March 5, 2004 - Dunedin
MEDIA RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE USE

Gondola Be Gone!

News that Ngai Tahu and Sky Line Enterprises plan to proceed with a Gondola up the Caples Valley, crossing the Routeburn and Greenstone tracks to Milford, has shocked the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society.

Society Spokeswoman Sue Maturin said the idea is offensive to thousands of New Zealanders, who treasure these natural unspoilt places. The proposal would involve taking hordes of tourists along a road up the remote Caples Valley, entertaining them at a terminus building and ferrying them above the forest canopy, over the Greenstone track into Fiordland National Park.

Part of the magic of the Caples Valley is that it is one of New Zealand's most easily accessible routes into the mountains, suitable for young and old and beginner trampers. It is the ordinary kiwis' Routeburn Track".

"The Gondola is not a benign, silent, invisible thing. The original proposal involved building a new road into the Caples valley. Who would want to walk beside a major highway with a constant stream of noisy buses zooming past, let alone climb up to the Mckellar Saddle to watch a gondola swish by?"

Sue Maturin said that since the announcement yesterday her office has been inundated with callers pledging their support, including offers of money to help the Society launch a campaign.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>