Book Review
“Environmental Defenders – Fighting for our Natural World” by Raewyn Peart
Price $79.99. Reviewed by Tony Orman
This beautifully produced book published by Bateman Books, runs to 368 pages with a liberal sprinkling of excellent photos and tells of the Environmental Defence Society and the legal battles it has fought with the might of short-sighted governments and avid developers. Fittingly the book is dedicated to Gary Taylor who has been the main impetus behind the Environmental Defence Society since the late 1970s.
The Environmental Defence Society often referred to as EDS, was established over 50 years ago in April 1971. It went into recess in 1988 but was re-established in 1999 and since has fought many battles, with notable successes.
Author Raewyn Pearl is a long-time EDS director and policy director, well qualified with degrees in social sciences, law and commerce. It was back in 1970 that an environmental controversy erupted over the National government’s plans to raise and drown the shoreline of Lake Manapouri in Fiordland National Park to supply electricity to a foreign-owned aluminium smelter. The “Save Manapouri” campaign was very much the awakening of an environmental conscience by the public. EDS was formed basically as “a coalition of lawyers, scientists, students and other citizens dedicated to the protection of environmental quality through public education and legal action.”
The first action was air pollution from Auckland Hospital’s chimney. As author Raewyn Peart explains the issues have changed significantly even over the times has been involved.
Among the ensuing issues was dairying in the MacKenzie Basin in the central South Island where in 2009 a proposal was made to house 17,850 dairy cows on Ohau Downs Station. The cows would be housed for nine months of the year in 20 wintering shed and milked by robots.
Up to 1.7 million litres of effluent was to be discharged to pasture daily, equivalent to a city of 250,000 people.
The proposal was largely defeated thanks to EDS. EDS waged years of battling other dairying conversions in the Mackenzie. As Raewyn Peart warns against complacency “more work is needed to protect the Mackenzie country.”
A chapter entitled “Cleaning Up Rivers” features Fish and Game’s “dirty dairying” campaign and EDS’s substantial contribution to the Land and Water Forum (LAWF).
“The LAWF proved pivotal in delivering New Zealand’s first national policy statement on freshwater in 2011. It was not perfect but it was a huge step forward to have a national framework,” writes the author. “It’s unfinished work. Improvement of New Zealand’s freshwater is going to be a generational journey.”
LAWF has since been disbanded but EDS has continued to influence the ongoing development of freshwater policy.
Thankfully Gary Taylor now sits on the Freshwater Implementation Group, overseeing the roll out of the policy. EDS is also watching closely as to events on the ground as shortsightedly successive governments have adopted a policy of supporting irrigation to increase primary sector productivity.
The Central Plains Water scheme taking water from the Waimakariri and Rakaia Rivers is also covered as one of EDS’s action fronts. So too is the Hawkes Bay Tukituki River proposal and in the Manawatu, Horizon Regional Council’s plan to grant consents to intensive farming activities for periods up to 20 years. The Horizons Regional Council received a severe reprimand as a result of EDS’s forthright action.
The book deals in great detail over oceans management and in particular the flawed quota management system to “manage” sea fisheries.
New Zealand’s environment has been under siege and always will be. New Zealanders have so much to thank EDS for. This book is a very timely reminder that there inevitably will be other battles to be fought.
Author Raewyn Peart has carried out meticulous research and written an absorbing book. Every environmentally conscious Kiwi trout and salmon angler should read it and be inspired to take up the cudgels battling for cleaner and fully flowing rivers – and supporting EDS. Highly recommended.
More people need to take up the cause. It’s possible to make a difference. And this is perhaps the central challenge of our age.
Agree, apathy is the lurking enemy. Anglo-Irishman statesman Edmund Burke once said “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,”
I’ve seen the book. It is very impressive. It shows the dogged determination of the EDS and Gary Taylor in particular. It’s a very good book that every environmental conscious Kiwi should read.