Kevyn – thanks for getting back about this. Ongaonga stings truly hurt, I know from experience and kahukura will lay their eggs on Urtica dioica – I’ve got it growing here for them. Hadn’t thought of either as anti-tagging barriers, but I’ve got a wicked Central Otago thistle planted along the fenceline of an orchard growing in town, to give the fruit-thieves something to remember their fruit-flogging nights by. I’m really interested in creating skink habitat too, especially in areas where there are cats. I’m building rock piles for them to bask in/on safely. I’m going to look through your booklet tonight. Thanks very much.

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ps, you might find this booklet useful:
http://www.lincolnenvirotown.org.nz/docs/Backyard%20Biodiversity%20Booklet%20WEB%20NEW.pdf

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Greenfly, Just passed my first semester of environmental management degree at Lincoln. The importance of invertebrates (and fungi) and habitat connectors in ecology was the most eye opening part so far. As an oldtime systems analyst the interconnectedness immediately made sense.

If you want to make life more bearable for Kahukura (Red Admiral flutterby) plant lots of Ongaonga (tree nettle) -it’d probably be an effective anti-tagging planting for rail corridors too, along with Pohuehue (a skink favourite) planted on the ballast to stop people from walking along the tracks.

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Thank you Shireen – I meant #1.
(and I did mean it. Her pre-election comments on water quality in Southland and her party’s pretence over how dairying was not affecting our rivers was disgraceful. She has issues understanding water at the best of times

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Does anybody know what the local paper is in the region?

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Thanks guys. Just fired an email off to Jacqui Dean. Check this out – the director of Five Rivers Limited, Cornelius G Zeestraten, in another incarnation as Southern Friesian Ltd was issued with an abatement notice in 2002/03 for discharging effluent in contravention of a Resource Consent. So when they had 590 cows they were incapable of building systems that met their Consent conditions. Now they’re proposing new farms in a much more fragile environment with 7000 cows!

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Sexist remark by greenfly?

Where are all the feminists?

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The MP is Jacqui Dean (Twat)

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MacKenzie Country is in the Waitaki Electorate. The MP is Jacqui Dean (Nat)

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I’m going to submit on this and feel very strange doing so having never set foot on the South Island but brand NZ is too important not too…

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So who is the MP for the Mackenzie Basin?

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Kevyn – thumbs-up for mentioning (and considering) native invertebrates and their plight!
Which ones are you referring to? I’m looking to make their lives more bearable, so I’d welcome any suggestions from you.

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Greenfly, Slight exageration on my part. Totally agree with you that ripping out shelter belts is ecovandalism of the worst sort. Worst sort because it impacts on so many facets of the environment, especially native invertebrates that rely on shelter belts as habitat highways.

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“Hopefully, overwhelming public opposition will make Ecan see they are about to launch NZ’s agricultural economy off a cliff if these applications go forward.”

When did the national interest get written into the RMA? Or even the regional interest for that matter.

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farmgeek – Fonterra can’t penalise farmers for bad environmental practice?
Then why did they pretend that they could ?
Were they being dishonest ( hears hoots of laughter in the background )?
Was it a sop to the public, designed to deflect their concerns about milk farming?
Is their ‘Clean Streams Accord’ similarly bullsh*t?

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Thanks farmgeek.

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StephenR, Tim Deane from Fonterra was on the radio this morning. Apparently Fonterra cannot legally refuse to collect milk produced in their collection area. It was one of the conditions of them having monopoly power.

Fonterra can however, financially penalise farmers for sub-quality milk (cell count etc) but this does nothing to address the sustainability or animal welfare issues. Even if Fonterra wanted to be a good corporate citizen, they are currently unable to discriminate based on farming practices.

Fonterra can’t discriminate and consumers have no way of determining the provenance of their milk products so a free market approach completely fails to offer a solution.

Hopefully, overwhelming public opposition will make Ecan see they are about to launch NZ’s agricultural economy off a cliff if these applications go forward.

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Kevyn – not a Southlander, eh! Cattle-killing snowstorms! That’s a good one! The removal of shelter belts across the Southland Plains that allows the free passage of cold winds, by the incoming dairymen is a real animal cruelty issue that you might like to ask English about. Responsible choice of livestock, pasture species and shelter would be a far, far better path to take, but that’s not the Way of the Farmer, and so we get cow cubicles. Where steel and concrete at hand, there will be no ‘soft technologies’ chosen – it’s just not the Way.

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jh – “we’ll go on” about cows in stalls? I think we’ve “gone on” about the crowding of humans in cities and populations a good deal over time. The ‘cow cubicles’ are the news of the day. Sow crates and chicken cages seem passe now I think that the farmers who have proposed to ‘farm’ in this way will not have too much trouble getting what they want – there are too many factions making noise about the issue; the animal rights people, the environmentalists, the conventional farmers, the ‘it’ll hurt our trade’ people – all of whom will water-down a single-pronged charge. In any case, farmers get what they want, eventually, they just need to keep on pushing. It won’t be long til the ‘green’ opponents to the factory farms will be accused of hampering animal-friendly farming in the ccccold McKenzie Country, or being Luddites; against any new technologies such as the cutting-edge, high-tech cubicles. Ho hum.
Never-the-less, I’m for us making as much noise as humanly possible about every single issue there is. There will come a time when that ‘greenie yabber’ will ring a big bell in the heads of ordinary men and women.

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