Kauri dieback: Council committee votes for more closures
Auckland Council’s environment committee has voted unanimously for more extensive closures in the Waitakere Ranges to protect against Kauri dieback disease.
The council has also agreed to close high-risk tracks in the Hunua Ranges, an area that has not yet been infected with the disease.
The new measures will mean the entire forested area of the Waitakere Ranges Regional Park will be closed to the public.
There will be some exceptions, such as beach areas, pastureland and some tracks that are deemed to be safe.
The council also wants a better enforcement, with targeted patrols of the closed areas.
The council is also seeking support from the government to put in place controlled area notices for both areas.
That would restrict movement of at-risk materials, like soil, in and out of the areas.
It would also make using shoe cleaning equipment mandatory.
The council is still to decide which areas will be exempt from the closure.
The local iwi, Te Kawerau a Maki put a rahui in place over the whole Waitakere Ranges area late last year to try and stop the spread of kauri dieback disease.
Let’s be honest about why the Council has needed to make this step, it’s because white people refuse to listen to brown people.
Te Kawerau a Maki had placed a rahui on these walk ways but Pākehā aren’t going to be told by Māori where they can and can’t go.
This blatant racism is really what is behind most criticism aimed at Māori concerns over fresh water. To date the majority of Māori complaints regarding water has been because the water is so incredibly polluted and they are demanding the quality of the water must be protected, Pākehā deride this concern just as they have with the Kauri dieback and yet have the audacity to claim they are environmentally minded.
Every Aucklander who has walked those paths against the express concerns of the rahui should feel deeply ashamed, it’s good that the Council have gotten off their arses and stopped making local Māori the scape goats for an environmental decision that needed to have been made some time ago.
Hahaha you won’t get much argument from me on this one Martyn even in the Hawke Bay here where Maori have told the Winery that put a track up their scared mountain without their permission (But got the OK from Local Council) with signs up not to use these tracks still hasn’t deterred local Pakeha putting a petition together to encourage their listeners to boycott the Iwi concerns and still walk the track even though there is proper walking tracks,car park facilities,shops etc… just on the otherside 5 minutes away.
This piece by Bruce Bisset is really very good in outlining the Te Mata issue for the majority of people who know diddly about the Hawkes Bay and the Te Mata saga.
Though given that the council poisoned the good citizens of Havelock North, the main pool of well healed National Voters, I’m not sure council arseholery is entirely motivated by racism (though there is that in bucket loads), it seems to be also a case of massive incompetence to boot.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503459&objectid=11977317
Though its also ..NO ONE listens to scientists till they are made to by legislation..
Its also, ‘I’m going to do whatever I want.’
Its also, on the part of the council and the walkers, short term pleasure over long term survival.
Its also pushing the problem down the road for the next lot to deal with.
Its all very neo liberal really.
The unfolding tragedy here is the fate of the mighty Kauri. Yet, with maps of die-back so clearly showing its spread along bush tracks, we see there is something so easy for us all to do: we can simply stay away.
But we also see that any such care and concern for things native and natural is anathema to possessive-individualist, conservative pakeha of colonial stock … people assured by their self-serving and wicked faith that they are of god’s image; that the world was made for them; that it matters not to spoil the Earth as upon death they’re off to a better place … all the time on the take, and all the while professing great love for what it is that’s pleasuring them:
oh but we love America, but we love Australia, oh but we love New Zealand … well, yes indeed … a love of the same kind that a paedophile has for the kid he’s fucking.
Comments are closed.