birdsong | Environmental Health Watch NZ

Thanks to one of our readers Joseph Nowak who has forwarded the following information he obtained from DoC with an Official Information request. DoC’s responding letter explains the purpose of the recent helicopter tour over Fiordland by 30 international bankers, escorted by the heads of both DoC and Hong Kong’s Goldman Sachs. For previous information surrounding this info request in particular the Nature Conservancy group (NC) see the three following articles, particularly the first & second if you are in a hurry (although they are not long reads):

1) WHY WERE THE HEADS OF NZ’S DEPT. OF CONSERVATION & HONG KONG’S GOLDMAN SACHS TOURING PARTS OF FIORDLAND RECENTLY IN A SIX-HELICOPTER ENTOURAGE?

2) NEW INFO ON THE RECENT 6-HELICOPTER ENTOURAGE OVER FIORDLAND BY THE HEAD OF NZ’S DEPT. OF CONSERVATION & 30 ODD INTERNATIONAL BANKERS

3) SOUTHLAND DISTRICT COUNCIL HAS TOLD A CORRESPONDENT THAT THE RECENT HELICOPTER TOUR OF FIORDLAND BY 30 ODD INTERNATIONAL BANKERS & DOC WAS ‘PHILANTHROPIC’ … AND NARY A WHISPER FROM MAINSTREAM MEDIA?

4) DOC SAYS THE 30 INTERNATIONAL BANKERS TOURING FIORDLAND LAST MONTH WERE ABOUT RECOVERING OUR KĀKĀPŌ AND TAKAHĒ YET STILL NO MENTION IN MAINSTREAM MEDIA?

DoC’s Response:

DocCM-5467259
18-E-0172

11 May 2018

Mr Joseph Nowak

Dear Mr Nowak

Thank you for your email of 4 April 2018 to the Minister of Conservation requesting the
following information under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act):

“the purpose of the recent helicopter tour of Fiordland by international
bankers which was hosted by Lou Sanson”

Your request was transferred from the Minister’s Office to the Department of Conservation on 24 April 2018.

In response to your request I am able to advise that the purpose of the charter flights on 14 March 2018 was to show The Nature Conservancy’s Asia Pacific Council conservation work that is underway in Fiordland, specifically work to recover kākāpō and takahē.
The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a charitable environmental organisation, pursuing
solutions to conservation challenges, and working with partners including indigenous communities, businesses, governments, multilateral institutions, and other non-profits.
TNC are significant donors to conservation around the world and across the Asia Pacific region and covered the costs of this helicopter charter. You can read more about TNC on their website: http://www.nature.org

Yours sincerely
Martin Rodd
Director Partnerships

COMMENT:

This all begs the question, why did mainstream media mention nothing about this tour? Surely, given NZers’ passion for our once pristine country & its flora and fauna, the media would be all over this? But no, not a whisper. Not a whisper either about the supposed ‘philanthropic’ nature of the tour. Personally I’d be putting my money on the greenwash agenda. Remember the reader feedback here about NC activities in Hawaii?

“…you are right about the Nature Conservancy. They bought up a large swathe of land on my former home, the island of Molokai, Hawaii. I knew a local gal there, young and strong, who quit working for them. Why? First, they fenced off the land. Then they brought in sharp shooters from airplanes to “eliminate” the”non-native species” — goats and pigs.

I overheard waterway workers complain that the dead carcasses were rotting right in the aqueduct that goes through tunnels from that side of the island to the population on the other side — as drinking and ag water. Then they sought to eliminate the “non-native” flora. That’s why she quit. They had her spraying toxic herbicides all day long, and she was afraid of becoming sterile! Also, when they purchase a piece of land, they rope it off for “conservation” and people are not allowed to go there and enjoy the beauty any more.”

We are supposed to believe that these international bankers are committed to saving our kākāpō and takahē? When they make clandestine tours of our country like they own it? Bit like the public-excluded carry on we have with our district councils that are selling off our public assets hand over fist (in secret).

We are hearing repeatedly from hunters and those who live near the bush areas that after poison drops the birdsong all but disappears. I don’t imagine the bankers plan on stopping the poison drops?

The green ‘sustainable’ rhetoric is just not cutting it any more, not three decades in sorry. The only things I see that are being sustained are the coffers of the wealthy. At the expense of our environment.

EnvirowatchRangitikei

1080 GREEN WASH

By Carol Sawyer

Citing a Southland Times letter to the Editor

“Originally it [1080] was developed as an insecticide by Monsanto. But its lack of selectivity of what it kills meant it was too dangerous.”

“Declaring war on behalf of nature is not possible. Nature works in unpredictable ways and will adjust to intrusions indifferent to attempts to either save or destroy it. As DOC’s 1080 War for the Birds enters its seventh decade, the rodent emerges as its clear benefactor. This confirmed by each new seed mast.

Emotive claims of the annual loss of 25 million birds and the tens of millions of tonnes of devastated vegetation defy the laws of ecosystem equilibrium. The more likely villain may be its own tool of choice, 1080. Originally it was developed as an insecticide by Monsanto. But its lack of selectivity of what it kills meant it was too dangerous. It deprives the forest of its avian food source. Starving its victims, resulting in the often noted silent forest. It also prevents the essential breakdown in forest litter, a critical factor for a healthy forest ecology. Despite the millions of squandered dollars these phenomena have never been studied by its toxic proponents. Nor has there been a reasonable explanation of why the forest seed mast has now assumed “biblical” proportions.

Indications are these seed blooms are the result of the disruption created by the insect and flora/fauna relationship. With no insects to impede growth, the seeds bloom with increased frequency and intensity. Another example of human intervention in natural systems that has gone tragically wrong.

David L Langer

Gore”

The Southland Times, Letters to the Editor, August 24, 2016

Header Photo – Jim Hilton
Dead birds found over a few acres, after 270,000 hectare aerial 1080 poison drop, Kahurangi National Park, 2014.
This was the first year of DoC’s “Battle for our Birds” drops.