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

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.

Saving the penguins

There are penguins in Wellington! Penguins! Wellington! I find this abnormally exciting. If you’ve met me in the past month or so, I’ve probably told you about them already. Apparently they live all over the south coast and around the harbour, with the majority on lovely predator-free Matiu/Somes Island. And on Saturday I was very happy to get involved with the local Forest and Bird’s Places for Penguins project. A couple of hours of weeding fun in the sun at Tarakena Bay was a couple of kilometres and a million miles from big smoke Wellington, and it was a nice morning chatting, enjoying the place, and restoring some habitat as well. Many of the local little blue penguins are endangered by traffic or predators, and the project is about restoring habitat for them to nest in without having to cross the road, and providing nesting boxes where dogs can’t catch them. I think there’s another weeding day in May, then planting in June, and monitoring work starting soon so it’s easy to get involved if anyone’s around here and keen – there is a link off the bottom of that page to email the co-ordinator. I found it fun to do some real practical work too after the week in the office too. Good to get away from the inner city pressure.

Thanks to couchsurfer Cris for the photos.

Get(ting) Real

An update on that Get Real campaign already! Foodstuffs (New World, Pak n Save, Four Square) announced the other day that they’re starting to charge for plastic bags. Yay. Not very much, but it’s something, and now surely Progressive will have to follow them too. Yay.

Get Real?

Silly name aside, the “Get Real” campaign to try and stop supermarkets giving out free plastic bags seems good. I emailed my new friends Customerinfo and Enquiry at Foodstuffs and Progressive as part of this campaign, and was initially impressed when Progressive responded. They duly fobbed me off when I replied back again, but hopefully if a bunch of other people email too they might get the message. If you want to do it and aren’t feeling creative just copy the text from Get Real and send it to the addresses they give. Easy peasy.