Mr Pope raised concerns the Otago Regional Council was dropping its funding for a science adviser position at the Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust, during the council’s second and final day of long-term plan hearings yesterday.
The council says it is "building a better future” for Otago residents and the environment.
And despite an overall proposed rates increase of 47.5% in 2021-22, many submitters who spoke to regional councillors in Dunedin, Queenstown and via videoconferencing at the hearings told them to get on with its proposed increased work programme.
The council has funded the trust’s science adviser for the past six years, and that funding will expire in September.
It is not part of the council’s proposed 2021-31 plan.
The trust said it was surprised to learn the funding would be cut and it asked the council to consider extending the support for another three years.
It needed $255,931 from 2021-24, it said.
But the trust did not come to this week’s hearings.
Instead, others urged councillors to continue funding science at the trust.
Mr Pope said ending the funding for yellow-eyed penguin research at the the trust would be "a shock to the landscape” and to businesses on the peninsula.
Department of Conservation ecologist Bruce McKinlay, of Dunedin, said the funding was making a real difference to the quality of yellow-eyed penguin conservation.
The science adviser was a "crucial position” at the trust and with its funding the council was making a real difference, he said.
It was "fantastic” the council was proposing a rates rise, long-time conservation advocate Sue Maturin, of Dunedin, said.
But the council was facing a biodiversity crisis.
"Please don’t stop funding the Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust,” she said.
The seabirds could easily disappear from Otago’s coastline in her lifetime, which was a "disheartening and soul-destroying” possibility, she said.
About 100 groups and individuals submitted during the hearings.
Councillors are set to deliberate next week.
The long-term plan is scheduled to be adopted on June 23.
