Funding Cutoff for Eco-Panel Urged

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
4 APRIL 2013

A Coromandel conservation group is calling for de-funding of the Waikato Biodiversity Forum after a critical community meeting on environmental issues set for this weekend was abruptly cancelled today by the council-supported group.

The Port Charles-based Upper Coromandel Landcare Association (UCLA) is asking Thames-Coromandel District Council to cease its annual funding for the Waikato Biodiversity Forum effective immediately.

The widely advertised Biodiversity Forum workshop set for Colville was to discuss weeds, pests, erosion and water quality with presentations by local community groups, Waikato Regional Council, and the Department of Conservation and include several field trips. The workshop had attracted wide advance interest from residents of the upper peninsula and other environmentalists around the district, with many pre-registering and others planning to attend a portion of the proceedings.

Registered attendees received a brief email notice from Biodiversity Forum coordinator Moira Cursey three days before the workshop that the event would be cancelled due to lack of interest.

However, UCLA spokesperson Reihana Robinson said the eleventh-hour cancellation was due instead to organiser concerns that the controversial topic of aerial 1080 poisoning of Moehau mountain planned by DOC for May-June would be raised by workshop participants.

According to Robinson, “The Biodiversity Forum pulled the plug on this important community workshop not because of any purported shortage of interest, but because they are running scared that increasingly strong community opposition to the DOC 1080 operation will be raised as a concern. Forum organisers and their sponsors at DOC and WRC do not want to provide this opportunity for community members to express their opinions and discuss alternatives.”

Robinson said the Biodiversity Forum is supported by regional and district rates dollars and that the weekend workshop was a community meeting. “Biodiversity and protection of fragile ecosystems are topic number one in this community. People were looking forward to this rates-supported opportunity to join with regional council, DOC and other groups to nut out safe, effective and affordable pest control options acceptable to the community. Instead, the Biodiversity Forum has called off the discussion and effectively muzzled concerned residents.”

“The mere suggestion that this emergency cancellation, which follows many months of workshop planning and preparation, is due to a lack of interest destroys whatever credibility and shred of independence the Biodiversity Forum may have claimed. The group confirmed today it is beholden to the agencies -- regional council and DOC -- that fund it and use it to advance their policy agendas,” Robinson said.

“Thames-Coromandel District Council, unlike DOC and WRC, has shown strong support for the community in respect of acceptable pest control options. It should not be funding a group that masquerades as a champion of the environment but is afraid to front up to the many community members who are out there doing the hard yards, in the bush, largely as volunteers, every day of the year.”

ENDS

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