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The Great Barrier Island Charitable
Trust’s 2010 State of the Environment Report (SOER) is nearly a year old
(see: www.gbict.co.nz). It is the most comprehensive account of the
Island’s natural biota and land environment, and of the past and current
human pressures on these.
In keeping with the breadth of the SOER,
and the Trust’s mission statement, we are asking the Local Board to
examine the many ways in which the community can support improving
environmental quality and biodiversity on the Island in 2011. Few other
issues have been as hotly debated as the idea of pest eradication. The
community deserves now to be involved in a comprehensive and wide
ranging consultation process to explore the various options of pest
eradication, pest management, and biosecurity. These are not ends in
themselves, they are stepping-stones to halting the declines in
biodiversity and allowing the reintroduction of lost bird species such
as the kokako. We believe that environment and bio-diversity are
important factors in the Island’s future economic development, and that
this emphasis will sit well with the priorities of the new Local Board
as they are agreed.
The new Local Board has the task of
producing a Strategic Plan, which will describe the local community’s
aspirations and their preferences and priorities for the next three
years and beyond. The ‘beyond’ is because Auckland Council is preparing
a 10-year plan (2012-2022) and the Great Barrier Strategic Plan is
intended to influence that. The Local Board will, presumably, hold
public meetings and call for submissions on the plan. The first stage –
the Great Barrier Local Board Agreement – has already been published and
includes a commitment to ‘undertake a consultation exercise on pest
management and eradication’. We welcome this, and we believe that it
must be done properly and independently. The Local Board has a role of
‘Advocacy to Auckland Council’ and under this role it can legitimately
seek professional advice on how to ‘improve bio-security and pest
management responses and programmes’. We believe there is a ground-swell
of support in the Great Barrier community for more comprehensive pest
management, even possibly total eradication, and that every person in
the community needs to be consulted about their thinking on this and
related issues. Meanwhile, let’s see what support we can get for smaller
scale local initiatives to improve biodiversity and environmental
quality. And, let’s keep asking the Dept. of Conservation what they are
doing in this area too!
We welcome Emmy Pratt, Wayne Anderson,
Peter Edmonds and Kate Waterhouse as new Trustees. We will ‘profile’
them in our next issue. Our membership continues to grow (now at c. 160)
which reflects growing support for our vision and activities. For
example over 90 Barrierites have participated in kaka counts since 2007.
However, when it comes to maintaining an island lifestyle and a quality
environment, numbers are important. So if you support our stance, please
fill out a form and join us, or you can do so by visiting our website
www.gbict.co.nz or phoning Fenella on 4290414. |
