Wilding pines and the trickling Taieri River
On Thursday I fished the Upper Taieri river near Paerau.
The country was as dry as a chip. Most of the river’s backwaters were dry and the river was down to a weedy trickle. The fish were being sensible and keeping their heads down under the weed and out of the sun.
Driving back to Dunedin we took the Old Dunstan Trail, which I have not done for some time. In that time the growth of wilding pines near the Loganburn Reservoir has become prominent. Some gorse and broom is also starting to show.
Richard Bowman (ODT 1.3.24) is absolutely right. The time to control these trees is now.
Established pine forest can reduce water yield from a catchment by up to 40%. The current trickle in the Taieri shows just why we cannot afford to let this happen in the Taieri and Loganburn catchments.
These critically low river flows will only become more frequent as the climate warms. Let’s act now before it is too late.
Come fly with us
Now that the proposed airport at Tarras has been deferred or postponed (hopefully cancelled) I believe that I may have a practical alternative solution.
To me the logical thing to do is to "up-scale" Dunedin Airport into a major international airport servicing all needs mainly south of the Waitaki River. This would be far cheaper than trying to build an airport in the Tarras area because a lot of the infrastructure is already there.
Then provide regular domestic flights to both Wānaka and Queenstown and all other destinations. Then, as international flights land in Dunedin the passengers can change planes to get to their final destination domestically.
The major problem with the proposed Tarras Airport was that Queenstown passengers in particular would need a bus ride which takes a "minimum" of 90 minutes or even longer with the traffic issues in the Frankton/Queenstown area, where there are often traffic jams.
Take San Francisco or Los Angeles, both international airports where passengers who want to go inland further would change to domestic flights for their final destination. Dunedin International Airport and beyond. A good idea or not?
It was good until
I enjoyed Phil Murray’s opinion piece (ODT 26.2.24) about changing environmental attitudes, until his statements that (i) our current attitude towards the environment came from our Christian colonial past, exploiting natural resources for immediate personal gain, and (ii) tangata whenua have a different perspective.
As a Christian sustainable development practitioner, I challenge such sweeping cultural generalisations. The colonial past wasn’t specifically Christian in belief or practice, and the biblical world view is one of sustainably using natural resources while nurturing the environment. Some Christians are more "green" than others, just as some Māori are more "green".
All cultures have exceeded environmental boundaries, for example, Western industrial pollution, and Māori hunting moa to extinction. More positively, today most people are working towards environmentally sustainable futures, while still meeting their social and economic needs. I encourage influencers such as Phil to present evidence-based statements, or if unsure, be a little more nuanced and gracious towards other groups.
Making it hard when things need to be easier
I was horrified to hear from World Vision that the cost of 10 common food items in New Zealand shot up by 56% in the past year, despite food prices trending down globally. That puts us on a par with some of the poorest countries in the world (ODT, 29.2.24).
And yet, in a country proud of its agricultural and pastoral expertise, our new government plans to build more roads and promote urban sprawl, burying productive green-field land under asphalt and concrete.
Radical as I am, I suggest that the main function of government is to collect taxes as fairly as possible, then spend the money for the general good. Even the rich want food security, education for their children, a responsive health system and protection from climate change.
So why cut back funding to mouldy, decrepit and overcrowded schools? Why cause thousands of deaths and millions of dollars in health costs by scrapping the anti-smoking legislation? How will putting a road tax on EVs or cutting back on public transport fend off the climate catastrophe?
This government won the election by campaigning on the cost of living. And yet by scrapping Three Waters, they force local and regional councils to raise their rates. They seem unconcerned that banks and supermarkets make obscene profits, unconcerned that our insane house prices are still rising. They respond to child poverty by pushing parents back into work (ODT 22.2.24), but abolish the Fair Pay Agreement that might have made job seeking worthwhile.
Finally, the government makes it harder for beneficiaries to survive the cost of living by clawing back money from those unable to find work, just when unemployment is rising. The children of beneficiaries are almost certainly living in poverty already. In its determination to smash and grab, this government is ram-raiding people on a massive and unprecedented scale.
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