Ever wondered why whales (and dolphins apparently!) strand? We have! We spoke to Kimberly Muncaster of Project Jonah, fresh from a stranding at Farewell Spit in Golden Bay. For more info check out Project Jonah’s website and learn how to be a marine mammal medic (COURSES ARE FILLING FAST!). Listen to the podcast to hear all about the amazing work that Project Jonah do.
On Wednesday the 5th October at 2.20 a.m. the Rena, carrying some 1900 tonnes of fuel, smashed into the Astrolabe reef just off the coast of Tauranga, leaching 350 tonnes of thick, gluggy, “marmite-like” oil. Hundreds of birds have been affected, the beaches and rocks have been slathered in sticky oil and local communities will be feeling the impact of the spill for a long time.
Eco Sophie caught up with Al Flemming from wildlife NGO Forest & Bird to get the latest on the 18th October to get the low down on the leak.
Then, heading down with a team of vollies from Auckland, Sustainable Simon caught up with her to see how the clean up efforts were going a week later.
(c) New Zealand Herald
The spill has added fuel to the fire for many environmentalist groups like Greenpeace – who have seen the slow response, and wide spread damage, as a sign that there should be no new offshore oil drilling. Would we really be able to cope with a massive leak like the one in the Gulf of Mexico? Would a spill off the East Cape have major impacts on our fisheries? We will be seeing impacts from the Rena for a long, long time. The effects will be devestating, particularly for those reliant on kai moana.
Vote wisely chums!
Are you as confused as I am? Thank goodness for National list MP Michael Woodhouse, who is taking a stand against coal mining.
We at the Green Desk applaud your common sense and your bravery! Sometimes we need to look beyond short-term economic gain and think about what burning this coal will be doing to our atmosphere (for a resource consent mines don’t need to take into account the emissions of the coal, especially when it’s being used in places like China – we can leave it to their sophisticated, environmentally-focused legislation…)
Just have a quick word with the PM will you. There’s a good bloke.
We all know that cycling keeps you fit, firm and free from traffic jams, BUT how do we encourage people to get on their bikes, and stay on?
Last week the Green Desk investigated how to normalise cycling behaviours and some great organisations encouraging people to cycle – from kiwi NGO Bike On NZ (getting children, teens and cops on bike), Frocks on Bikes (getting chicks cycling chic) and DIY bike fixer-uppers Tu Meke.
Beautiful bikes from http://www.madsencycles.com/
Don’t miss Critical Mass‘ monthly bike rides in Auckland, and around New Zealand. And if you’re up for an adventure have a crack at bike polo -coming to a tennis court near you.
We were out at the Acres – bFM Acres – last Tuesday (16.08.11), mucking around in the Green Desk Garden with Paul Thompson, the Green Desk Gardener.
The Green Desk Garden is a test lab of sorts. The sort of test lab where only cuddly organicy things happen and no genes get spliced. Unless you happen to be a cocky rat that is. The type of rat that has eyes only for the garden chickens and doggy bones. And as a rat you have no right to those doggy bones - unless you’ve decided to turn your sewer nature (or swale nature given the Waitakere eco-type location of the Acres) over to a ‘mans best friend’ mind-mould. Even then it’s unlikely that you’d get much traction in the throw-us-a-meaty-bone-o-man-friend-of-mine stakes. ‘Cause you’re a cocky rat that’s been eyeing up the chickens and now its a race to the table. Man versus rat in a feed the family frenzy.
So get out of the garden ratty or you’re gonna get spliced!
Of course the Acres is a secret location class of garden. Has to be secret lest the DNA map of Paul’s Ferrari garlic – the fastest garlic in the West (Auckland) – be sold to a more unscrupulous, less community minded, radio station. Heaven knows what garlicky profits they would reap were they to get their decidedly non-gardening grubby fingers round a clove of this white, papery skinned, bit dodgy on the cornering, er, gold. As those of you who have been listening to Paul’s sage advice over the past few years will know, one clove of garlic planted now will yield something like 68, 000, 000 cloves in a mere five (or maybe six?) years.
And that’s a scientific fact. Or something resembling one.
Denis Tegg – lawyer, Coromandel campaigner, activist blogger – spoke to the Green Desk on August 9th. His aptly nambed blog Oil Shock Horror Probe probes into global oil depletion and peak oil – with a New Zealand focus (Oil Shock Horror Probe).
As Denis accurately noted in the interview, oil is not bananas. Not any kind of fruit for that matter. If we run out without planning for it, this little island that’s miles away from anywhere at the bottom (or the top) of the world will have more than a bad case of oil scurvy to contend with.
Last Tuesday (02.08.11) Bryce Johnson, Director of Fish & Game New Zealand, spoke to the Green Desk about his disappointment with National government’s version of the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management – a watered down document that will do very little to protect and restore water quality in NZ according to Bryce.
Bryce was a member of both the Land and Water Forum and the Board of Inquiry that produced the original policy statement which had the support of industry, environmental and special interest groups – all the groups that made up the Land and Water Forum.
Fish & Game New Zealand commissioned the Cawthron Institute to critique the National government’s version of events. As far as Bryce is concerned, Minister of Environment Nick Smith has missed an opportunity to actively improve water quality in New Zealand and sold out to the polluters.
(Russel Norman, Greens Co-Leader recently pressed Wayne Mapp – Minister of Defence, standing in for Nick Smith, Minister for the Environment – on the findings of the Cawthron Institute report. Standard ‘everybody else is wrong’ response from the government.)
Cawthron Institute’s report available at the Fish & Game website.
