Maui's dolphin rally, delivery of open letter 13/7/14
URGENT CALL TO ACTION
Remove human threats from the
Maui’s dolphin habitat. Give the last 55 a chance.
Get
the nets out, and say no to new oil and gas
extraction!!!
Maui's dolphins are on the verge of
extinction- don't let it happen.
Stand up to the National
Party, who want to allow oil exploration/ drilling off the
West Coast in the Maui's dolphins Marine Mammal Sanctuary in
addition to the existing and significant threats from gill
net entrapment.
Maui's Dolphins Defenders
Rally
Sunday, 13 July 2014
Meet: Kumeu Arts Centre,
300 Main Rd
Behind the Kumeu Library
Time: 10 am for
a 10.30 start
What: March to local MP John Key's
electoral office
supported by: Maui's & Hector's
Dolphins Defenders NZ!
Our unique, endemic, gorgeous wee
dolphins are under threat!
Join us to celebrate our
unique dolphins
AND pressure John Key to save
them!
Assemble at Kumeu Arts Centre, slow walk to PM John Key's electoral office - 365 Main Road, Kumeu at 10.30am.
Group page https://www.facebook.com/groups/1518731841601174/
www.facebook.com/events/650786461678794/?source=1
Maui's & Hectors
Dolphins Education Action
http://nzdolphins.wix.com/nzdolphins
www.facebook.com/groups/1518731841601174/
What can you do? Become a Maui's Dolphin Defenders- join at
http://nzdolphins.wix.com/nzdolphins
FB
page: www.facebook.com/groups/1518731841601174/
World
Wildlife Fund Aotearoa/ NZ
www.thelast55.org.nz
Send a letter to
Minister "for" Conservation Nick Smith
email:
nick.smith@national.org.nz
Minister of Energy Simon
Bridges email: s.bridges@ministers.govt.nz
Minister for
Primary Industries (MPI) Nathan Guy email:
nathan.guy@national.org.nz
and cc in John Key email:
john.key@national.org.nz
•
The International
Whaling Commission (IWC) recently published a report that
concludes the situation for New Zealand's highly endangered
Maui's dolphin is dire, and that the Government's "current
management situation falls short of that required to reverse
the Maui's decline."
The Commission calls on the
Government to "take immediate management actions that will
eliminate bycatch of Maui's" and to "commit to specific
population increase targets and timelines."
"The
International Whaling Commission report is hugely
embarrassing for the Government. It highlights the
significant failure of National's response to protecting the
Maui's dolphin," said Zelka Grammer, coordinator Northland
Maui's Dolphin Defenders.
"At the very time that the
National Party should be doing MORE to protect
them,
Minister Simon Bridges has opened up more than 3000
square kilometres of a marine mammal sanctuary for oil and
gas drilling, home to the critically endangered Maui's
dolphins."
This unethical action comes less than a week
after the International Whaling Commission urged our
Government to do more to save the species.
The current
Government's policies allow deadly fishing methods to be
used in Maui's dolphin habitats.
For those of you who
don't want to see Maui's dolphins driven to extinction (by
National Party supported oil drilling in the Maui's marine
sanctuary) please join other Northland Maui's Dolphin
Defenders and come along to a rally outside John Key's
electoral office in West Auckland- see you there !
Copy of the Open Letter (to be presented to the PM)
below at ****
When and where: Sunday, July 13
10:00am
- 11:00am
Kumeu Arts Centre, 300 Main Rd, Kumeu, behind the Kumeu Library
Assemble at Kumeu Arts Centre, slow walk to PM John Key's electoral office - 365 Main Road, Kumeu at 10.30am. Group pagehttps://www.facebook.com/groups/1518731841601174/
Sunday, July 13
at 10:00am -
11:00am
•
Kumeu Arts Centre, 300 Main Rd, Kumeu,
behind the Kumeu Library
Assemble at Kumeu Arts Centre,
slow walk to PM John Key's electoral office - 365 Main Road,
Kumeu at 10.30am.
Northland branch MAUI'S AND
HECTOR'S DOLPHINS DEFENDERS NZ
Group page www.facebook.com/groups/1518731841601174/
****
OPEN
LETTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER, MINISTERS SMITH
(CONSERVATION), BRIDGES (ENERGY) AND GUY (PRIMARY
INDUSTRIES)
Dear Sirs,
Concerned
citizens of New Zealand and the World call on your
Government to remove human threats from Maui’s dolphins’
habitat.
Maui’s dolphins are the world’s
rarest, smallest and loveliest of all marine dolphins and
are found only in New Zealand’s inshore waters. Maui’s
are down to around the last 55 individuals. This is a tragic
and negative reflection on New Zealand, as shown by the
IWC’s repeated calls for the Government to do more to
protect the sub-species.
Maui’s (and Hector’s)
Dolphins remain at risk of trawl entrapment in most of their
habitat –anywhere beyond 2nm from shore. There are few
observers on the inshore fishing fleet to monitor dolphin
loss as bycatch.
To make matters worse, your Government
has reintroduced threats to the dolphins inside the Manukau
Harbour in the form of ring netting.
The Government’s
Threat Management Plan acknowledges that Maui’s dolphins
can sustain no more than one human induced death in 10-23
years.
To impose the additional threats to these dolphins
that oil and gas drilling poses, in effects such as seismic
impacts, boat strike, displacement and prey-species loss, is
a step way too far for such an imperilled and beautiful
population.
Mineral extraction even in the periphery of
the dolphin habitat poses untenable risks to both Maui’s
and Hector’s dolphins in the ‘dolphin corridor’
between the North and South Islands which is essential to
support population growth and genetic diversity in the
Maui’s population.
Please recognise how important this
issue is to New Zealanders across the political spectrum,
and to observers around the world, including overseas
consumers of New Zealand fish.
Remove human threats from
the Maui’s dolphin habitat. Give the last 55 a chance. Get
the nets out, and say no to new oil and gas
extraction.
Concerned citizens of New Zealand and
the
World