The didymo disaster
Great news that the full weight of the law has finally been put in place to deal with the didymo situation, but, I hate to say it, ‘told you so’ a year ago.
Of course, as Fish and Game have said (offline), ultimately preventing the spread of this noxious goo comes down to individuals taking action. As Jim Anderton said on Morning Report this morning, you can’t line every river with bureaucrats to stop people. But the legal sanctions coming online at least transmits the seriousness of the situation.
Why does it take an environmental problem to really get out of hand BEFORE serious action is taken? This is a classic example of a situation where the precautionary principle should have been applied at the outset. These legal sanctions should have swung into place a year ago when it was known it was in the Waiau and therefore COULD have been elsewhere, not now that we know it has spread throughout the island already.
December 9th, 2005 at 8:07 pm
You are right to say they are late - the reason why is they are useless. The Greens have to jump on this stuff immediately, put pressure on them and make a stand instead of saying “I told you so” a year later. You guys are quite useless with the practical politics of achieving results - the election result a case in point.