Forest & Bird wins Ruataniwha dam appeal
Forest & Bird has won an appeal against downgrading conservation land in Hawke's Bay to enable the Ruataniwha dam to be built.
In February, the High Court approved a land swap between the Department of Conservation (DOC) and the Hawke's Bay Regional Council.
The proposed exchange, of 22ha of protected conservation land in Ruahine Forest Park for 170ha of farm land, involved downgrading the conservation land to stewardship status, in order to allow it to be flooded for the dam.
Forest & Bird said the High Court was wrong to allow the land's specially protected status be revoked for a commercial development.
It said the protected land was home to several threatened species, such as the New Zealand falcon and long-tailed bats.
A majority of the Court of Appeal today ruled that the Director-General of Conservation was not entitled to revoke the special conservation status of a small portion of the park land.
Justices Harrison and Winkelmann found that the Director-General would have had to be convinced in his assessment that the intrinsic values of the land in question were no longer worth permanent protection as envisaged by the relevant legislation.
The Court of Appeal has directed the Director-General to set aside the decision and reconsider the application of the Hawke's Bay Regional Investment Company to exchange the land.
In a dissenting judgement, Justice Ellen France said she would have dismissed the appeal on the basis that the Director-General was not limited to consideration of the conservation values of the 22ha of land.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/312185/forest-and-bird-wins-ruataniwha-dam-appeal
34 comments
i dont think all farmers think like that, i think a lot of them just want to make a decent living doing a fair days work for a fair days pay and dairying looked like there was enough profit in it to do that, more profit than a lot of other types of farming, but they didnt count on the boom and bust cycle and the massive declining returns from milk and got caught out with big mortgages they cant service any more.. dairy farms arent worth that much now and its going to get worse, thers not going to be any gain from selling dairy farms unless you've had one for a very long time and dont have a big mortgage..
unfortunately a lot of farmers won't deal with the environmental problems of farming for varying reasons, ignorance, arrogance, denial or lack of adequate work or social ethics. lets go get boozed or go on holiday and not worry about reality..
"It's ironic that they say this country has been built on farming (I'm sure it has). But in my perspective it's everything wrong with this country.
I wish this was a country of half a dozen major cities and the rural centres shut down and we regenerated them with native forest.
That would bring the birds and bush back and then this really would be paradise . But thats my dream."
and what would the economy have been based on then, @gaiters ?
If you want to forests and wildlife back, why should you want even cities? why not leave the country?
The comments are getting silly on this thread, now
the biggest earner for NZ in the future will be tourism, hands down... plan for and manage that industry responsibly and the country can have a positive future. the tourists are here to experience our scenery and get out into it. they didnt come primarily to see our intensive farming...
theres a limited future if any in making money from dairy, the future there will be at the higher end of producing higher tech products and services, not in generating bulk dairy products..
@waynowski the ecomomy is more than just tourism.
but my point is, the country has been built on the back of farming, to suggest we revert to some fantasy of having only cities, and the rest of the country was never modified is silly. There wouldnt be any tourism, using that logic. Or any infrastructure to enable tramping. The infrastructure that has developed of the last 100 years or more it what allows tourists to visit this country. But do you really want the number of tourists that would be needed replace the dairy industry ?
The development of the country is what it is. And seriously, who wants to live in a city like Auckland, if they had a choice?
As for the Ruataniwha dam, how many of the landowners benefiting from the proposal are in fact farming for short term capital gain from dairying?
life in auckland varies vastly from person to person, i have a 20 minute stroll to work, plenty of people who live outside of auckland have far worse commutes.
dairying is headed for a big downfall. few people will want to get into dairying now , banks will foreclose mortgages, people wont want to keep dairying, productivity will plummet
Sure hope so. I pray it will go the same way as the cocksfoot grass industry when some other countries take over the production. I'm hoping Zimbabwe will be passed the dairying baton!
My fear is what comes next?
We have made a country out of raping the land. But we have taken it as far as the economic bubble allows.
So they sell their blocks to overseas investors to take the profits off shore. Then after a few years what do they do?
south america are picking up the dairying baton massively, thats part of the reason dairying prices are plummeting, massive, cheap production...
One thing that may become increasingly relevant to the industry in future years is the growing artificial milk industry, which effectively produces milk without the animal.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/dairy/10258565/Milk-made-in-laboratories-to-hit-shelves
Artificial meat has been around for 10 years or more under the name tvp. Its made from soy. How many times have you willingly eaten it? I suspect not many. Its even sold dehy so ideal for tramping but still we wont eat the stuff.
This thread branched to "Farming and stuff" on . Explore the branch (30 messages).
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