Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
freshwater ecosystems, carrying with it high levels of nitrates, as well as bacteria
and parasites such as E. coli and giardia.
The dairy industry is NZ's biggest export earner, and it continues to boom with
more land being converted, despite clear evidence of its detrimental effects, which
include the generation of half of NZ's greenhouse gas emissions. Parliamentary
Commissioner for the Environment, Jan Wright, has referred to the matter as a
'classic economy versus environment dilemma'. NZ's dominant dairy cooperative -
Fonterra - has expressed a commitment to upping its game to ensure farm man-
agement practices 'preserve New Zealand's clean green image'; some farmers are
indeed cleaning up their act.
There are many other threats to water and land ecosystems, including prolifera-
tion of invasive weeds and pests, with biodiversity loss continuing in parallel. The
worst offenders are possums, stoats and rats, which chomp through swathes of
forest and kill wildlife, particularly birds. Controversy rages at the Department of
Conservation's use of 1080 poison (sodium fluoroacetate) to control these pests,
despite it being sanctioned by prominent environmental groups such as Forest &
Bird and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. Vehement opposi-
tion to 1080 is expressed by such diverse camps as hunters and animal-rights act-
ivists, who cite detriments such as by-kill, and the poison's transmittal into water-
ways.
This is just one of DOC's increasing range of duties, which includes processing
applications for mining within the conservation estate. Public feeling runs high on
this issue, too, as demonstrated by recent ructions over opencast coalmining on
the West Coast's Denniston Plateau. DOC has increasingly found itself in the thick
of it; at the same time as budget cuts and major internal restructuring have left it
appearing thinner on the ground.
Meanwhile, NZ's principle legislation governing the NZ environment - the 1991 -
Resource Management Act - is undergoing controversial reforms suspected of
opening the door to further exploitation of the environment. NGOs and community
groups - ever-vigilant and already making major contributions to the welfare of
NZ's environment - will find plenty to keep them occupied in the years to come.
Sarah Bennett & Lee Slater
Flora & Fauna
NZ may be relatively young, geologically speaking, but its plants and animals go back a
long way. The tuatara, for instance, an ancient reptile unique to these islands, is a Gond-
wanaland survivor closely related to the dinosaurs, while many of the distinctive flight-
less birds here (ratites) have distant African and South American cousins.
