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Forest & Bird » Threats & Impacts

1. Tawaki
   User Profile

   Both DOC and Forest and Bird have announced recently that they want to foster closer relationships with the tourism industry.

   One response would be to ask both DOC and F&B to make sure that they have a very long spoon..........

   The Tourism Industry has a weekly intelligence broadsheet published by Nigel Coventry of Taumaranui called "Inside Tourism".

   Here is what Dave Jordan a former owner of The (Glacier) Guiding Company of Franz Josef wrote in the "Speakers Corner" section of last week's Inside Tourism. What do F&B members think?

   "DOC WAGING WAR ON THE LIFEBLOOD OF OUR INDUSTRY" BY DAVE JORDAN.

   A loud call for action as mass genocide affects our forest ecosystem. An ecosystem that is the life-blood of our tourism industry.

   DoC has come under much scrutiny due to its handling of possum control as its indiscriminant use of 1080poison/insecticide is blanketed over our forest by helicopter.

   Signs with skull and cross warn that it can harm children, kill dogs and areas of use should be avoided.
   There is a massive movement against the use of 1080.Tourism operators are joining the movement to stop the way 1080 is being dropped over our forest. Our clean green image which has been questioned for years any way is even more so now. We are not 100%Pure. I will say that loud and clear.

   Concerned
   It’s nothing new, however, as many New Zealanders have been writing very concerned, distressed letters to – but by no means limited to - TIA, Ministers, to the health board, and to animal rights movements.

   The call is being heard and this practice is being called to an end. There is unprecedented support by our nation and our councils to re look at these shameless practices.

   At the end of the day DoC is the leader of this mass genocide. There is no other way to describe it, as a very delicate portion of New Zealand’s ecosystem is being decimated.

   Criteria
   DoC, through its concession application processes, has very strict criteria for using DoC (our) land. Nothing can be altered by effect when conducting an activity in any park.

   Yet DoC are taking a hypocritical, biased, uninformed, uncalculated, blinded by the light approach to the issues of 1080 poison/insecticide on our most cherished and treasured environment. New Zealanders have become very uncomfortable with these actions by DoC. Numbers are mounting due to the awareness of but not limited to evidence shown from the Graf brother’s road show Poisoning Paradise. I have seen their movie and so should every New Zealander and God help our tourism and for that matter our agriculture industries when our international business stakeholders see it. It is not good enough that through their propaganda machine they say oh its ok we are targeting possums only here and that the other 99.99 percent of our ecosystem will recover.

   These are not factual statements and DoC has absolutely no evidence to support its words or actions through this propaganda. In fact after 17 years of this form of mass genocide DoC is only just now saying it will start to survey the effect come 2010. Nothing has been done to date.

   Mitigated
   If it were an operator applying for a concession all the possible effects would have to be mitigated and peer reviewed before the green light was given to conduct any activity on DoC (our) land. Try cutting a couple of dead branches from a rata tree and you will be fined. Two DoC workers were just fined $3,000 for doing just that. Does any of this make sense yet?

   DoC must be instructed through public voice to stop this unmeasured and unmitigated genocide and work alongside industry to determine just where we are truly at with the possum population and their effect on other wildlife. DoC is having a more negative effect on the environment than the possum ever has.

   Listen
   Be informed. Look beyond the propaganda machine. Make a call today. Listen to our forest. Watch the movie. There is no natural place for harmful insecticides and poisons in a delicate ecosystem such as we have in New Zealand. Remember our parks were set up to protect life. Why do we rage this war? The only winners are those who manufacture and spread the 1080.

   * Mr Jordan was director of The Guiding Company and has owned a whitewater rafting business and guided clients on rivers internationally.

   Posted 2 years ago #

2. Tawaki
   User Profile

   Here is my response to this adventure tourism operators rave:

   SAVING NEW ZEALAND'S NATIVE FOREST AND NATIVE WILDLIFE FOR EVERYONE TO ENJOY

   For 24 of the last 30 years I’ve guided visitors and studied in the West Coast and Canterbury high country and lived at the Glaciers, Lake Moeraki and alongside Arthur's Pass National Park. Prior to that I gained an honours degree in Ecology, a Doctorate in Botany and worked in nature conservation.

   Today, all three of these places are both sanctuaries for endangered native plants and wildlife as well as vital for the New Zealand nature tourism industry. These endangered species of the Glaciers (Okarito brown kiwi, southern rata, tree fuchsia), Lake Moeraki (tawaki penguin, kaka, blue duck, Colenso's mistletoe) and Arthur's Pass ( southern rata, orange fronted parakeet, great spotted kiwi, red mistletoe) only remain because of regular pest control by DOC and private individuals.

   Aerial 1080 operations are the only effective available tool to control rats, stoats and possums in the rugged landscapes of all three areas.

   For the last 15 years, in the forests surrounding our Lake Moeraki Wilderness Lodge, DOC has carried out triennial aerial 1080 operations. Their latest treatment was in June 2009. At Arthur's Pass, there is a 50 year history of 1080 operations in the Otira Valley. Recently in September 2009, the Hawdon Valley next to us was treated with aerial 1080 to control rats, possums and stoats.

   For the last 30 years, natural history film crews and the public have gone to the Otira Valley and Arthur’s Pass to film rata forest in flower and flocks of kea parrots. Their abundance shows the 1080 programme’s success. The Otira - Bealey valleys are also the NZ southern limit of our largest kiwi. Roroa are the focus of a major Arthur's Pass community conservation project, part funded by our most regular Wilderness Lodge Arthur's Pass visitors, David and Sarah Gordon. Two years ago, they generously established the $600,000 Birdlife International Pacific Conservation Fund to help save South Pacific birds. These eco-tourists understand clearly the vital importance of pest control operations.

   While I agree with adventure tourism practitioner Dave Jordan that natural ecosystems are the lifeblood of the tourism industry, I disagree that there is a problem with DOC 1080 pest control programmes.

   Our livelihood in conservation tourism directly benefits from the control of pest species. We, and many other nature tourism operators, support the Department of Conservation’s pest control efforts.

   Let’s take the case of kiwi in the Tongariro Forest. With a background survival rate of less than 5% in the wild (nowhere near replacement rate) brown kiwi populations are in decline except where they are protected. In 2006, DoC undertook an aerial 1080 operation in 14,000 ha of Tongariro Forest. That treatment has seen the kiwi chick survival increase to as high as 69%. In nearby river systems of the Mangatepopo and Whakapapa, whio, New Zealand’s only torrent duck, were being hammered by stoats. With judicious use of 1080, the stoat and rat populations were knocked down and the breeding success of the whio population doubled.

   Where is this mass genocide Mr Jordan? I have seen regenerating forests and healthy native ecosystems as a direct result of pest control operations. I have also seen collapsing forests and decimated birdlife where there is no control.

   In the Hawdon Valley following the September 1080 operation, 2009 is shaping up to be a stunning year for the orange-fronted parakeet and great-spotted kiwi breeding because rat and stoat numbers are way down.

   Public concerns that 1080 could also kill protected species were taken seriously here and thirteen kea and 23 kiwi were fitted with radio transmitters and monitored before and after the operation. They are all still alive and well.

   Pest control is essential and doing nothing is not an option and would almost certainly result in local extinction of most of the species described above.
   Mr Jordan’s uses the word ‘propaganda’ to attack evidence of pest control benefits. He is wrong. The science supporting pest control is available from the 2008 ERMA 1080 review and in Landcare Research, DOC and university studies.

   Readers should take the time to visit their local DOC office and talk to the people involved in saving birds through pest control operations. It will help them understand why we need more rather than less effective pest control to safeguard our NZ nature heritage.

   

   Attachments

   1. LM6.Fiordland_Crested_Penguins_Moeraki.jpg (9.4 KB, 1 downloads) 2 years old
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   Posted 2 years ago #

3. brent
   User Profile

   nice work pulling in facts to refute the sort of mis-informed view promulgated by the Mr. Jordans of this country. But we have to be aware that on many polarizing issues (e.g. GMOs, 1080) people don't decide on fact but on feeling - and scaremongering is a favorite tactic for the anti campaigners

   Posted 2 years ago #

4. chris max
   User Profile

   So PURE IS GOOD and POISON IS GOOD too ???
   I'm sorry that simply doesn't make sense - you would need to be brainwashed or something ? The propaganda war always wins. YOU ARE BEING BRAINWASHED

   Posted 2 years ago #

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