Greenpeace is calling on DairyNZ and other dairy leadership to stop undermining the efforts of dairy farmers to clean up waterways.
Yesterday, DairyNZ released a three-year report that outlined the mitigation work being done by farmers to minimise the fresh water pollution caused by dairy leaching and runoff.
But Greenpeace campaigner, Genevieve Toop, says the report is a “misleading distraction” from the real problem.
“All the hard work being done by existing dairy farmers to deal with pollution is set to be cancelled out by the huge amount of new intensive dairy farms that will be created under proposed irrigation schemes,” she says.
“Our waterways are already unable to cope with the sheer number of dairy cows in New Zealand. We urgently need to reduce the national herd number and stop big irrigation schemes like the Ruataniwha Dam.
“Until DairyNZ is honest with the public and farmers about the fact that the only way to get clean water is to have fewer cows, they will continue to undermine dairy farmers’ mitigation efforts.
“This latest report shows the dairy leadership may have managed to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, but the ship is still sinking thanks to big irrigation.”
Over 75,000 New Zealanders have signed a petition to stop Government funding of irrigation schemes.
Just another crazy example of overuse of the environment again so we are a small country ad will be ruined by the rainwater washing the effluent down the paddocks and into those storm water drains and into our waterways like what happened in Holland until they cut back on dairy businesses.
This madness is driven. Who profits is the valid question.
We all loose environment when behind closed doors policy is made to exploit natural resources and promote a spate of borrowing for farms, stock. irrigation, fertiliser, farm supplies and services all financed by the same banks who then insist on management plans and continued use of fertiliser and dangerous environmental practices.
The farmer lives on a promise, but banks cannot loose no matter what happens. The loan money is created by the banks and repayment fills their pockets as well as interest.
Fractional reserve laws in NZ allow this fiasco of milking all that we own which is devalued by private bankers.
NZ will always be in debt to these robbing parasites who drive the environmental destruction through many so called developments which are stuffing up NZ.
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