Monday, June 27, 2011

On blogging torpor, freshwater for life and DOC job cuts...

It's been far too long between posts. Plenty of KapaiLife stuff to chat about... but life's been keeping me busy in the 'real world'

Just returned to the shaky city after a three day Forest & Bird conference in Wellington... it was a great weekend, we hosted a political panel on conservation issues, then the rest of the conference was themed "Freshwater for Life" - pretty timely in NZ right now as our water quality declines and our intensification of agriculture and urban developments increases.  It was my job to organise the conference program, so I invited Dr Mike Joy, Rod Oram, photographer & presenter Craig Potton,  Professor Ken Hughey, Alistair Bisley (chair of Land and Water Forum) and Morgan Williams (former Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment), as well as speakers from Fish & Game and Fonterra. We finished with a screening of the excellent "River Dog". Make sure you see this film. The conference was a lively, inspiring affair.

Meanwhile, the Govt has decided to cut another 100 DOC jobs... now DOC's being run on a budget of a city council to manage a third of the country. i had a fair bit to say about that here. It's busy work trying to stick up for nature in NZ!!!
hmmm, this cartoon seems rather relevant for the current biodiversity crisis.

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