Climate Justice Taranaki is promising to keep up direct action until farmers and their corporate backers move away from short-sighted focus on profits and look to create a truly sustainable industry.
The group held simultaneous blockades on Sunday of the Fonterra’s Whareroa Fonterra dairy factory, and the Ballance fertiliser factory Todd Energy gas plant at Kapuni.
Spokesperson Tuhi Ao Bailey says as well as marking the 1881 invasion of Parihaka, the protests were to encourage the agriculture industry to look for long term sustainability.
“The people who are going to get hit the most by climate change are the farmers. You know we’ve already seen that in the Far North and the East Coast – they’re the ones who take the biggest hit. But they’re the ones doing the least to stop climate change. They just look bad. They don’t look like very sensible business people,” she says.
Ms Bailey says one Fonterra truck driver threatened to drive through their blockade, but others were more relaxed.
