January 07, 2015
Iwi can save kiwi
A senior policy analyst for the Environmental Defence Society is urging government agencies to work with iwi and Maori initiatives on efforts to save the kiwi and other endangered species.
Dr Marie Brown has been conducting a major review for the EDS of biodiversity management in New Zealand, with the findings to be released in March in a book Vanishing Nature.
She says there are many “save the kiwi projects, but despite limited successes in some areas the overall picture is of a continuing decline of 2 percent a year.
She says it’s a political and economic rather than a science problem, with under-funding of the Department of Conservation and weak legislation around environmental harm contributing to the decline.
Dr Brown says the science-led initiatives of government agencies combined with the conservation knowledge of iwi Maori could be of great benefit.
EDS will also push for a polluter pays approach to discourage activities which caused environmental harm.
"All of those processes which erode natural capital – water abstraction and fertiliser application, for example – we need to be getting a lot harder on those and stop assuming that the environment will continue to absorb those impacts, because it demonstrably isn't," she says.
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