Greens Support Conservation Park For Torlesse Range

Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons today said the Greens would strongly support a proposal to create a conservation park in Canterbury's Torlesse Range.

Ms Fitzsimons said creating the high country park would help protect the remarkable flora and fauna in the area as well as scenic values and public access to outstanding open space for recreation.

"This is the first of what I hope will be a chain of protected areas in the South Island high country.

"It has been made possible by the tenure review process under the Crown Pastoral Lands Act which provides for leases with significant conservation value to be returned to the Crown while areas suitable for farming can be sold to the lessee," said Ms Fitzsimons.

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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>>