to be a whacky planting programme.

I live beneath a 80 hectare plantation of Douglas Fir planted on Mt Bruce up to 1200 metres altitude by the Forest Service in 1960 in a similar fit of misguided zeal. 49 years on they have created an ecological nightmare. The Firs are spreading fast into tussock, manuka shrublands and even mature mountain beech forest. It will require hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to remove these invasive pest trees.

One justification used by the Forest Service in 1985 for clearing 25,000 hectare Tongariro Forest and planting it in pines was that it was "just useless scrub". Fortunately Forest and Bird stopped them. Today Tongariro is a kiwi and whio stronghold, the "45 Traverse" is a nationally famous Mountain Bike trail and the whole forest is a sea of native regeneration. There has been no need for human manipulation through the massive use of fossil fuels powering dozers, chainsaws and sprays to "release" the planted natives from the encroaching shrublands.

Although the National-Maori Party deal apparently involves planting natives, instinctively I sense that they will establish the wrong plants in the wrong places for the wrong reasons. The plantings are most unlikely to result in a nett removal of carbon from the atmosphere anytime soon.

Others thoughts?

Posted 2 years ago #
CeeJay
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That's inflation for you

Thirty pieces of silver 2000 years ago. Thirty thousand hectares of conservation land today

Posted 2 years ago #
auckland anne
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I was asking Kevin Hackwell from F&B staff about this on the weekend, and interestingly didn't get any show of concern from him ... Perhaps the question needs to be asked again, and more 'formally'?. Actually, there is a F&B executive meeting in two weekends' time - perhaps the question would get a better answer if channeled through there on a more 'formal' basis. I'd be very interested to hear the response, cos it concerned me when I heard it on the news, and I was surprised at the reaction at the weekend but took it to mean that there'd been some communication already with the respective agencies and there was nothing to worry about.

Posted 2 years ago #
CeeJay
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How about it, Kevin? Some from of comment or statement might be useful.

Posted 2 years ago #
Tawaki
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Could I please ask the Forest and Bird President to formally advise Forest and Bird members:

*what consultation they have had from the Government and the Conservation Department as is required under the Conservation Act for the annexation of this large area (35,000ha) of public conservation land to the management of a sector group.

*Can DOC advise the ecological basis for the proposed native tree planting and any evidence that this can be achieved successfully and result in a nett storage of carbon within a reasonably achievable time span.

We need to ask the NZ Conservation Authority also what consultation there has been with them about this annexation of Conservation Land management.

In today's news, the area of Conservation Land to be annexed for this planting experiement has suddenly grown from 30,000 hectares to 35,000 hectares. 5,000 additional hectares today, how much by the end of the year??

35,000 hectares is more than 10 times the area of the Kapiti Island and the Little Barrier Nature Reserves and 3 times the area of Campbell Island.

The Christchurch Press this morning reported that a lot of the annexed conservation land is in the Ngai Tahu Rohe (area of guardianship). For the last 30 years, Forest and Bird has fought so hard to get the Eastern South Island tussockland and shrubland finally recognised as having huge biodiversity value. Are we now to lose substantial parts of these areas to an untried and untested planting experiment?.

When the native trees fail to prosper will we then be told that they'll have to plant exotics in order to meet the carbon storage promises made in 2009 under the ETS.

We need also to be very clear that secret deals like the ETS can endanger the democratic institutions and public processes that we have worked so hard to set in place to safeguard the permanent protection of public Conservation land. When conservation land is allocated under empowering legislation such as the ETS, this can circumvent/sideline all the normal processes of the Conservation and Reserves Acts.

Posted 2 years ago #
Tawaki
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Great to hear EDS is out challenging the ETS proposal in this News Release from EDS issued yesterday.

24 November 2009
Media statement
Environmental Group calls for clarity on use of Conservation land for ETS
forest sinks

The Environmental Defence Society has called on the government to clarify
exactly what forestry will be permitted on Department of Conservation land
arising out of the agreement with the Maori Party on the emissions trading
scheme.

"It is one thing to allow permanent native forest sinks to be established
on low value DOC land. It is quite another to allow commercial, rotational
exotic forestry to be established on high value DOC land. Nothing the
government has said so far makes it clear what is proposed," said EDS
Chairman Gary Taylor.

"We would be supportive of iwi and others partnering with DOC to establish
permanent native forests in appropriate locations such as low value
farmland and general stewardship land. Not only could we capture carbon but
also the biodiversity benefits would from such afforestation.

"However we would be very concerned if high value land, such as the tussock
lands of the South Island High Country, was made available for commercial
rotational pine forests. Such afforestation could destroy native grassland
ecosystems as well as important landscape values. Much of the High Country
is precious because the bare bones of the land are visible.

"We have checked with DOC and with ETS officials and it seems that policy
in this area is yet to be made. That is a positive thing because it should
enable careful assessment of the options, the land that should be made
available and the kind of forests to be established.

"The DOC estate is already under potential pressure from mining operations.
We should take care that it is not also out under pressure from
inappropriate and ill-considered forestry activities arising out of
political negotiations and not out of considered policy development. We are
concerned at the casual ease with which government is willing to grant
concessions on the DOC estate.

"EDS calls on the government to establish a proper consultative process in
which all stakeholders can have a say on how ETS forests on DOC land should
proceed," Mr Taylor concluded.

More: Gary Taylor 021 895 896
Environmental Defence Society
PO Box 95 152, Swanson, Waitakere City 0653 |
New Zealand
Phone +64-9-835 4350 | Email: manager@eds.org.nz

Posted 2 years ago #
brent
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thanks for these incisive thoughts Tawaki. agreed F&B needs a voice on this, and soon. this will play large in the history of this century. issues of precedent, of transparency, and of conservation all need addressing.

if ETS was a solution instead of a scheme I'd be a lot more sympathetic to their Machiavellian ways....

Posted 2 years ago #
Tawaki
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Thanks Brent. We had a few more discussions here and suddenly realised there is another potential threat from this whacky concept of planting natives...the resurrection of native logging threats to our conservation forests.

Let's assume that whoever is charged with the task then starts planting the native trees. I'm sure that it will make all the carbon (non)sense of the US farmers planting corn for ethanol production where it actually uses more fossil fuels than it saves!.

It won't be good enough to just plant the native trees.

They will then decide that they have to "release' them by chopping down the native vegetation around the planted tree so it will grow faster.

They will also chop out any other canopy treee regeneration that isn't the favoured planted species.... because I do not believe the end game will be just to have a lot of trees storing carbon. The planters will want a silvicultural operation and will want to thin, prune and ultimately log those planted trees.

The foresters will be charged with overseeing the project and a resurrected Forest Service bureaucracy will be all the go.

The next stage will be when they say that the planted trees are growing too slowly but that by using the original/natural canopy species that are on that conservation land such as a 500 year old rimu they can kick start the forestry operation.

End result:
*Protected Conservation land is annexed for a private purpose with no public participation process.
*Because the planting has been done by iwi they will be above criticism even if the end result is burnoffs of protected conservation kanuka or tall tussock for native tree planting.
*other non favoured native trees will be cleared to allow more growth of favoured species.
*Native logging of natural forests will re-start in conservation land in order to kick start a native timber industry that was planned originally around the planted native trees.
* Any carbon storage from the planted forest will be vastly outweighed by carbon emissions from all the busy forestry activity.

Any thoughts?

Posted 2 years ago #
Pelorusjack
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It is good to Tawaki and Auckland Anne joining in to the debate on the proposal to give Iwi a concession to plant Crown Land (including some that is currently protected as part of the Conservation Estate) for ETS forests sinks.

Hopefully they are also writing letters to the Ministers of Conservation and the Environment and to their local Member of Parliament expressing the same views. Is it not a little unfair, though, to start attacking Forest & Bird and in particular members of its staff; assuming that the Society has no position on the issue and is doing nothing? I am sure they could put out a press release like EDS (which is busily trying to build its own profile) but as a serious conservation organisation isn’t it more likely they are working behind the scenes to identify all the land that is proposed for use and the conditions on which it will be used. Much of the debate at present gets into issues of racial preference and surely that is not something that is the mandate of Forest & Bird to comment on.

The potential issues raised by Tawaki in their latest post are good ones and issues that I assume will be raised by Forest & Bird with the Government. I am equally sure that Forest & Bird will be carefully monitoring what is going on and it would be ready to challenge any decisions which are ultra vires to the Legislation. If the Government wants to take on the conservation movement by attempting to pass special legislation to overrule the provisions of the Conservation Act then they may find they are biting off more than they can otherwise chew.

The fact is that the Government sees public conservation land as a
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uses’ and getting the message across about the intrinsic landscape, biodiversity, recreation and inspirational vales is the real priority surely.
Posted 2 years ago #
Pelorusjack
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The last paar of my entry should read - The fact is that the Government sees public conservation land as a land bank for Treaty settlements and other development opportunities. This is but one of those `uses’ and getting the message across about the intrinsic landscape, biodiversity, recreation and inspirational vales is the real priority surely.

Posted 2 years ago #
clairegreen
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Pelorousjack is absolutely right about this Government seeing conservation land being "vacant land" awaiting exploitation.

First there was Energy Minister Brownlee who wants to assess all the mineral resources on public conservation land with a view to ultimately mining them. (surgically!)

Minister of Treaty Settlements Chris Findlayson sees conservation land as the cheap way of settling Treaty claims. DOC has a large number of its staff working full time in response to the demands of Minister Findlayson on his colleague the Minister of Conservation (usually overseas) identifying public conservation land to be handed to private ownership to settle treaty claims.

Minstry of Economic Development staff are enthusiatically identifying wild rivers and natural waterways that can be dammed to generate electricity. Not only will this destroy the rivers and their aquatic wildlife but it will also flood large areas of natural riparian vegetation protected in public conservation land.

Minister of Climate Change Nick Smith, champion of the Emission Trading Scheme, now sees annexation and planting of public conservation land as a bribe to be offered to gain iwi support for the ETS scheme.

What's next??

Posted 2 years ago #
CeeJay
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Today's news is tomorrow's fish and Chip wrapping. The members (and the public) need to know whether F&B has a position on this issue - now. And if not, why not. It's more important than a story on naming a kakapo - the last news item on the F&B website.

Does the Associate Minister of Economic Development (sorry, Minister of Conservation) have a position on this?

Posted 2 years ago #
clairegreen
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I agree. The naming of kakapo story is absolute rubbish notworthy of NZ's largest conservation group.

We' the members of F&B, demand a public statement from Forest and Bird stating exactly where the organisation stands on the handing over of conservation land to iwi for planting and by the Attorney General Findlayson as a cheap way of settling Treaty Claims.

Right Now Please!.

Posted 2 years ago #
Pelorusjack
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The Bill is now an Act. The deal is done. It is one issue on a whole list of issues conservationists have with the Government - including having almost no access to them. I am sure that Forest & Bird has a strategy to deal with this but putting out press releases that have no purpose can be like peeing in dark trousers... it gives you a warm feeling but no one else notices. And the Government is not taking any notice of conservation groups at the moment!

I don't think there is anything in F&B policy against restoration of degraded habitats by suitable native plantings - which is what Ngai Tahu says it wants to do. And even better enhanced pest control to maximise carbon sequestration. But there are real problems about using conservation land for plantation planting, native or exotic. Or stuffing up iconic landscapes. All of that is ultra vires the legislation. So let them try! If the issue is related to the fact it is Iwi doing it then that is surely a matter for New Zealand First not Forest & Bird.

Forest & Bird's real strength is its branch members and their ability to get access to MPs and opinion leaders locally. I see they have already produced quite a lot of material to help branch members do just that and more, including a position on these matters is, I assume, also on its way.

An important part of being listened to is having stature and recognition - and lots of members and supporters - currently numbering almost 70,000 individuals. Feel good stories are as important to keep credibility as the advocacy ones. It is no doubt, all part of an education and awareness strategy.

Posted 2 years ago #
auckland anne
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Please, let's not waste energy on arguing with each other. All that's being asked is "Has F&B got a position, and (in as few words as possible!) can the members be told this so that we can be mobilised and contact our local MPs and media".

I agree wholeheartedly that F&B's strength is in it's membership - we should be making use of that strength and not wasting our society and staff time and energy trying to lobby pollies that obviously don't want to talk with us!

I think conservation lobbying might've gone back to more like it was in the sixties and seventies where lots of people making lots of noise publicly is more effective than a few 'professionals' having breakfast meetings together...

Posted 2 years ago #
auckland anne
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Apart from that, it makes members feel that they are contributing, and it's an important way of encouraging new people to join us as well as to spread the workload. Don't let this govt burn us out - that's playing right into certain hands...

Posted 2 years ago #
clairegreen
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Mining interests now want our most precious conservation land for mining.(Section 4 lands)

Power company interests want conservation land for wind farms and hydro dams-

The five most powerful iwi in the country, egged on by climate negotiation officials, are now authorised to take conservation land for tree planting. This conservation land "tree planting" will then be used as a carbon offset for iwi plans to clear extensive areas of pine plantations to develop dairy farms. The "tree planting' is an untested pie in the sky dream.

"tree planting" is being used to excuse the massive clearance of carbon storing pine plantation forests and their energy intensive replacement with vast dairy farms. These dairy farms emit huge amounts of carbon in methane from cows and in the production of fossil fuel sourced nitrogen fertilisers.

The Treaty Negotiations Minister and his Office of Treaty Settlement officials are now also picking over the best of our public conservation lands to grab what they can to use as a cheap way of settling treaty claims.

Where is the respect amongst any members of the present Government and their associates for the intrinsic, biodiversity, landscape and heritage values of our extraordinarily valuable New Zealand public conservation land heritage?

Where is a genuine Government committment to actually reduce our carbon emissions or are they going to keep hiding NZ's increased carbon emissions with smoke and mirrors tricks like the "tree planting' claim.

We need to get out and remind the government that public conservation land is not for sale to anyone no matter how rich and powerful those business interests are!

Posted 2 years ago #
CeeJay
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Perhaps our leadership should show some leadership!

Posted 2 years ago #
Tawaki
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HOW'S THIS FOR A SCIENTIFICALLY MUDDLED AND ECOLOGICALLY FRIGHTENING SCENARIO?

"The New Zealand ETS--- A New Era of Conservation Land Exploitation"

COLIN ESPINAR'S REPORT OF NICK SMITH'S ETS PLANS

Journalist Colin Espinar reports in The Christchurch Press 18 November 2009 on Nick Smith's plan to open up conservation land to the planting of native or plantation trees:

" The Government's proposed deal with iwi involves planting trees on about 40,000ha of Department of Conservation (DOC) estate, which would form part of the country's permanent "carbon sink", earning carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol.

The money from the credits would be kept by Maori.

That is is in exchange for Maori, mainly Ngai Tahu, dropping a compensation bid.

Under the ETS, forest owners get credits for trees planted after 1990, but must pay if they cut them down.

Ngai Tahu argues it always planned to fell some forests for dairying, and that the Crown knew this when it sold forests to the tribe under a 1999 Treaty settlement.

Smith said native trees that could be harvested would be planted on Crown land. The commercial gain for iwi would be the carbon credits those trees accrued.

However, he later said it could be either native or plantation timber."

MY RESPONSE:

1. The area of DOC managed public land being made available to iwi for tree planting has now grown from 30,000ha to 35,00ha and in this story it is now 40,000ha! How much land is going to be grabbed and what is the public process to safeguard that land?

2. Minister Smith advises that plantings on PUBLIC conservation land can be either native or plantation timber to earn the carbon credits.

3. Minister Smith is reported above as saying that " the native trees that could be harvested would be planted on Crown land" ....conservation land is crown land.

4. Readers should be aware that it is our taxes that will be paying for the planting of this 40,000 hectares of native or exotic plantations on Public Conservation Land to offset the clearfelling of pine plantations on private land that are going to be turned into dairy farms.

This whole crazy scheme is a travesty.

* The ETS should be about protecting and sustaining New Zealand's existing pine plantations as carbon sinks not clearfelling these forests to create vast methane emitting dairy farms. We are supposed to be serious about reducing NZ's carbon emissions not playing games to mask a major increase in NZ's carbon emissions.

* The ETS opens up the Conservation Lands, that belong to everyone, to a new era of native forest logging when this is expressly prohibited by the Conservation Act. First they will start by planting native trees. Then the planters or new owners of the public conservation lands will argue that instead of waiting for their planted trees to mature, they should prune and harvest the native trees that are already growing there. Then they start logging out what they will call the "dead", "dying" and "overmature" native trees and away we go back to a Forest Service scenario of the 1970s and 80s. Those foresters with that dream from the 1980s are still around and they are grouped in organisations such as the Tane's Tree Trust.

* By Minister Smith indicating that either native or exotic trees can be planted on the Conservation Land, it also signals potentially a renewed era of burning off "native scrub" to plant plantations. Yet this is something that Forest and Bird campaigned against and the government finally abandoned on public land with the demise of the Forest Service in the 1980s.

* This whole native or exotic tree planting scheme on public conservation land as part of the ETS is a blank cheque. It has been written with taxpayers money for the foresters to pursue their silvicultural fantasies on conservation lands at the expense of the hard working taxpayers of new Zealand.

It must be stopped!

Posted 2 years ago #
CeeJay
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Doesn't anybody in F&B National Office or on the National Executive read these blogs?

I'm starting to get really, really annoyed.

Posted 2 years ago #
Pelorusjack
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At least one of the people commenting in this room is a member of the Forest & Bird Executive I am told. If CeeJay is annoyed he or she should get those letters going. And not just to the obviuously lazy leadership of Forest & Bird. Like I noted above if it is foaming at the mouth CeeJay wants - well that ain't going to do much. But if CeeJay wants a good conservation outcome - in a very bad political environment - well I suspect that is what the leadership of Forest & Bird is trying to achieve.

Posted 2 years ago #
auckland anne
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OK - I'll out myself. I'm on the executive, Cee Jay. Please don't abuse me too much - it's actually a trying job!! And you can see by the frequency my monicer appears on this and on lots of other Green Room and blog threads how 'verbose' I am...8-) (no comments required thank you).
I've asked that this matter be put on the agenda for discussion at the next executive meeting; and I've now no reason to believe that it won't be. My take on it is that the matter has been talked about by the staff, but we need to make the outcomes of that discussion available to our members so they can use it to lobby. Until there is a clear message from the organisation out there in the public domain, we'll risk getting people "frothing at the mouth". When there is a clear message, we can all write to our MPs and more importantly to our local media. We'll all hopefully be saying the same thing then.
And finally, as a talkative Green Room contributor, I can say that I know there are several staff people who do make comment also, I just can't and won't name them ... but we know who does and who doesn't get involved...8-)
PS I can quite understand the frustrations of people like CeeJay - it's a hell of a time at the moment!! Things are being thrown at us in this govt climate faster than we can deal with them. Which is why it's important to stay united!! (yes, you can tell I'm a child of the sixties!!...8-) ).

Posted 2 years ago #
auckland anne
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"This matter" being the implications of the ETS agreement, not my verbosity!!...8-)

Posted 2 years ago #
CeeJay
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I know who you are, Auckland Anne, and you you probably know my identity. (I used to be on the National Executive myself).

IMO this issue is far larger than that of mining on conservation lands, which is bad enough. We very quickly and rightly made our position very clear on the mining issue and I wonder about why the big silence on giving away conservation land. (And believe me, the 30,000 or 40,000 or whatever hectares in this instance is just the tip of the iceberg). Our silence is sending a message - and it is is not a good one for the environment.

If Forest and Bird is prepared to sleep-walk its way to irrelevance, that's fine. I joined, and became involved, in the Society because I saw it as an organisation that made a difference.

If my only option is to mount a campaign myself, I am quite happy to do so - it won't be the first time. However, I then would question why I would waste my money on remaining a member of F&B.

I could ring Barry, Mike or Kevin directly to find what is going on, but the vast majority of our membership, or the public, won't do so. They will be coming to the same conclusions and that's the really scary thing.

Posted 2 years ago #
Tawaki
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I have tried to provide some clarity above about what the Government has stated that it plans to do with the 40,000 hectares of conservation land. This area figure is growing by the day and presumably other iwi not in the initial DOC land allocation are likely over coming months/years to line up for their DOC land quota.

The Government has advised that it is handing undefined rights to the DOC land to the 5 biggest New Zealand iwi organisations. We are advised by the Government Ministers involved that these iwi want to clearfell their iwi owned pine plantations for dairy development. They intend using the "native or exotic" trees that they plant on the DOC land as a carbon offset so they don't have to pay a penalty for the carbon emissions their pine forest clearfelling will release.

My research has drawn on the government's news stories, journalists interpretation of those, what Climate Change Minister Nick Smith has said in Parliament and my discussions with public servants frightened by what is proposed and the extraordinary precedent that this will set.

We need to be crystal clear that this is the greatest threat to the integrity of public conservation land since DOC was established in 1986.

We also need to be absolutely clear that this issue must be out in the public arena.

It is highly appropriate that we discuss, debate and question what is going on. We should do this in the media, in chat rooms, in letters to Ministers and MPs, at the Forest and Bird Executive and urgetly with other organisations that advocate for conservation and recreation on public lands.

Pelorous Jack is wrong when he/she says in the post above that "If the issue is related to the fact it is Iwi doing it then that is surely a matter for New Zealand First not Forest & Bird"

Forest and Bird's defence of NZ's wonderful public conservation land heritage must transcend any issues of the race, colour or creed of those who covet parts of that conservation land heritage.

Iwi must be just as accountable for what they plan to do with public conservation land as should anyone else.

Ministers of Government who have plotted this assault on public conservation land should equally be held to full account right now and at the next election.

Posted 2 years ago #
auckland anne
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And thank you Tawaki and Pelorousjack for providing some facts. Now I have something to write to pollies and media about without worrying about just looking like a rabid dog.
I feel we do need to get our members on alert for immediate response should that day ever arise when the govt tries to fast-track law changes in order to allow parties to do things which are ultra vires to the existing legislation, though. It was the members writing the same messages en masse to pollies which saved the West Coast forests and Manapouri all those years ago...

Posted 2 years ago #
auckland anne
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I believe that I now need to say that there was never any intent on my part to imply that any information had been knowingly and meaningfully with-held from me about this matter early on, when I first asked about it, but to indicate that I had no reason to believe that there was anything to worry about at that stage when I asked people, including the staff, if there was any reason for concern. I was told that it was all under wraps in effect.
However, given these other things that have come up since my being told that, my take is that the question should be put 'formally' to the executive at our next executive meeting what the society position, if any, is.
Case closed.
My apologies to F&B staff if they thought that there was anything else being implied by my comments.

Posted 2 years ago #
clairegreen
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I've got no idea what the post above is about but it sounds like someone has been leaned on and is backing off fast!

Quite simply, a very serious threat to our conservation land has suddenly emerged and has no doubt been planned under wraps fin the bureaucracy for many weeks if not months.

1. Forest and Bird should have been aware that this was in the pipeline and should have exposed it to fresh air and public scrutiny. If F&B didn't know it was in the pipeline then F&B needs to radically improve its intelligence gathering from the bureaucracy.

2. With all these bureaucrats and lobby groups lining up how they can take public conservation land for private purposes, we need leadership from Forest and Bird challenging this presumption and telling New Zealanders, particuarly politicians, that it is unacceptable.

3. Forest and Bird mustn't be scared off just because it is iwi lining up conservation land for their private purposes. Iwi have to operate within the constraints of the law just as everyone else does.

4. I'd certainly hope that Forest and Bird magazine and "Green Alert" can blow the panic whistle on these secret negotiations to carve up conservation land and re start native forest logging on conservation land.

5. I don't care who speaks out on the subject from Forest and Bird so long as someone does. Maybe it should ideally be the President or maybe someone held in high esteem as a conservation leader such as Sir Alan Mark.

Posted 2 years ago #
CeeJay
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Crikey

I'm afraid the bird has flown and F&B has missed the waka. I'm not sure what Auckland Anne's first paragraph means but I rather suspect she's been "got."

I have to assume (and no doubt so will the politicians, general public and our membership) that the Society, through its silence, agrees with the ETS decision. It is galling to see all that effort and successes by successive generations of Forest and Birders go down the gurgler without a whimper.

Posted 2 years ago #
auckland anne
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My first para meant that although we (who shall remain nameless...8-) ) have appeared to miss the waka in this initial phase as some people fear, if the govt tries to fast-track changes to the Conservation Act, say, which will enable them to do things that they can't do now because of the law, then it might be an idea to have our members at the ready to lobby MPs and contact media with a common message...

Posted 2 years ago #

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