Brower book should be read with a ‘pinch of salt’
HIGH COUNTRY ACCORD
MEDIA
RELEASE
Embargo until 6.00 am 2 September
2008
Brower book should be read with a ‘pinch of salt’
For more information, please contact Ben
Todhunter, Tel 021 1403 760
High country farmers
say the views of environmental activist Ann Brower should be
taken with a pinch of salt.
Ms Brower’s book on
the high country, due out today, will almost certainly
repeat the inaccuracies and falsehoods which have
characterised her past utterances, says High Country Accord
chair Ben Todhunter.
“Since coming to New Zealand
in 2003, Ms Brower has waged a campaign to cast doubt on the
legal status of high country farms with perpetual leases
from the Crown. An accomplished self-publicist, she has used
her status as a Lincoln University lecturer to get
substantial media coverage.
“Yet far from being
an objective academic, Ms Brower came to New Zealand in 2005
from the United States with a track record in environmental
activism and for courting media controversy.”
In
February 2006, Ms Brower published a report criticising
tenure review in the South Island high country, saying
"government contractors and government officials are giving
away the crown jewels and paying the recipients to take them
away."
Victoria University professors Neil Quigley
and Lewis Evans, in a critique of her report, said her
claims were "entirely unfounded", that she had "completely
misinterpreted the available data" ... and had made a series
of claims about the outcome of the process that were
"entirely erroneous".
In late 2007, Australian
property law lecturer John Page and Ann Brower published a
paper in the Waikato Law Review claiming that holders of
high country perpetual leases do not have exclusive
possession rights to their properties.
Again, these
conclusions were discredited. This time, in a Crown Law
Office opinion which described their conclusions as
“unconvincing”.
"In fact it would be impossible
for the [lease]holder to undertake farming operations
without exclusive possession of the land,” said crown
counsel Malcolm Parker in his opinion.
Mr Todhunter
says Brower’s claims have had wide media coverage, in
contrast to the expert rebuttals of her allegations.
He
says individual farming families have found Ms Brower’s
past actions to be extremely distressing and her new book
will add to that distress. Mr Todhunter says Ms Brower’s
willingness to play fast and loose with the facts in order
to achieve a political goal is foreign to the high country
culture where straight talking and honesty are highly
valued.
“When an American academic who knows how
to work the media challenges your personal integrity, your
livelihood, your culture and your role as a guardian of a
fragile landscape, it’s both infuriating and
disempowering.
“Yet, as a tactic it has worked,
especially with those who share Ms Brower’s activist
agenda. Despite her lack of experience in New Zealand, she
is being treated as an expert on high country land tenure,
while respected judges and senior academics - including some
of Brower’s senior Lincoln University colleagues - are
being ignored.”
Mr Todhunter encourages media to
take Ms Brower’s book with a pinch of salt and have it
reviewed by such experts, rather than relying on vested
interests on either side of the high country
debate.
“Many people have a passionate interest
in the high country, but passion alone cannot be allowed to
determine the future of our precious tussock country.
Decisions need to be based on facts and those include the
legal rights of existing land
holders.”
[ends]