Destroy to save?

I just read of how a hydro scheme on the lower Waitaki is going to benefit the local ecology because part of the project is going to do some habitat restoration. (Read here on Voxy). Habitat restoration = good. But it is flawed logic to say that hydro scheme = good because it happens to come with habitat restoration, no?  If I give you a kick in the teeth and throw in a free lollipop, it doesn’t make the kick in the teeth good.

Similar free lollipop promises have been made in the Mokihinui river damning project applications. Read Meridian here – the dam is not just a dam, it comes with 16km of new tramping track free! Green Party and Forest and Bird appear unconvinced.

I understand that the economics don’t really match in my silly metaphor – a kick in the teeth can’t fund a lollipop like electricity generation can fund good stuff – but surely those damn projects shouldn’t get approved because they promise some relatively minor sweeteners.

Arg, feeling even less eloequent than usual now but I’m sure you understand what I’m trying to say.

Mokihinui at sunset, as seen from flickr

Wellington Heart Manners Mall Irony Song

If you’re from Wellington and you don’t love this song maybe you should move to Auckland, with all the other stretched-metaphor-irony haters.

If you’re not from Wellington, my aplogies. I’ll write a real post later instead of just sneakily putting someone else’s awesomeness online and claiming some credit for making you aware of it. Briefly the background is that the council are going to make the pedestrian hangout of 16 year olds who can’t quite get into pubs, Manners Mall, into a new bus lane. There was some dissent, culminating in a facebook group called Wellington Heart Manners Mall and lots of these posters round town. Council is going ahead with bus lane nonetheless.

The song gets extra points from me for calling my suburb, Newtown, “ghetto”, thereby giving me extra gentrification hardcore points.  Speaking of which, the other day one of my couchsurfers Thomas went to buy some shoes down the road and asked them if they had something fancy and American (the brand escapes me, but let’s pretend it was Teva) and the shop worker sneered at him and said “this is Newtown“. Extra points again, oh yeah.

I’m in Tauranga (zero ghetto points) for work these days and decided to celebrate a rare spare few hours this evening by going to see Elegy. It was an excellent way to pass a Sunday evening, being shown the loneliness that pretentiousness can only hide for so long once (conciousness of) mortality starts to kick in, and Penélope Cruz’s boobs.

Pouakai Circuit at Mt Taranaki

God Save the Queen. A few weeks ago we got a day off school to celebrate the Queen of England’s birthday, and celebrated her majesty’s birth by walking the Pouakai Circuit at Mt Taranaki, Egmont National Park. If you were in NZ you might remember it snowed on the beach in Chch, and in Wellington city, and was generally prett

Team Awesome and the mountain

y miserable. The Naki was no exception, but walking through blizzards provides a good reminder that you are alive. And it makes the hut that much more welcome at the end of the days… and luckily the Pouakai Circuit is straightforward and short enough that the end of the day was usually only a couple of hours after the beginning.

Don’t have many photos from the first two days as the weather wasn’t encouraging to get cameras out, so all these are from the Monday, which was clear, calm, and perfect. The mountain was proud and snowy and, again, perfect all day, the sun shone through the trees and onto the snow, the birds came out to play, and it was magic. I’ve spent only a few days over the years in the Taranaki but not seen the mountain through the clouds for more than a few minutes at a time, so to see it all day and in all its glory was fantastic. It’s perfectly formed but with all sorts of different detail standing out and I can’t wait to go back and walk round it or up it (the original plans for this weekend) one day soon.

Oh, the fun we had

Curling on a frozen tarn en route

God save the Queen.

For Dan’s coverage (and some of the same photos) read his blog here.

World Oceans Day fun

Yay, blogging again. I just celebrated today, World Oceans Day, by writing a letter to our Minister for the Environment. Oh, what fun. Don’t be fooled by that huggy-feely fishing industry propaganda that’s on during Flight of the Conchords, we need to save our seas. This is the message I wrote:

Dear Minister,

I am writing to you to advocate for the formation of Marine National Parks in New Zealand.

As you may be aware today June 8 is World Oceans Day. It provides an opportunity to reflect on the fact that though much of our land in New Zealand is officially protected in various ways, little of our sea is. I – and indeed most New Zealanders – take great pride in the degree to which we protect large portions of our land from development and human pressures, but am concerned with how little we do with our sea areas. I am sure that you are aware as the Minister for the Environment of the very real threats to many sea creatures that live within New Zealand’s waters. The creation of National Parks or equivalents in our oceans would be an important step towards protecting them. Given the huge area of New Zealand’s oceans I do not believe that setting significant portions of it aside for conservation purposes would have a detrimental economic affect, and I am sure that in the long term it would only have economic benefits, as well as the environmental.

Yours sincerely.

I’m not exactly sure if that’s the format or tone you’re meant to use when writing to a minister, and I’m doubtless missing some honourable sirs or other appelations, but luckily he’s meant to listen anyway. Didn’t get a response last time I emailed Mr Smith but I’ll let you know if I do here.

The Guardian has an interesting British-Euro centric article on oceans and fisheries here.

Frogblog an NZ perspective here.