With certain species on brink of extinction, two top scientists are lifting the lid on DoC’s “toxic” culture of corporate ideals – “the department has lost its way” says one

Are we surprised? I don’t think so. About time isn’t it? Reflect now on the use of 1080 all over our environment including the waterways, with impunity. Do you still feel safe under their watch? EnvirowatchRangitikei

“Committed conservation workers, even if they’re highly regarded, are being pushed out, Head says, because they don’t fit the mould of the department’s new corporate ideals…”

“The desire to listen to in-house expertise is gone. It’s much more important that we write plans and waste thousands and thousands of dollars on consultants developing so-called interface plans and task assignments than actually doing the job.”

From newsroom.co.nz

DoC’s Culture Wars Revealed

Two top scientists are lifting the lid on the Department of Conservation’s “toxic” culture. David Williams reports.

A culture war is being waged within the Department of Conservation, says a former DOC ecologist who claims he’s been hounded out of the job.

Nick Head, the 2013 winner of the prestigious Loder Cup for conservation, quit the department last month and is taking a personal grievance claim. He says there’s a corporate culture in DOC being driven by management, that seems unable to face the inconvenient truth that its core function is to advocate for conservation. Some bosses seem unwilling to fight to protect special, rare and threatened places in case it upsets “relationships”, he says. That’s causing friction with some scientific, technical and frontline staff.

“There’s a culture war and there’s a lot of discontent.”

Head’s view, which he believes is widely shared within the department, is that DOC became highly politicised because it was seen as an impediment to the previous Government’s economic growth agenda. Some DOC staff became afraid to speak out or take a strong line.

“…the country’s rare flora and fauna are on the brink of a raft of extinctions, much of it down to DOC’s ineptitude…”

Committed conservation workers, even if they’re highly regarded, are being pushed out, Head says, because they don’t fit the mould of the department’s new corporate ideals. “They make life so difficult for them, they either leave or they find reasons to force them out.”Another Loder Cup winner, botanist Peter de Lange, left the department, disillusioned, in August last year, after being diagnosed with chronic stress. He thinks the department has lost its way, and that the country’s rare flora and fauna are on the brink of a raft of extinctions, much of it down to DOC’s ineptitude. He should know – De Lange was instrumental in developing the country’s threat classification system used since 2001.

“… the department has lost its way…” 
Loder Cup winner, botanist Peter de Lange

READ MORE

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2018/07/12/151517/docs-culture-wars-revealed

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The Levin 1080 fire: Part 2 (Kapiti Independent)

A follow up-article from Kapiti Independent News on the 1080 fire in Levin. Part 1 is here.

We first reported on this event in Levin on Feb 22nd & again on March 8th. At the time it was being discussed on a Facebook 1080 forum, a man reported the health effects he had been experiencing. I did exchange words with him then, inquiring further of his experience however he stopped responding to my messages.   EnvirowatchRangitikei

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By Mary Wood and Anne Hunt

Where a substantial amount of hazardous substances are stored, the Health and Safety at Work (Hazardous Substances) Regulations 2017 state that it is the responsibility of the person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU), to ensure that a full risk assessment is carried out by Fire & Emergency NZ.

Outcomes from these risk assessments include ensuring that

• crucial signage is erected around the storage areas
• safe drainage facilities are available to prevent contamination of waterways.

In theory, these formalised procedures are overseen by the local District Health Board’s Chief Medical Officer, who, in the event of a fire or other emergency such as an earthquake, assess the risks to nearby residents and workers from any toxic smoke and fumes and if necessary, instigate the pre-arranged evacuation plan.

READ MORE

https://kapitiindependentnews.net.nz/1080-fire-part-2/

If you love spraying Roundup around your farm or property, you really should watch this documentary

Kiwis love this product. They spray it everywhere, on their sections, garden edges, berms, parks, schools, their gardens even ready for new planting. And farmers, it’s whole fields since the Ag text books recommend it. Even though it’s produced large tumours in lab rats (independent research). Please read our Glyphosate pages on all of the above. You will be surprised. Farmers were told it was ‘safe as houses’ virtually.

ajvaughan3 Documentary Films

Published on Aug 2, 2015

Monsanto’s controversial past combines some of the most toxic products ever sold with misleading reports, pressure tactics, collusion, and attempted corruption. They now race to genetically engineer (and patent) the world’s food supply, which profoundly threatens our health, environment, and economy. Combining secret documents with first-hand accounts by victims, scientists, and politicians, this widely praised film exposes why Monsanto has become the world’s poster child for malignant corporate influence in government and technology.

Official Information requested by Horizons from NZ Defence Force about an environmental hazard at Ohakea Air Base was not disclosed for more than a year later

Becoming a familiar story isn’t it? (They legally have around 21 days to come up with the requested info).

Recently we saw they’d declined to notify the public of the presence of 1080 in storage which they should be doing (remember Whitianga?). Or if it is burnt which they also recently declined to do in Levin. And increasingly, info is declined in the OI requests. I’ve also been hearing lately information about the burial/dumping of 1080 & also of asbestos in ‘unknown’ locations! If folk know anything they need to blow the whistle. This is an area of total cover up in more ways than one. Yet another illustration that the ‘sustainable’ verbiage on the council websites is just that & of no particular use except to pull the wool as the saying goes. Sustainable practices stopped with Rogernomics. The history is long and damning. EnvirowatchRangitikei

From stuff.co.nz

Horizons Regional Council’s chairman has blasted the Defence Force for keeping his organisation in the dark about contamination from firefighting foam used at Ohakea airbase.

The regional council was not told groundwater and water supplies might be contaminated until December last year – many months after the Defence Force knew of a potential problem.

“We are the environmental agency and they wanted to keep it from us,” Horizons chairman Bruce Gordon said.

“We found out from the media [about the contamination] because the Defence Force didn’t want to share it with us.”​

READ MORE:
* Toxic foam found in fire trucks and storage at three more commercial airports
* Nationwide investigation into toxic firefighting foam launched​
* Testing area for Ohakea toxic foam contamination to be extended
* Firefighter foam poses water risk around NZ air bases

It was revealed last week Horizons Regional Council  was asked for information about water systems near Ohakea Air Force Base in Rangitīkei three times before it was told there was a contamination problem involving firefighting foam.

The first request for information came as early as April 2016 – a year after the Defence Force received the first results of tests – but officials didn’t let on to the regional council that some water was contaminated until December 2017.

READ MORE

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/102503823/information-requested-but-reasons-not-disclosed-for-more-than-a-year-later

 

Photo: PN Airport .. Wikipedia

 

Coromandel conservation group is calling for a halt to regional funding of toxin use on private land for wild animal control

PRESS RELEASE:

A Coromandel conservation group is calling for a halt to regional funding of toxin use on private land for wild animal control.

The Upper Coromandel Landcare Assocation (UCLA) is asking Waikato Regional Council to suspend any further cash grants to “community” groups for placement of toxin 1080 and anticoagulant rat poisons on private properties on the peninsula.

UCLA cited a $41,000 grant to the Moehau Environment Group, a local contractor to WRC, for placement this summer of the poisons in bait stations on hundreds of hectares in Port Charles in an operation opposed by many landowners in the small community. In addition to concerns over secondary poisoning of protected native species and inhumane controls generally, local residents have objected to extreme danger from toxic animal carcasses on neighbouring properties, as well as poisons entering the food chain.

A recent memorandum from the Department of Conservation confirmed that 1080 resides in the environment and food chain after placement. The toxin has been implicated in the near-fatal poisoning of three Waikato residents after they ate wild pork.

According to UCLA spokesperson Reihana Robinson, there are safe, affordable, and acceptable alternatives to use of residual toxins, including trapping and hunting. “The $41,000 MEG grant, much of which covered 1080 poisoning on the property of the group’s own coordinator and her neighbour, is a dangerous, irresponsible, and wasteful use of regional rates dollars.”

“Locals cannot walk dogs safely along the main road, children cannot safely explore up the Tangiaro Valley, families can not harvest nutritional wild food, and unsuspecting landowners may wind up with hazardous toxins on their own properties,” Robinson said. “And as for our tourism-based economy, visitors are being greeted with kilometres of skull-and-crossbone warning signs instead of the pristine bush they expected.”

“We are not talking conservation estate or protection of crown land. This is public funding of dangerous poisons on private properties within metres of property lines and roads, with toxins potentially migrating onto other people’s land.”

UCLA notes that hundreds of thousands of ratepayer dollars are being directed by the regional council this term to so-called “community groups” for possum, rat, and mustelid control with little or no accountability and without wider community support.

“It’s easy for council staff to farm out control work with a few big cheques to a few eco-contractors,” Robinson said. “But unfortunately, it is harmful not only to the environment, but to ratepayers and residents, and to regional council’s own relations with the wider community.”

 

“The Killing Nation: New Zealand’s State-Sponsored Addiction to Poison 1080″… a new must-read book exposing the $100 mill industry that makes our ‘clean & green’ image look farcical

NZ now has a Poison Industrial Complex (PIC) which deliberately targets the media with good news propaganda justifying it’s continued existence.
If you don’t believe this read the latest book by Reihana Robinson exposing New Zealand’s PIC, available on Amazon.

 

“Environmental activist and researcher Reihana Robinson explodes the carefully cultivated myth of New Zealand as the “Clean and Green” paradise of the South Pacific. While her country’s government and tourism industry promote images of exotic native bush, rare avian species, clean running streams, and untainted farms, Robinson lays bare New Zealand’s “Dirty Little Environmental Secret” – the wholesale poisoning of the landscape with one of the world’s deadliest poisons to combat pest species, all in the name of “conservation”. New Zealand stands alone in the world for its widespread and growing use of the supertoxin “1080, spread by helicopter over hundreds of thousands of hectares of conservation land, rolling hills, and even into waterways and drinking water catchments. The toxin, made in batches at a small factory in backwoods Alabama USA and shipped to far-off Kiwiland, deals a grisly death to all oxygen-breathing species – among them countless birds, deer, mice, frogs, eels, and invertebrates of all description. While failing to achieve proven conservation gains, New Zealand’s poison-industrial complex taints more and more of the country’s pristine natural wealth with each passing year. Robinson recounts the surprising history of her country’s unusual and failing attempt to poison its way to a clean environment, and with classic investigative reporting and research, exposes the conflicts and professional intrigue that keep the poison flowing. Robinson chronicles the fightback by environmentalists, animal welfare advocates, and growing numbers in the scientific community against the increasing use of the poison in what has become an unhealthy growth industry protected by the New Zealand government. Her expose is a must-read for every student of environmental science – and an important introduction to “the real New Zealand” for tourists and international travelers expecting just the opposite.”

See the Resources page at the 1080 tab at the main menu for further links to info on 1080. Watch Poisoned Paradise, the award winning film that NZ tv channels refuse to play.

DoC’s own records show that 100s of Kiwi are being killed in 1080 poisoned habitats

Shocking information here. This is an ad for the Ban 1080 party for the election just gone. A short clip that provides visual evidence of DoC’s documentation of Kiwi deaths. Remember our post on the 89 deaths that showed no testing for 1080 as being cause of death … the obvious sure fire way to prove it WASN’T 1080 & they didn’t use it? Makes you wonder doesn’t it? Why would they not do that? DoC it would appear, prefers to squirm out of the obvious ways of proving to us that 1080 is doing a good job. Then there was the NZ Lab’s loss of a human heart that a MD had asked to have tested for possible 1080 poison. Again, makes you wonder doesn’t it? What are they hiding? In my humble opinion I think it might be the evidence 1080 isn’t working.

For further info and links to the Graf Boys’ must watch doco ‘Poisoning Paradise’, their websites, YT Channel and other relative info see our 1080 pages at the main menu
EnvirowatchRangitikei

TheGrafBoys

Published on Sep 19, 2017

Women with breast cancer have 50% -60% higher levels of chlorination byproducts in their breast tissue than women without breast cancer – thanks to our authorities

We’ve been hearing this message on chlorine a lot lately. Sadly it’s well installed in many (most?) water supplies with little hope of getting it removed. If it’s not chlorine it’s fluoride, both poisonous chemicals. It’s government (corporation) approved. (Like your Local Govt, Central Govt is also a business folks so their primary focus is profits, not as you’d thought, you, the tax/rate payer). This is why their CEs are paid ‘modest’ salaries like a quarter of a million dollars and higher. Seems at this stage your only hope is to filter or distill it out yourself at very great cost. But whatever you do, protect yourself and remove it somehow anyway. With these kinds of health risks it’s imperative. (Thanks to thecontrail for the link)
EnvirowatchRangitikei

Showering in chlorinated waters poses a greater risk to your health than drinking it … your skin pores allow it to travel straight into your bloodstream

One of the most shocking components to all of these studies is that up to 2/3s of our harmful exposure to chlorine is due to inhalation of steam and skin absorption while showering

CHLORINATED SHOWERS & BATHS KILL GUT FLORA

It makes intuitive sense that drinking chlorinated water can create imbalances in your intestinal flora. We know that chlorine will kill many of the good bacteria and microbes that live symbiotically with us in our gut. These good bacteria help us digest our food, keeping us serene and healthy. But most of us fail to take this thought to it’s logical end. I know I did.

You see, I thought that if I just drank filtered water, I’d have my bases covered. It never even occurred to me that the chlorine in my shower and bath water could be just as damaging, if not more so. That’s because your skin is your largest organ, and it’s naturally gifted with the ability to absorb both nutrients and toxins.

Chlorine from drinking water can enter your body in several ways, including ingestion. You also inhale chloroform, a byproduct of chlorine, when you take a hot shower or bath. According to an article from Science News, researchers found increases in chloroform in study participants’ lungs of about 2.7ppb after a 10-minute shower. Warm water also further opens pores, so the combination of what your skin absorbs and your lungs inhale during a 10-minute shower is greater than the amount you would ingest drinking eight glasses of water from the same tap. In fact, studies at the University of Pittsburgh found less chemical exposure from ingesting chlorinated water than from showering or washing clothes in it. The study found that, on average, absorption through the skin was responsible for 64 percent of waterborne contaminants that enter the human body.

(source)

Karmen from ShowerHeadly, urges us to consider that, “not only is it dangerous to drink chlorinated water, but it’s even more dangerous to shower or bathe in it.” Even the EPA’s own scientists agree:

There is a lot of well founded concern about chlorine. When chlorine is added to our water, it combines with other natural compounds to form Trihalomethanes (chlorination byproducts), or THMs. These chlorine byproducts trigger the production of free radicals in the body, causing cell damage, and are highly carcinogenic. “Although concentrations of these carcinogens (THMs) are low, it is precisely these low levels that cancer scientists believe are responsible for the majority of human cancers in the United States“. The Environmental Defense Fund

Simply stated chlorine is a pesticide, as defined by the U.S. EPA, who’s sole purpose is to kill living organisms. When we consume water containing chlorine, it kills some part of us, destroying cells and tissue inside our body. Dr. Robert Carlson, a highly respected University of Minnesota researcher who’s work is sponsored by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, sums it up by claiming , “the chlorine problem is similar to that of air pollution”, and adds that “chlorine is the greatest crippler and killer of modern times!”

READ MORE

 

What the pesticide industry’s been hiding from you – DIOXINS in diapers among other things: The Poison Papers expose decades of collusion between industry and regulators

For example, a secret high-level dioxins working group at the EPA acknowledged that dioxins are extraordinarily poisonous chemicals – yet the agency suppressed the fact that dioxins were found in everyday products such as diapers and coffee filters. And, the EPA suppressed its own research that found high levels of dioxin in environmental samples and human breast milk following routine use of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T (Agent Orange) by the federal Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.

(NaturalHealth365) A massive cache of documents and correspondence between regulatory agencies and the chemical industry has now seen the light of day – and it exposes a stunning pattern of collusion and deceit. Over 200,000 documents – including study summaries, internal secret memos, meeting minutes and sworn testimonies – attest to the fact that both industry and regulators were aware of the extreme toxicity of many chemical products, and conspired to hide this information from the public.

The explosive papers became news on July 26, when the online publication The Intercept published an interview with author and archivist Carol Van Strum. To learn more about the incredible pattern of corruption and collusion, read on.

Undeniable evidence: Federal agencies and chemical manufacturers were “in bed” together

Naturally, the most obvious question is, ‘who are the major players in the Poison Papers?’ The answer reveals many people at the highest levels of government regulation and corporate industry.

Federal regulatory agency sources implicated in the scandal include the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the U.S. Department of Defense. The chemical manufacturers include Dow, Monsanto, DuPont and Union Carbide.

In addition, the toxic chemicals referenced in the documents include 2,4-D, Dicamba, permethrin, atrazine and Agent Orange – all of which continue to be manufactured and sold. In fact, it’s “business as usual” for 2,4-D, which has just been authorized by the EPA for use on Dow’s new GMO 2,4-D-tolerant soybeans – in spite of the fact that it is contaminated with dioxins.

To be clear, the Poison Papers are not just testament to deception and collusion that occurred in the past – they also reflect betrayals of the public that are ongoing to this day.

READ MORE

http://www.naturalhealth365.com/poison-pesticides-2336.html

Wellington stream a brown, bubbly industrial dump that is killing the eels

More sustainable development from our LG folks. I challenge you to examine LG websites (Councils, Regional Council, Horizons) – they’re replete with a ton of rhetoric about sustainable this and sustainable that … all of which they pay mere lip service to. Note the comment from them in the article when whose responsibility it is is being followed up:

“T&T Landfills manager Sophie Gray said all information was available on the council’s website. When asked when the drainage problems would be fixed, she said it was a matter between “me and the council” before hanging up.”

In my opinion placed there to lull you into thinking all this toxic pollution is not their fault.  One gets the impression these DCs are fully in bed with the respective industries. Examine also though some of the events that transpire in the various other regions where the life in the waterways is dying off. Recently we had a huge die off of pipi and tuatua at Waitarere Beach. We hear a flurry in the news of ‘yes we are testing’ etc etc etc, and unless you pester them you’ll likely hear no more of it. Or when you do it is some curious thing to blame like I read recently, ‘pine pesticide’. Then they blame floods or high temps. All ‘natural’ phenomena of course so industrial pollution can’t be blamed. But here in this video, the stream is said to stink of chemicals, to which the likely reply will be the usual mantra of ‘it can’t be proven’. Not without extensive and expensive testing at least. Which predictably nobody will feel responsible enough to stump up with the costs for. Industries/corporations manage to let themselves off the hook in terms of responsibility for clean up. They have succeeded in reframing all of that by calling the damages externalities and making the public pay. Really the must watch as I always recommend is, ‘The Corporation’ doco. The profits of corporations are generally so large they pay for any fines out of their lunch money. If they get any fines that is. Largely they create carnage then move on leaving the locals to suck it up … get poisoned … whatever. They are rarely made to pay. So here we have dying eels as the canary in the coal mine. How long will it be before there is nothing left? We can’t swim in these streams and rivers any more, many more we can’t even wade in they’re so toxic. So why would we be expecting eels to survive in them? The regional authorities need to step up & enforce their consents properly instead of turning the proverbial blind eye.

EnvirowatchRangitikei

Forget clean and green – this Wellington stream is brown, bubbly and litter-strewn

As Jane Poata walks beside Wellington’s Owhiro Stream, the toxic stench rekindles childhood memories of holidaying beside New Zealand’s most-contaminated site.

It is a metallic smell she described as ammonia and lime, rising from the brown and bubbly stream, a tributary of which passes through T&T Landfills before running behind a primary school and homes then into Taputeranga Marine Reserve off the capital’s south coast.

Greater Wellington Regional Council has confirmed the contamination came from the T&T Landfills, which was in the process of diverting the tributary to Owhiro Stream and creating a filtering wetland so it no longer picked up debris and contaminants when flood water rushed through.

READ MORE:
* Criticism at lack of action over rising contamination in Wellington’s Owhiro Stream
* Wellington stream brown, swollen and frothy
* The new ‘swimmable’ fresh water target: Nick Smith defends his plan
*Editorial: We must clean up our waterways to prove we are clean and green

“Any contaminant can be toxic and harmful to the stream ecology and people coming into contact, but it depends on the levels we find.”

The landfill was fined following a similar incident in November. Cross said further fines had not been ruled out but the council was more focused now on fixing the problem.

T&T Landfills manager Sophie Gray said all information was available on the council’s website. When asked when the drainage problems would be fixed, she said it was a matter between “me and the council” before hanging up.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/91441533/Forget-clean-and-green-this-Wellington-stream-is-brown-bubbly-and-litter-strewn?cid=app-iPad