forest Archive

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  Coromandel – No More Mining, Stop the Vandals - by Catherine Delahunty

  
  
  
  Last Sunday we went for a walk in the park. Some people went all the way to the Glass Earth/Newmont drilling rig high in the forest park and occupied it for a while. The rest of us with our babies and banners walked for an hour and a half up the beautiful Parikiwai Valley near [...] read more
  May 30, 2011 7:56 pm - 2 Comments
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  Rafting the majestic Mokihinui - by Russel Norman

  
  
  
  Over 100 of us rafted and kayaked down the Mokihinui River on Sunday. The Mok is a fantastic wild West Coast river, a river full of life which makes its way through some of the last of our great lowland forest. Meridian Energy wants to dam and destroy the Mokihinui and drown the surrounding forest, [...] read more
  October 27, 2010 3:59 pm - 9 Comments
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  Conservation week – lords of the forest - by Kevin Hague

  
  
  
  Tane Mahuta, lord of the forest. A tree that is truly magnificent, along with Te Matua Ngahere, father of the forest, who is our second largest Kauri. Estimated to be over 2000 years old, this means that it is possible that it lived through the large Taupo eruption of 180CE. Both trees grow in the [...] read more
  September 16, 2010 5:17 pm - 5 Comments
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  Clear Fell Damage – We can do better! - by Catherine Delahunty

  
  
  
  This weekend I visited an area of the Coromandel where recent storms highlighted an ongoing problem with pine forestry in the wrong place. The Green Party strongly supports diverse and sustainable forestry, but this is not it! The steep hillsides of the Whangapoua and Waiau catchments are bleeding sediment into the Whangapoua and Coromandel harbours [...] read more
  August 9, 2010 2:59 pm - 5 Comments
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  Hugging trees: with a spade, trap and chainsaw - by frog

  
  
  
  A Wellington couple, entreprenuerial tree-huggers if you wish, criticise Fed Farmer’s head-in-the-sand attitude on climate change in the Nelson Mail today. They’ve invested in carbon farming a 47ha block of marginal land in Golden Bay. Jonathan Kennett and Bronwen Wall aren’t wringing their hands or seeking emissions subsidy handouts; they’re getting their hands dirty planting [...] read more
  December 2, 2009 1:16 pm - No Comments
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  Wild and perverse ETS disincentives - by Jeanette Fitzsimons

  
  
  
  For the first six months of this year, wilding pine control cost DOC $811,000 in carbon liabilities – a large amount for a department that has already had its budget for this year cut by $13.5 million. That money could have saved some endangered species, increased the area of land under pest control, or – got rid of more wilding pines. read more
  September 22, 2009 1:27 pm - 39 Comments
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  Govt misses big picture for the Kyoto trees - by Jeanette Fitzsimons

  
  
  
  The revised “net position” of New Zealand’s Kyoto liability shows why forest sinks should never have been tradable against emissions from burning fossil fuels. This was a central argument at Kyoto in 1997 as the world struggled to set rules for reducing emissions internationally. The EU, and environmentalists, for different reasons, argued that forest sinks [...] read more
  April 20, 2009 8:33 am - 44 Comments
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  A BPS tribute to Geoff Park - by frog

  
  
  
  Last week, Russel and I attended the funeral of Geoff Park, New Zealand environmental thinker extraordinaire. Yesterday, Russel concluded his speech on the Budget Policy Statement with my favourite quote from Geoff’s highly-acclaimed book Nga Uruora: Let me finish with a quote from one of New Zealand’s great ecologists, Geoff Park, a true patriot who [...] read more
  March 26, 2009 8:33 am - 7 Comments
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  Australian police do Japanese whalers’ bidding - by frog

  
  
  
  On another Seaweek related theme… Last week it emerged that it was a Japanese Government request that led to an Australian Federal Police (AFP) raid on the Sea Shepherd boat Steve Irwin as it docked in Hobart on February 20th after a turbulent and controversial summer campaign chasing the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern [...] read more
  March 4, 2009 10:42 am - 7 Comments
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  Key correct to doubt quick recovery - by frog

  
  
  
  John Key has poured cold water on the APEC meeting’s joint statement, which expressed confidence that “we can overcome this crisis in a period of 18 months.” He was correct to do so, although he probably doesn’t arrive at that conclusion by the same path I do. The fundamentals of the global economy are not [...] read more
  November 25, 2008 12:17 pm - 27 Comments
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  Governments gone bad - by frog

  
  
  
  This morning’s Herald Sideswipe has a cute commentary on the often overlooked culprits in climate destruction – governments. Brazil’s Environment Ministry wanted to find out who were the biggest illegal loggers in their country, but unfortunately it found out the worst offender was the government itself. In fact, the six largest deforested areas of the [...] read more
  October 21, 2008 11:07 am - 7 Comments
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  Nature loss ‘dwarfs bank crisis’ - by frog

  
  
  
  I am among the first to critisise both the Labour and National Partyś leadership for playing down the importance and risk of our current global financial meltdown. I think they are both soft-peddaling the issue until after the election in order to avoid spooking the horses. However, the BBC has kindly put it back into [...] read more
  October 11, 2008 12:25 pm - 68 Comments
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  Tahorakuri Forest: from carbon sink to industrial dairy - by frog

  
  
  
  This stunning photo that Greenpeace released today shows Tahorakuri Forest near Taupo being rapidly converted into industrial dairy farms.  The organisation doing this damage is  the government-owned company Landcorp: Greenpeace points out that up to 455,000 hectares of forestry land is at risk of being deforested and converted into industrial farms – the majority for [...] read more
  April 8, 2008 5:30 pm - 9 Comments