More protests over 1080 predicted
Click Here to Add CommentSubject: More protests over 1080 predicted
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 09:46:02 -0400
From: Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of
California, Department of Pesticide Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
NELSON MAIL
WEDNESDAY, 01 MAY 2002
More protests over 1080 predicted
29 APRIL 2002
By HELEN MURDOCH and NZPA
Golden Bay 1080 Action Group spokeswoman Susan Snelgrove is warning that more anti-1080 protests will happen nationwide as public awareness spreads.
She said the New Zealand public "have been conned into allowing ourselves to be poisoned in the name of possum control".
Her comments come after up to 170 protesters dumped dead birds and carrots outside the Department of Conservation's Whakapapa field centre on Sunday and demanded 1080 aerial drops be stopped and alternative poisons found.
The organiser of the march, Ruapehu Action Group spokesman Joss Richardson, said the protest had been peaceful but vocal.
She said it would not be the last if aerial drops of 1080 poison targeting possums continued.
The Golden Bay group has been involved in similar action.
Ms Snelgrove said 1080-user groups, like the Animal Health Board, councils and DOC, sold the use of the poison on the basis it was needed to control possums and other wild animals which allegedly carried bovine tuberculosis and destroyed native forests.
"The Government has been trying to protect the reputation of the country's meat exports rather than the health of its citizens."
West Coast-Tasman United Future NZ candidate Gray Eatwell said the risk to New Zealand's high-value agricultural exports from the blanket dumping of 1080 could not continue.
He said the current debate highlighted the "tunnel vision" that officials supporting the use of the poison for possum control had become entrenched in.
He said aerial 1080 poison drops were not the answer to controlling possums and the Government must be held responsible for the cost of any disaster that the bulk use of the poison caused to farmers.
But Nelson environmentalist and National list candidate Guy Salmon said 1080 was well understood and years of research had gone into its effect on the environment.
Mr Salmon said he sympathised with remote rural communities where 1080 was used "because it is the cheaper option rather than using community-based pest control".
Meanwhile, a possum-poisoning operation carried out on behalf of the Hawke's Bay Regional Council in the Wairoa area may have been sabotaged.
The council said some of the 1080 poison was found along public roads near Kotemaori, halfway between Napier and Wairoa on State Highway 2 on April 10 and 11, including a suspicious drop of toxic carrot bait in the Willow Flat area.
The council's group asset manager, Mike Adye, said it appeared the baits were placed on the road with "malicious intent".
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