17 December 2007
Greens congratulate Bay of Plenty farmers
The Green Party welcomes the announcement today by Environment Bay of Plenty that 91 percent of dairy farms checked in
annual monitoring are meeting their resource consent conditions.
The number of people with serious system failures dropped from eight percent last year to two percent this year. The
remaining seven percent are classed as high risk.
"This is a major achievement and one to be proud of," Green Environment Spokesperson Nandor Tanczos says.
"There is real and growing concern about the environmental impacts of dairy expansion and this result shows that
substantial progress can be made.
"High dairy payout forecasts of up to $6.90 are fuelling a massive expansion and intensification of dairy farming in
areas.
"However the heavy reliance on irrigation by intensive dairy farming has both strained water reserves in places like
Canterbury and has impacted significantly on water quality through contamination. In particular nitrogen has caused
significant loss of water quality even while 'point source' discharges - such as from factories - are being increasingly
cleaned up.
"When results from places like Canterbury are showing that over 60 percent of farmers are in breach of their consents,
the results from Bay of Plenty are particularly welcome."
The Green Party also welcomes the announcement by EBOP that they will continue with random audits outside of the normal
monitoring season.
"Unannounced random checks are the only way to provide confidence that these excellent figures reflect reality."
ENDS