Marine Reserve Memorial Proposed

Sir Peter Blake's death in Amazonia is a huge loss to the global environment as well as to his family and to sailing says Cath Wallace, co-chair of the Environment and Conservation Organisations of New Zealand, ECO. He will be mourned in many circles and we have lost a national hero.

"Blake's work to focus attention on water quality and to protect the sea was sorely needed. It remains a major priority and New Zealanders can all contribute to his legacy.

"We can all take Sir Peter's message into our lives. We can blow the whistle on pollution and damaging farming and forestry practises that hurt water quality and defend the Resource Management Act against attacks.

"We can support the government's Oceans Policy reform and press for the public to have input to decision making.

"Most of all, we can challenge destructive fishing methods such as trawling and the damage that these methods do to the corals and other life on the seamounts.

"It would be a fitting memorial to Sir Peter Blake to have a major network of marine reserves dedicated to him. It could be our equivalent of the red socks campaign to show in a tangible way the legacy from him.

--------------------- 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>>