The Choose Clean Water Campaign now has over 10,000 signatures and is aiming for 15,000 before presenting it to Parliament on 29 March.
If you have not already signed the petition you can do so here.
Please come along to the petition presentation event on 29 March at 1pm at Parliament. Please come and support the petition and the Freshwater team.
The Choose Clean Water team are volunteers who have worked for the love of freshwater, and need your help to cover the costs of printing, publicity materials and a mic and speakers for the presentation to parliament. This will be around $2000.
If you can spare a little (or a lot), it is all appreciated.
Go here to donate.
Mike Joy’s book Polluted Inheritance is available on Bridget Williams Books website as a BWB text. In this 61-page book Mike demonstrates how the intensification of dairying has degraded our rivers, lakes and waterways to an alarming degree – risking the wellbeing of future generations. This book will make you angry – and is an urgent call to action.
We know that our freshwater species are disappearing rapidly as the Society for Conservation Biology report last year revealed.
The government recently announced further funding for three more irrigation schemes for dairying in traditionally dry areas such as Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne – at a time when dairying is weak and has a dubious future.
Three Hawke’s Bay rivers are still out of bounds to the community because of silt spilling from the Waihi Dam. Erosion, farming and forestry are all causing regular damage to Hawke’s Bay rivers. Maraetotara Lagoon has just been ruled out of bounds to swimming due to excessive faecal matter.
Still in Hawke’s Bay, Forest and Bird are appealing a decision by the High Court which approved DOC’s decision to downgrade and swap land in the Ruahine Forest Park to provide land needed for the Ruataniwha Dam. Even if the dam does not proceed, the Judge’s decision sets a worrying precedent for the security of conservation land in New Zealand.