Broom-Wielding Protestors Sweep 1080 Poison out of Golden Bay

Wildly costumed residents of Golden Bay poured into the streets of Takaka today with brooms in hand to “sweep 1080 poison out of Golden Bay.”
 
The Animal Health Board is currently seeking resource consent to aerially drop 1080 poison on 18,000 hectares of forested conservation land surrounding Golden Bay’s rural population this winter.
 
The Animal Health Board’s stated objective is to kill possums in order to stop the spread of bovine tuberculosis (Tb) in the area. However, local residents are sceptical. Tb has not been found in Golden Bay for over seven years; possum numbers are low; and Animal Health Board representatives have themselves admitted that they have not tested the local possum population to discover whether Tb is present.
 
“We haven’t been properly consulted, and we don’t want this poison in our forests or on our farms,” said local farmer Fiona Cameron, a member of Farmers Against Ten Eighty (FATE), which supported the protest. “Tb can be controlled through herd management or by the vaccine which has been introduced in the UK. Not only is 1080 unsafe, it’s unnecessary.”
 
“1080 poison is deadly; it doesn’t just kill possums, it kills anything that breathes. 1080 is banned in countries throughout the world. Yet the New Zealand government continues to allow it to be dropped from helicopters throughout our bush as though it were candy,” said Rebecca Reider, spokesperson for the Golden Bay organisation Beyond 1080.
 
Today’s protest, which drew over 100 rural residents on a sunny Takaka morning, featured grim-reaper-costumed villains dumping (fake) green-dyed 1080 baits in the streets of Takaka, followed by a dancing crowd bearing brooms and foliage to symbolically sweep the poison away. The protest concluded with an energetic rally in front of the Takaka Department of Conservation office. The Department of Conservation is currently engaged in 1080 poison operations in large tracts of Kahurangi National Park.
 
An Animal Health Board-sponsored information day on the proposed poison operation ended in chaos in March of this year, when Animal Health Board representatives refused to answer residents’ questions in a public forum. Unwilling to dialogue with protesters, AHB representatives packed up their show and left early.
 
“The Animal Health Board proposes to drop this poison directly around where we live, directly into streams that supply our drinking water. We’re here to protect the life of our community and demand an end to this poisoning of our wildlife and our people,” Reider said.
 
Among the areas slated for poisoning is the water catchment surrounding Te Waikoropupu Springs (commonly known as Pupu Springs), the largest freshwater springs in the southern hemisphere.
 
“These are the purest waters in the world, and it’s being proposed to drop a toxic poison into them, for a tuberculosis threat that hasn’t even been shown to exist,” said Reider. “It simply doesn’t make sense.”
 
During the Animal Health Board’s last 1080 operation in Golden Bay, in 2002, 1080 baits were found in dairy farm water supplies, and $80,000 worth of export butter had to be quarantined.
 
Last year, in response to growing concern about the risks of 1080 use in New Zealand, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment issued a major report endorsing use of the poison. However, the report has been widely criticised as misleading by independent scientists. (See:  http://www.1080science.co.nz/drjpollardreview.html)

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