More Gates Will be Shut to Arrogant Environmentalists

Monday 9th Jul 2001 Gerry Eckhoff Media Release -- Environment

The closure of a popular walking track near Wanaka is sadly a precursor to many more such closures, ACT Conservation spokesman Gerry Eckhoff said today.

"Generous farmers allowed 16,000 visitors to use the track every year. They received no gratitude. For shutting the gates, they have been subjected to malice from arrogant 'environmentalists' who believe they can trample through any countryside they like.

"The people who are now complaining seem to believe all land is public land. Indeed, this form of abuse is being encouraged by Marian Hobbs, who believes landowners have no more rights to their land than trampers and others.

"Property-right abuse by environmental groups is resulting in gates being slammed shut all around New Zealand, and rightly so.

"Farming families find the avarice of state-funded environmentalists intolerable.

"Too many so-called environmentalists have shown contempt to property rights for years. Now they will increasingly find that farmers have had enough," Gerry Eckhoff said.

For more information visit ACT online at http://www.act.org.nz or contact the ACT Parliamentary Office at act@parliament.govt.nz.

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