National and Waitakere ranges protection
Interesting article in today’s Herald by Gary Taylor from Environmental Defence Society. He argues that a test of how serious Nats are on conservation and environmental issues is coming up with the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Bill. (The Nats have already failed on the protection of Card Creek ecological area with its rare lowland forest remnants - they want to flood it).
The Waitakere Bill will provide greater protection to the Waitakere Ranges, which has very high ecological and landscape values but is only partially in public ownership. If we are to protect the ecological and landscape values of the Ranges we need protection of these values on private land as well as public land. Otherwise we will see more and more subdivision and loss by a thousand cuts and hence the bill makes subdivision harder.
Traditionally the Nats are the developers party (no doubt some of the secret funds in the Waitemata Trust comes from devlopers) and National puts private interests ahead of environmental interests. National say they support a national park in the Waitakeres but this would only protect the publicly owned land which is already protected as a regional park. The more important bit is to place protections on land under private ownership. Which way will they jump?
July 27th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
The Waitakere Ranges are managed and owned by the Auckland Regional Council. The National Parks Act applies to land managed by the Crown (central govt), it shows a frightening level of ignorance on behalf of the National party that they do not have a grasp of even such a minor detail. Tsk tsk………………
July 27th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
george galloway both ‘rocked’..and ‘rolled’..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
July 27th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
o-bogle, Your response shows a frightening level of ignorance of the proposal put forward by National. If you had read the article which Russell thoughtfully provided alink to you would have found that National seems to be well aware of the facts that you assert they are ignorant of.
Extending the National Parks Act to include regional parks would might be a good idea but it wont address the particular issue here which is that the land that will be affected by the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Bill is privately owned.
If the proposed restrictions are not possible within the existing legislation governing district and city plans then that is the legislation that should be changed for the benefit of the whole country instead of having a special law for Auckland. Contrary to Gary Taylor’s assertions this special law is a major infringement of existing property rights. This seems to be nothing less than an attempt to circumvent citizens rights to be involved in the planning and management of the city they live in.
If Waitakere City can’t stop rampant property developement using existing legislation then most other local authorities must be in the same boat and entitled to be given the same stronger powers tthat Waitakere City is demanding. The Waitakere Ranges are no more important than the Crown Range or any other range in New Zealand. Just because it’s in Auckland doesn’t make it any more special than if it was in Ekatahuna.
July 28th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
do yous been collecting up all your environmental requirements to present to John Key, i suppose you have, yous would be stupid if you wasn’t. i told yous what to say, you say
” we got 6% john Key, suck that”
promise it will work,
some of thems people sayings you copuld even get social objectives, personally i think that go to far, but you know what i mean,
August 8th, 2007 at 4:18 am
Kevyn:
You’re wrong, the fact that the Waitakeres are in Auckland make it different, because economic pressures are so much stronger than in Eketahuna. And most likely, the council can be overwhelmed by the size of the economic opportunities, and unable to say no… actual corruption is probably not even required.
If you have any knowledge of the history of the Waitakere ranges, you could ponder the analogy with the early 20th century. An economic bonanza for property owners was on offer, can you imagine them voting for restrictions on milling kauri?
Sometimes appropriate decision-making has to be at the national level, even at the expense of infringing (god-given) property rights.