MEDIA RELEASE

27 November 2007

The Summit must deliver: Fish & Game calls for collaborative leadership structure

Fish & Game New Zealand compliments the Government for hosting the Primary Industries Summit in Christchurch Wednesday and Thursday 28/29 November. “Our primary industries are fundamental to New Zealand’s future, but poor practices and unmanaged growth in production from a finite natural resource base of land and water will collapse the production base our environmental capital”, said Bryce Johnson, Chief Executive of Fish & Game New Zealand.

“The real challenge of the Summit will be to produce outcomes that will restore and maintain New Zealand’s clean and green brand, and make agriculture responsible for its adverse environmental effects. This opportunity must not be squandered on platitudes and clichés. ’More education leads to voluntary change’, ‘more research is required’ and ‘you can’t be green if you’re in the red’ are well past their use-by date and undermine the urgent need to apply what we know now. Calls for ‘environmentally sustainable development’ without concrete and measurable goals and timeframes are simply rhetoric that will see continued degradation of lowland waterways.”

“Environmental best practice needs to become a mandatory requirement for all our primary industries. Our future generations’ economic, social, recreational and community welfare depend on it.”

“The Summit must deliver a collaborative leadership structure to carry summit outcomes through to fruition, with goals and milestones, and consequences for non-achievement. Collaboration between all stakeholders, central and regional government, primary industry leaders and companies, environmental and recreational advocates, and farmers and the public is essential to chart a way forward for New Zealand’s primary sector.”

ENDS

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