A Call for Leadership: Save Denniston Plateau

A petition signed by around 10,000 New Zealanders will be presented to National politicians on Saturday 21st July. The petition calls on the Government to save the Denniston Plateau on New Zealand’s West Coast. The Plateau is currently threatened by an opencast coal mine proposed by an Australian company that would increase New Zealand's coal exports, but destroy 200 hectares and everything on it.

The Denniston Plateau is one of the only places with a population of Roroa Great Spotted Kiwi that is thriving without intervention, because of naturally low predator numbers.

“We have such a proud history of environmental protection in this country. We have put decades into Kiwi protection, we breed and rear them by hand and put enormous emotional and financial investment into predator control. How much sense does it make to have done all that only to wipe out one of the few kiwi populations that is thriving without our help?” said Alex Winter-Billington, a spokesperson for the West Coast Environment Network.

“We need to think to the future – not just to 2015, but the future that our children will live in, that our children’s children will live in. What is NZ going to be like for them if we bulldoze our conservation land now?” she commented further.

Sir Alan Mark commented, “You can’t recreate the Mona Lisa.”

Some say coal means jobs and regardless of where they come from, jobs are the new ‘realism.’

Before the recently concluded United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as the Rio Summit, NZ Environment Minister Amy Adams said it was being approached with a greater degree of realism by politicians. This ‘realism’ was demonstrated in a document that has far fewer tangible objectives than its 20 year old predecessor, and in the meantime on every significant measure, global and New Zealand environmental damage has increased.

Worldwide studies show that over the past three decades, coral reefs have shrunk by 38 per cent, the number of floods has more than doubled, and nearly 170 huge “dead zones”, caused by pollution, have appeared in the oceans. Yet, little or no action has been taken since the last Rio Summit to address the serious decline in wetlands and coral reefs; increasing soil degradation and drought; the depletion of fresh water; overfishing and pollution of the seas; or climate change.

“The Rio Summit failed us, it failed future generations. More than anything else it was a failure of our politicians to lead. ‘Realism’ is just shorthand for the political and economic expediency that has, worryingly, become the norm.” Ms Winter-Billington commented.

The Denniston Plateau can and should be protected. Who in Government has the courage to lead?

NOTES:

The petition, distributed nation-wide by Avaaz.org, will be presented in a faux Olympic torch as delegates arrive at the National Party Annual Conference at the SkyCity Conference centre as delegates arrive. A relay of the torch around the Centre will be run from 7.30am. --

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