MEDIA RELEASE

8 March 2006

EXTEND BOLD COASTAL REVIEW TO INLAND WATERWAYS

Fish & Game Director Bryce Johnson is encouraged by the Conservation Minister's decision to review the coastal development rules, and asks that the review be extended to all of New Zealand's inland waterways.

"The coastal policy review is a positive step forward," said Bryce Johnson, "and the concerns identified in respect to the coastal environment apply even more so to our inland waterways."

"Like the coastal environment, New Zealand's freshwater bodies are under pressure from rampant development, degradation by increasing intensive agriculture, demands for electricity generation, and exclusion of the general public through private capture of access rights."

"The Minister boldly and sensibly acknowledges that many Kiwis hold a growing concern that we're losing the Kiwi way of life in terms of access to, and the quality of, the coastal resource, and that the RMA guidelines are outdated. Similarly, our freshwater resource, and public access to it, is degraded and remains largely unprotected. High level protection of this finite and irreplaceable resource is urgently required."

ENDS

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