April 29, 2020
Farmers use COVID as excuse to keep polluting
The Maori Climate Commissioner says the COVID-19 crisis shouldn’t be used as an excuse for the Government to backtrack on its environmental commitments.
Donna Awatere Huata says people hoping the crisis would spark a social and economic reset would be disappointed by the way Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor bowed to pressure from the rural sector to delay new freshwater regulations.
She says Federated Farmers is celebrating the decision, claiming farmers are already improving their environmental impacts through good management practices, but that’s not what the government’s own research shows.
Giving farmers a free pass from the emissions trading scheme in 2008 meant over the past 12 years fewer than 10 per cent of Fonterra’s 10,500 farmers put together plans to bring their emissions down, and overall emissions in the sector have gone up.
That contrasts with the performance of Māori-owned milk group Miraka, which required its farmers to have an environmental management plan, emissions reporting, nitrogen and effluent management systems, and fenced waterways.
Ms Awatere Huata says unless politics is kept free from the pressures of vested interest groups, we will rebuild the same economy that failed most people in health, housing, fair wages, fair justice and a better environment.
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