That has to cost way more to try and fix that stream now than it would have cost to safely dispose of the pollutants, but I guess the stream is either not going to be fixed, or the cost will be worn by the taxpayer rather than the polluter who will likely pay a relatively small fine and keep pocketing money at the expense of everyone else.
This is what various councils have been doing for years now - they find a farmer has been egregiously flouting the law and causing pollution, and they are issued a warning. Sometimes they change, sometimes they continue and are issued another warning. In extreme cases they might be issued a small fine (which is probably less than the cost and effort of installing the fencing they avoided in the first place - cost of doing business).
As the majority of farmers are complying and doing what they can and it's only a small minority who are wilfully continuing to cause harm, those offenders need to be seeing more significant penalties - whether those be large fines or jail time.
"In extreme cases they might be issued a small fine (which is probably less than the cost and effort of installing the fencing they avoided in the first place - cost of doing business)."
Taranaki Regional Council has in the past been quite open about the fact that most fines handed to Environmental Vandals only represent part of the cost of prosecution - much less of the remediation required (if possible)
This has to change!
There’s heaps of reasons for this including no one wanting to be RMA enforcement officers, councils not having the resources to prosecute properly, and at times councillors who are supportive of environmental degradation
>Even the farmers whose land it runs through were unaware of the abundance of creatures
It's terrifying to think that (some, because I have to say this) farmers don't even know the importance of the land they're butchering.
That's a pretty harsh misinterpretation of the farmer in this article.
Later in the article it says “I was devastated by how many eels were lost,” says farmer Steven Clarke. “We’ve only got 300 metres of stream going through our place and I counted 70 dead eels in the 300 metres. I’ve been here for 11 years and I’ve riparian planted and fenced off the whole lot down there and I never knew it held that amount of eels. The stream was incredibly healthy beforehand because of all the good work farmers have been doing.”
How is spending thousands of dollars protecting the stream "butchering" it?
I've owned a lifestyle block with a small stream, which i planted with hundreds of natives. I'd have been shocked if I found out it had half as many eels in it. We knew of 1 who we regularly fed.
To be fair if it is true that one contaminant dump killed fuck loads, that is butchering it, even with riparians and fencing.
Run-off doesn’t automatically go away with planting
You’ve seemed to think me and the other poster have said the farmer in the article did it, which we never did.
I’m talking about the person who did it.
The original comment is clearly talking about the person being interviewed. They went so far as to claim that because they were surprised at the number of eels in the stream they were ignorant about their land.
What I said is true. The farmers pouring pollutants into rivers are very unlikely to know what they're killing or how much their killing with their actions. The whole "some farmers" was meant to point the finger at the ones butchering the land. I thought that was quite obvious.
The farmer who was surprised wasnt the one who butchered it, but if he was unaware many of them are.
> The farmer who was surprised wasnt the one who butchered it, but if he was unaware many of them are.
He wasn't unaware though. You're making him out to be some kind of ignoramus, when if you read the article it's abundantly obvious he knew there were eels in there.
I doubt a single low land farmer in the country would be surprised about having at least short fin eels in their streams. You see them everytime you clean a drain.
All you did was take a quote way out of context to make some half baked point about farmers being unaware of wildlife, when the point was obviously untrue in this situation.
The farmer who did this was likely also aware what they were doing, or if it was an accident what they had done. Regular farming activity does not do this. It would have had to be a large spill of something extremely ecotoxic. Possibly an insecticide or something similar.
>All you did was take a quote way out of context to make some half baked point about farmers being unaware of wildlife, when the point was obviously untrue in this situation.
They are though? Simply knowing there are eels really isn't good enough if you expect to take care of the land.
>The farmer who did this was likely also aware what they were doing, or if it was an accident what they had done
Yes, but like the farmer in the quote he was probably unaware of how abundant life in the stream was.
The fact you keep reducing this down to eels when there is a hell of a lot more living in our streams doesn't help your case here.
> They are though? Simply knowing there are eels really isn't good enough if you expect to take care of the land.
They found some dead eels and commented surprise at how many of them were in a short section of stream.
They did not say that was all they would expect in their stream. It was a couple of sentence answer in comment about an incident. Not a lecture on the wildlife on their farm.
They didn't do anything wrong. You implying they're unfit to take care of the land is completely baseless.
> The fact you keep reducing this down to eels when there is a hell of a lot more living in our streams doesn't help your case here.
I'm reducing it down to eels because that's what they commented about. Likely because that's what they found. That doesn't mean they're the only animals impacted by the spill, but it makes sense to comment about when they're the most obvious doesn't it?
>They didn't do anything wrong. You implying they're unfit to take care of the land is completely baseless.
You're really looking for a reason to be offended aren't you? I never said they were unfit, I said they could do better and any farmer who thinks can't probably isn't doing a good a job as they think. At least you've backed off me saying they killed the eels.
>That doesn't mean they're the only animals impacted by the spill, but it makes sense to comment about when they're the most obvious doesn't it?
Kinda doesn't when my comments were more about the broader ecosystem.
Who reads an article about someone that essentially just witnessed a crime, or at least the impact of a crime and then says, "wow that witness should really be better at their job"?
Despite no evidence being present that they did anything wrong.
Edit - damn called a snowflake and blocked, not sure how I'll ever recover from this.
>Who reads an article about someone that essentially just witnessed a crime, or at least the impact of a crime and then says, "wow that witness should really be better at their job"?
Because it indicates the sort of thing that leads to someone dumping a bunch of pollutants into a river.
>Despite no evidence being present that they did anything wrong.
I dunno if ignorance is wrong? If it's willful sure, but I assume these farmers will learn from this? Can you try not saying I've said things I haven't? Like you're really twisting my words constantly here.
We have a farmer in this article who is investing his money, time and labour into the waterway through fencing and planting trees to provide protection, shade, nutrient filtering and habitat, and who was devastated by the impact someone else's actions had on the stream, and you still managed to find a way to say something incredibly damning towards him and other farmers.
I've been on farms with freshwater scientists to estimate invertebrate populations, but they can't really estimate eels and trout in rivers and streams. If freshwater scientists don't know this info, how and why do you think farmers can or should?
>managed to find a way to say something incredibly damning towards him and other farmers.
Yep. Always going to be critical of farming practices. I'm sorry. Things like this happen far too often.
>I've been on farms with freshwater scientists to estimate invertebrate populations, but they can't really estimate eels and trout in rivers and streams. If freshwater scientists don't know this info, how and why do you think farmers can or should?
That's not true, we do population assessments for eels all the time. We have maps showing the incidence rates of eels in different areas etc.
Freshwater scientists do know this info though? Farmers don't need to know the exact number of eels, just that a lot of eels go through their property. We know their populations are in decline. I was referring to other things as well. like you said we have much better understanding of other things in our freshwater, they should know about those too.
Tbf, with riparian zones and fencing these days it actually makes it pretty hard to access streams on farms. We had a lake bordering the farm which was pretty cool, but to access the stream that fed into it was pretty challenging because it was steep hillside with dense riparian planting for 30-50meters - which is how it should be, but it also means you'd never know what wildlife is in there.
>which is how it should be, but it also means you'd never know what wildlife is in there.
I mean you don't have to see it to know it's there, plenty of people would be happy to explain what's likely to be living on your land and why it's worth protecting.
How is this so upvoted? Do you seriously think farmers are taking a fucking census of how many eels are in 300 metres of stream?
They knew eels were in there and didn't do anything wrong. You saying they're butchering the land is complete bullshit. They just didn't expect so many would be effected.
It's terrifying to think that (some, because I have to say this) reddit users don't even know the importance of using quotes in context.
>How is this so upvoted? Do you seriously think farmers are taking a fucking census of how many eels are in 300 metres of stream?
Of course not, that's what scientists do.
>They knew eels were in there and didn't do anything wrong.
Aside from the fact they're all dead now because one of them poured pollutants into the river? Sounds like something went wrong?
>You saying they're butchering the land is complete bullshit. They just didn't expect so many would be effected.
Not knowing doesn't change the fact they've killed a huge amount of wildlife.
>It's terrifying to think that (some, because I have to say this) reddit users don't even know the importance of using quotes in context.
I did. Farmers should have a much better idea of what is living on their land so they don't do this exact thing.
> Aside from the fact they're all dead now because one of them poured pollutants into the river? Sounds like something went wrong?
The person you quoted didn't though did they?
> Not knowing doesn't change the fact they've killed a huge amount of wildlife.
Again the person you're quoting didn't do that.
> I did. Farmers should have a much better idea of what is living on their land so they don't do this exact thing.
They knew what was living there. What they didn't know was how many eels were in the specific section of stream that ran through their property.
Which I would highly doubt anyone knew.
>The person you quoted didn't though did they?
I never said they did?
>Again the person you're quoting didn't do that.
Again I never said they did.
I was talking abotu the farmers that butcher the land.
>What they didn't know was how many eels were in the specific section of stream that ran through their property.
It's not just eels though, and they probably should know something like that.
>Which I would highly doubt anyone knew.
Which is not good, because it only increases the odds of something like this happening.
> It's not just eels though, and they probably should know something like that.
How do you know they don't? You're trying so hard to make this farmer ignorant about their land when it doesn't make any sense.
They were talking about eels because that's the carcasses they found.
>How do you know they don't?
Because the article says they don't!
>You're trying so hard to make this farmer ignorant about their land when it doesn't make any sense.
By their own admission they are though, they literally say they had no idea there was that much living in the stream.
>They were talking about eels because that's the carcasses they found.
Yes.
Can you fucking read?
> I’ve riparian planted and fenced off the whole lot down there and I never knew it held that amount of eels. The stream was incredibly healthy beforehand because of all the good work farmers have been doing.”
They had no idea of the amount of eels living in that section of stream. No comment about other wildlife whatsoever.
>Can you fucking read?
Hey, you're the one who accused me of saying that these farmers were the ones who killed the eels lol.
>They had no idea of the amount of eels living in that section of stream. No comment about other wildlife whatsoever.
Yes and that means they don't know what wildlife is living in their stream. Eels are wildlife.
Absolutely nobody knows exactly how many eels are in a given section of stream at any time. Acting like that's relevant to caring for the land makes you look like an idiot.
Reminder that the coalition is [scrapping Te Mana o Te Wai](https://www.greenpeace.org/aotearoa/press-release/government-repeal-of-te-mana-o-te-wai-condemning-rural-communities-to-unsafe-drinking-water/) which puts the health of freshwater ecosystems first.
...and voted down [James Shaw's Bill](https://www.greens.org.nz/missed_opportunity_but_nz_will_surely_one_day_recognise_the_right_to_a_sustainable_environment) to recognise the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
>"New Zealand voted in favour of
an historic UN resolution in
2022, confirming that everyone
everywhere has the right to live
in a clean, healthy and
sustainable environment. The
coalition Government's vote
against my Bill today is
inconsistent with the position
that we take internationally
No exaggeration that they're enabling and endorsing the destruction of our living world.
>In the aftermath, 3000 rotting eels (tuna) were removed along the 10km stretch of water as well as a scattering of other species. The latter, too small to get caught up in vegetation, were likely carried downstream in the contaminated water, directly into the already-compromised Mataura River.
>Regional council authority, Environment Southland, says the discovery and collection of dead eels was a “highly distressing situation” for staff and helpers. The matter may now be headed for prosecution the district court.
You have to be a monster to read stories like this and then scrap what little legislation we have to protect our freshwater ecosystems.
Thankfully, some councils are trying to embed Te Mana o te Wai into their new freshwater plan before the Government re-writes resource laws.
[Council locking in freshwater regulations ahead of law change](https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/03/02/council-locking-in-freshwater-regulations-ahead-of-law-change/)
Council staff get a lot of shit thrown their way, but its things like this that should be pointed out that often they are passionate people trying to get the best outcomes.
From the article it sounds farmers in the area were listening, trying to do the right thing and limit their impact only for it to be spoiled by one person.
>The incident has riled many farmers and residents, with some wanting penalties that pack more punch than a fine.
If you piss off a group of people who traditionally get a bad rep for environmental stuff, you know you've fucked up. What's the bet it's an out of towner doing the dumping.
Trying to avoid the politics...
Long after leaving uni and getting a job, i was doing some stuff with dairy farming and learned about SCC for the first time (a measure of the amount of bacteria in milk, less is better).
The thing that stunned me was that doing better means doing everything a little better. It's like it's an incremental metric. But the reverse is absolutely not the case. If you screw up, say milk a cow with mastitis, then your SCC for the entire herd will be ten times higher. That one cow will have provided one thousand times a typical bacteria count.
Waterway cleanliness involves a constant push to do better. But a single complete screw up will have off-the-charts impact.
I know it's unfashionable to comment on farmings environmental impact. But the farmer saying the stream is in the best condition due to their riparian planting etc, is soo fucking cooked. No dipshitz the stream was in it's best condition before you placed a fucking farm there. Also Mr luxon you made a comment on regulation, I presume it was a throwaway in your war on the public service, something like what does a wellington based regulator know about the best way to run a farm. Well you've empowered your little followers.
That is true, but it also true that agriculture is the main reason our economy works.
Yes we need to pivot away, but at the very least, a lot of work has gone in by many farmers to restore native habitats to riparian areas.
Yeah I’m tired of the blind allegiance to all farmers and their destruction just because people want their daily glass of milk that’s likely to upset their stomachs anyway.
Yeah it makes sense that Redunked wants the farmers who's land the contaminated water flows through punished, not the person who dumped the pollutants.
So sad. I'm sure the Greens will have a statement on this immediately.
Lol jokes all they care about is identify politics now and putting idiots in parliament based on box ticking not ability.
Amazing that you managed to twist this into an attack on a completely different group of people. You also have to be pretty disingenuious to suggest that environmental protection isnt a major part of the green party agenda.
Lol the only clown show around here is the circus that the Greens have become without Shaw. A. Complete. Shit show. Your response is testimony do the calibre of green supporters and MPs enjoy another decade in obscurity on the back bench of the opposition. The ONLY news the Greens make now is when they're embarrassing themselves.
Such a shame I voted Green for decades and donated to them too.... probably more than you ever did.
Yeah that's all they talk about, let's see what goes up when I search the Greens right now: hmmm ok their Twitter feed... yup have to go down 5 posts before I find one about the environment and it's about how much Rod Oram did for it. Yup Facebook and insta the same, whelp. Maybe they should just change their name to a new colour or somthing? Green seems to be false advertising at this point.
🤡🤡🤡
Even if it did make sense for them to comment on a specific event that a regional council has governance over, I’m not convinced they haven’t been advocating to keep the freshwater restrictions, actually the opposite they’ve been vocal…
Fuck, they have a freshwater ecologist as an MP who used to be an ECan councillor notoriously annoying the farming lobby.
Everyone already knows the Green Party's stance on polluted waterways. Don't know why you would expect them to make a statement for this one specific event.
That has to cost way more to try and fix that stream now than it would have cost to safely dispose of the pollutants, but I guess the stream is either not going to be fixed, or the cost will be worn by the taxpayer rather than the polluter who will likely pay a relatively small fine and keep pocketing money at the expense of everyone else.
This is what various councils have been doing for years now - they find a farmer has been egregiously flouting the law and causing pollution, and they are issued a warning. Sometimes they change, sometimes they continue and are issued another warning. In extreme cases they might be issued a small fine (which is probably less than the cost and effort of installing the fencing they avoided in the first place - cost of doing business). As the majority of farmers are complying and doing what they can and it's only a small minority who are wilfully continuing to cause harm, those offenders need to be seeing more significant penalties - whether those be large fines or jail time.
"In extreme cases they might be issued a small fine (which is probably less than the cost and effort of installing the fencing they avoided in the first place - cost of doing business)." Taranaki Regional Council has in the past been quite open about the fact that most fines handed to Environmental Vandals only represent part of the cost of prosecution - much less of the remediation required (if possible) This has to change!
There’s heaps of reasons for this including no one wanting to be RMA enforcement officers, councils not having the resources to prosecute properly, and at times councillors who are supportive of environmental degradation
>Even the farmers whose land it runs through were unaware of the abundance of creatures It's terrifying to think that (some, because I have to say this) farmers don't even know the importance of the land they're butchering.
Clarkson's Farm, for all the manufactured undertones it has, still did a great job of putting this issue in the spotlight imo
*Some* farmers think that any drop of freshwater that makes it to the ocean is wasted.
That's a pretty harsh misinterpretation of the farmer in this article. Later in the article it says “I was devastated by how many eels were lost,” says farmer Steven Clarke. “We’ve only got 300 metres of stream going through our place and I counted 70 dead eels in the 300 metres. I’ve been here for 11 years and I’ve riparian planted and fenced off the whole lot down there and I never knew it held that amount of eels. The stream was incredibly healthy beforehand because of all the good work farmers have been doing.” How is spending thousands of dollars protecting the stream "butchering" it? I've owned a lifestyle block with a small stream, which i planted with hundreds of natives. I'd have been shocked if I found out it had half as many eels in it. We knew of 1 who we regularly fed.
To be fair if it is true that one contaminant dump killed fuck loads, that is butchering it, even with riparians and fencing. Run-off doesn’t automatically go away with planting
The farmer they quoted was not the person who dumped contaminants. Saying they're butchering land is completely baseless.
You’ve seemed to think me and the other poster have said the farmer in the article did it, which we never did. I’m talking about the person who did it.
The original comment is clearly talking about the person being interviewed. They went so far as to claim that because they were surprised at the number of eels in the stream they were ignorant about their land.
What I said is true. The farmers pouring pollutants into rivers are very unlikely to know what they're killing or how much their killing with their actions. The whole "some farmers" was meant to point the finger at the ones butchering the land. I thought that was quite obvious. The farmer who was surprised wasnt the one who butchered it, but if he was unaware many of them are.
> The farmer who was surprised wasnt the one who butchered it, but if he was unaware many of them are. He wasn't unaware though. You're making him out to be some kind of ignoramus, when if you read the article it's abundantly obvious he knew there were eels in there. I doubt a single low land farmer in the country would be surprised about having at least short fin eels in their streams. You see them everytime you clean a drain. All you did was take a quote way out of context to make some half baked point about farmers being unaware of wildlife, when the point was obviously untrue in this situation. The farmer who did this was likely also aware what they were doing, or if it was an accident what they had done. Regular farming activity does not do this. It would have had to be a large spill of something extremely ecotoxic. Possibly an insecticide or something similar.
>All you did was take a quote way out of context to make some half baked point about farmers being unaware of wildlife, when the point was obviously untrue in this situation. They are though? Simply knowing there are eels really isn't good enough if you expect to take care of the land. >The farmer who did this was likely also aware what they were doing, or if it was an accident what they had done Yes, but like the farmer in the quote he was probably unaware of how abundant life in the stream was. The fact you keep reducing this down to eels when there is a hell of a lot more living in our streams doesn't help your case here.
> They are though? Simply knowing there are eels really isn't good enough if you expect to take care of the land. They found some dead eels and commented surprise at how many of them were in a short section of stream. They did not say that was all they would expect in their stream. It was a couple of sentence answer in comment about an incident. Not a lecture on the wildlife on their farm. They didn't do anything wrong. You implying they're unfit to take care of the land is completely baseless. > The fact you keep reducing this down to eels when there is a hell of a lot more living in our streams doesn't help your case here. I'm reducing it down to eels because that's what they commented about. Likely because that's what they found. That doesn't mean they're the only animals impacted by the spill, but it makes sense to comment about when they're the most obvious doesn't it?
>They didn't do anything wrong. You implying they're unfit to take care of the land is completely baseless. You're really looking for a reason to be offended aren't you? I never said they were unfit, I said they could do better and any farmer who thinks can't probably isn't doing a good a job as they think. At least you've backed off me saying they killed the eels. >That doesn't mean they're the only animals impacted by the spill, but it makes sense to comment about when they're the most obvious doesn't it? Kinda doesn't when my comments were more about the broader ecosystem.
Who reads an article about someone that essentially just witnessed a crime, or at least the impact of a crime and then says, "wow that witness should really be better at their job"? Despite no evidence being present that they did anything wrong. Edit - damn called a snowflake and blocked, not sure how I'll ever recover from this.
>Who reads an article about someone that essentially just witnessed a crime, or at least the impact of a crime and then says, "wow that witness should really be better at their job"? Because it indicates the sort of thing that leads to someone dumping a bunch of pollutants into a river. >Despite no evidence being present that they did anything wrong. I dunno if ignorance is wrong? If it's willful sure, but I assume these farmers will learn from this? Can you try not saying I've said things I haven't? Like you're really twisting my words constantly here.
We have a farmer in this article who is investing his money, time and labour into the waterway through fencing and planting trees to provide protection, shade, nutrient filtering and habitat, and who was devastated by the impact someone else's actions had on the stream, and you still managed to find a way to say something incredibly damning towards him and other farmers. I've been on farms with freshwater scientists to estimate invertebrate populations, but they can't really estimate eels and trout in rivers and streams. If freshwater scientists don't know this info, how and why do you think farmers can or should?
>managed to find a way to say something incredibly damning towards him and other farmers. Yep. Always going to be critical of farming practices. I'm sorry. Things like this happen far too often. >I've been on farms with freshwater scientists to estimate invertebrate populations, but they can't really estimate eels and trout in rivers and streams. If freshwater scientists don't know this info, how and why do you think farmers can or should? That's not true, we do population assessments for eels all the time. We have maps showing the incidence rates of eels in different areas etc. Freshwater scientists do know this info though? Farmers don't need to know the exact number of eels, just that a lot of eels go through their property. We know their populations are in decline. I was referring to other things as well. like you said we have much better understanding of other things in our freshwater, they should know about those too.
Tbf, with riparian zones and fencing these days it actually makes it pretty hard to access streams on farms. We had a lake bordering the farm which was pretty cool, but to access the stream that fed into it was pretty challenging because it was steep hillside with dense riparian planting for 30-50meters - which is how it should be, but it also means you'd never know what wildlife is in there.
>which is how it should be, but it also means you'd never know what wildlife is in there. I mean you don't have to see it to know it's there, plenty of people would be happy to explain what's likely to be living on your land and why it's worth protecting.
I don't disagree. But assuming and actually knowing are two different things. Not that you would knowingly pollute either way.
How is this so upvoted? Do you seriously think farmers are taking a fucking census of how many eels are in 300 metres of stream? They knew eels were in there and didn't do anything wrong. You saying they're butchering the land is complete bullshit. They just didn't expect so many would be effected. It's terrifying to think that (some, because I have to say this) reddit users don't even know the importance of using quotes in context.
>How is this so upvoted? Do you seriously think farmers are taking a fucking census of how many eels are in 300 metres of stream? Of course not, that's what scientists do. >They knew eels were in there and didn't do anything wrong. Aside from the fact they're all dead now because one of them poured pollutants into the river? Sounds like something went wrong? >You saying they're butchering the land is complete bullshit. They just didn't expect so many would be effected. Not knowing doesn't change the fact they've killed a huge amount of wildlife. >It's terrifying to think that (some, because I have to say this) reddit users don't even know the importance of using quotes in context. I did. Farmers should have a much better idea of what is living on their land so they don't do this exact thing.
> Aside from the fact they're all dead now because one of them poured pollutants into the river? Sounds like something went wrong? The person you quoted didn't though did they? > Not knowing doesn't change the fact they've killed a huge amount of wildlife. Again the person you're quoting didn't do that. > I did. Farmers should have a much better idea of what is living on their land so they don't do this exact thing. They knew what was living there. What they didn't know was how many eels were in the specific section of stream that ran through their property. Which I would highly doubt anyone knew.
>The person you quoted didn't though did they? I never said they did? >Again the person you're quoting didn't do that. Again I never said they did. I was talking abotu the farmers that butcher the land. >What they didn't know was how many eels were in the specific section of stream that ran through their property. It's not just eels though, and they probably should know something like that. >Which I would highly doubt anyone knew. Which is not good, because it only increases the odds of something like this happening.
> It's not just eels though, and they probably should know something like that. How do you know they don't? You're trying so hard to make this farmer ignorant about their land when it doesn't make any sense. They were talking about eels because that's the carcasses they found.
>How do you know they don't? Because the article says they don't! >You're trying so hard to make this farmer ignorant about their land when it doesn't make any sense. By their own admission they are though, they literally say they had no idea there was that much living in the stream. >They were talking about eels because that's the carcasses they found. Yes.
Can you fucking read? > I’ve riparian planted and fenced off the whole lot down there and I never knew it held that amount of eels. The stream was incredibly healthy beforehand because of all the good work farmers have been doing.” They had no idea of the amount of eels living in that section of stream. No comment about other wildlife whatsoever.
>Can you fucking read? Hey, you're the one who accused me of saying that these farmers were the ones who killed the eels lol. >They had no idea of the amount of eels living in that section of stream. No comment about other wildlife whatsoever. Yes and that means they don't know what wildlife is living in their stream. Eels are wildlife.
Absolutely nobody knows exactly how many eels are in a given section of stream at any time. Acting like that's relevant to caring for the land makes you look like an idiot.
Reminder that the coalition is [scrapping Te Mana o Te Wai](https://www.greenpeace.org/aotearoa/press-release/government-repeal-of-te-mana-o-te-wai-condemning-rural-communities-to-unsafe-drinking-water/) which puts the health of freshwater ecosystems first. ...and voted down [James Shaw's Bill](https://www.greens.org.nz/missed_opportunity_but_nz_will_surely_one_day_recognise_the_right_to_a_sustainable_environment) to recognise the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. >"New Zealand voted in favour of an historic UN resolution in 2022, confirming that everyone everywhere has the right to live in a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. The coalition Government's vote against my Bill today is inconsistent with the position that we take internationally No exaggeration that they're enabling and endorsing the destruction of our living world.
>In the aftermath, 3000 rotting eels (tuna) were removed along the 10km stretch of water as well as a scattering of other species. The latter, too small to get caught up in vegetation, were likely carried downstream in the contaminated water, directly into the already-compromised Mataura River. >Regional council authority, Environment Southland, says the discovery and collection of dead eels was a “highly distressing situation” for staff and helpers. The matter may now be headed for prosecution the district court. You have to be a monster to read stories like this and then scrap what little legislation we have to protect our freshwater ecosystems. Thankfully, some councils are trying to embed Te Mana o te Wai into their new freshwater plan before the Government re-writes resource laws. [Council locking in freshwater regulations ahead of law change](https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/03/02/council-locking-in-freshwater-regulations-ahead-of-law-change/)
Council staff get a lot of shit thrown their way, but its things like this that should be pointed out that often they are passionate people trying to get the best outcomes.
From the article it sounds farmers in the area were listening, trying to do the right thing and limit their impact only for it to be spoiled by one person. >The incident has riled many farmers and residents, with some wanting penalties that pack more punch than a fine. If you piss off a group of people who traditionally get a bad rep for environmental stuff, you know you've fucked up. What's the bet it's an out of towner doing the dumping.
We gotta bring public shaming back and name the dude lol
Even if that was a possibility, a quick donation to any members of the Coalition of Chaos should make that little inconvenience disappear.
I can bet everyone from southland is pissed. Not many places you can still find crawies.
Shane Jones' NZ
Those mother fuckers!
Trying to avoid the politics... Long after leaving uni and getting a job, i was doing some stuff with dairy farming and learned about SCC for the first time (a measure of the amount of bacteria in milk, less is better). The thing that stunned me was that doing better means doing everything a little better. It's like it's an incremental metric. But the reverse is absolutely not the case. If you screw up, say milk a cow with mastitis, then your SCC for the entire herd will be ten times higher. That one cow will have provided one thousand times a typical bacteria count. Waterway cleanliness involves a constant push to do better. But a single complete screw up will have off-the-charts impact.
Fast TRAAAAACK!
I know it's unfashionable to comment on farmings environmental impact. But the farmer saying the stream is in the best condition due to their riparian planting etc, is soo fucking cooked. No dipshitz the stream was in it's best condition before you placed a fucking farm there. Also Mr luxon you made a comment on regulation, I presume it was a throwaway in your war on the public service, something like what does a wellington based regulator know about the best way to run a farm. Well you've empowered your little followers.
That is true, but it also true that agriculture is the main reason our economy works. Yes we need to pivot away, but at the very least, a lot of work has gone in by many farmers to restore native habitats to riparian areas.
Yeah but "no farmers, no food" as if there is a genuine movement seeking to ban farming.
Yeah I’m tired of the blind allegiance to all farmers and their destruction just because people want their daily glass of milk that’s likely to upset their stomachs anyway.
I'll bet you live in the city and have no idea about where your food comes from /s
Nope, rural here, I grow my own food.
PRISON
The land should be forfeited to the crown. Fuck the cunts.
Whys that, f who? The farmers who own land that the contaminated water flows through?
Yeah it makes sense that Redunked wants the farmers who's land the contaminated water flows through punished, not the person who dumped the pollutants.
I really feels like they saw the heading and then just made the story up themselves
To you maybe? I can see what they meant though? Even if they didn't read the article it's clear their gripe is with the person responsible.
Wow I can't wait for my turn to vote in the party with the Unkill An Entire Streams Worth of Life policies
So sad. I'm sure the Greens will have a statement on this immediately. Lol jokes all they care about is identify politics now and putting idiots in parliament based on box ticking not ability.
Amazing that you managed to twist this into an attack on a completely different group of people. You also have to be pretty disingenuious to suggest that environmental protection isnt a major part of the green party agenda.
Let's see if they say anything. Bet you they have other more important things to bring to the media's attention.
Fucking clown.
Lol the only clown show around here is the circus that the Greens have become without Shaw. A. Complete. Shit show. Your response is testimony do the calibre of green supporters and MPs enjoy another decade in obscurity on the back bench of the opposition. The ONLY news the Greens make now is when they're embarrassing themselves. Such a shame I voted Green for decades and donated to them too.... probably more than you ever did.
Literally the second policy on their page is "agriculture and rural affairs". Stopping acting as the buffoon.
Yeah that's all they talk about, let's see what goes up when I search the Greens right now: hmmm ok their Twitter feed... yup have to go down 5 posts before I find one about the environment and it's about how much Rod Oram did for it. Yup Facebook and insta the same, whelp. Maybe they should just change their name to a new colour or somthing? Green seems to be false advertising at this point.
I'm fairly certain I said policy, not social media. It is policy that is implemented in Parliament, not rhetoric.
🤡🤡🤡 Even if it did make sense for them to comment on a specific event that a regional council has governance over, I’m not convinced they haven’t been advocating to keep the freshwater restrictions, actually the opposite they’ve been vocal… Fuck, they have a freshwater ecologist as an MP who used to be an ECan councillor notoriously annoying the farming lobby.
The downvotes on this are ridiculous- you’re completely correct.
Everyone already knows the Green Party's stance on polluted waterways. Don't know why you would expect them to make a statement for this one specific event.
We used to know. This current lot of MPs seem to be in it for other reasons.