frogblog

It’s well known that Friday afternoon is dead time when it comes to news. Send a media release after lunch on Friday and you can pretty much guarantee that it won’t be noticed and definitely won’t be picked up by any news outlets. It’s annoying if you’ve got something great you want to share, but it’s also a godsend for sneaky politicians who’ve got bad news they don’t want anyone to notice.

So it was that this press release by Environment Minister David Benson-Pope was released on Friday afternoon. Trying to put a positive spin on things, it highlights the fact that a recent report by the Ministry for the Environment on water quality at New Zealand beaches shows that coastal beaches are “best”. What it also says though, is that up to 15% of New Zealand’s freshwater beaches (i.e. rivers and lakes) are unsafe for swimming in. More detailed analysis of the report is available on the Ministry for the Environment website here.

As a freshwater frog, I quite enjoy hopping in our beautiful rivers and lakes, and I expect lots of others do too. The fact that almost 15% of them are now too polluted to swim in is scary and sad - and the hundreds of people who swam in them over the weekend should have been warned before Friday afternoon. I hope the Environment Minister makes a bigger splash when he outlines what he is going to do about this, and that he’s going to make sure that signs are erected on substandard beaches to warn unsuspecting people and frogs.

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