by Sarah Monod de Froideville and Charles Louisson, Victoria University Wellington https://www.newsroom.co.nz/peering-into-transmission-gullys-environmental-blind-spot Background of my involvement: A few years ago, I was contracted by Kapiti Coast District Council (KCDC) to be their freshwater ecologist for the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) Board of Inquiry (BOI) into the Transmission Gully project. KCDC wasn’t opposing they just wanted... Continue Reading →
The Groundswell protest claimed regulation and taxes are unfair to farmers – the economic numbers tell a different story
While the sector pays tax on income like everyone else, the amount paid by the dairy sector ($531.7 million in 2019/20 – or 0.7% of total tax revenue) looks to be substantially less than the costs associated with transfers from the government back to the sector and remediation of environmental damage caused by the sector.... Continue Reading →
The future of food and energy
My webinar with Nelson Tasman Climate Forum, the first hour or so is talk the rest is Q&A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iburYeY0Rnc
Summer Science, there’s something in our water
Dr Mike Joy is a freshwater ecologist at Victoria University of Wellington. As a scientist he works in the field, studying freshwater organisms and the complex relationships they have with the aquatic environment. As a science communicator however, Mike has become an active participant in one of New Zealand most controversial issues; the nitrate pollution... Continue Reading →
The bottled water industry gets our best water for free and sell it back to us, while we get the second rate stuff through our taps
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1753-6405.13196 Having spent what feels like half of my life trying to highlight the decline of freshwater in New Zealand and the causes it is infuriating beyond description to realise that through this work I am playing into the hands of the mostly transnational water bottling companies operating in New Zealand. I have been part... Continue Reading →
Overshoot and our options for a livable future
Humankind is facing peak everything[1]; this dilemma is the manifestation of exceeding the ecological/planetary boundaries of the planet. We have hit the ‘Limits to Growth’ we were warned about in the 1970s[2]. Crucially, and often ignored, climate change is just one symptom of a wider ecological overshoot which includes biodiversity loss, collapse in ecosystems, soil... Continue Reading →
Pissing away our future
Jacinda Ardern's government is attempting to bring in freshwater standards which would require New Zealand farmers to clean up their act. The farming lobby - a major player in politics here - is insisting that they need the right to pollute. This is known as socialising your costs while keeping your profits. Before Britain's Brexiteers succeed in throwing off Europe's remaining... Continue Reading →
Nitrate in drinking water could cause up to 100 cases of bowel cancer in NZ
Nitrate contamination of drinking water could cause up to 100 cases of bowel cancer in New Zealand every year, leading to 40 deaths, New Zealand research has estimated. The estimate is based on international studies linking nitrate in drinking water and bowel cancer combined with assessment of the levels of nitrate in drinking water in... Continue Reading →
Freshwater for life 