Greens urged to clarify Marine Conservation, DoC advocacy, Biosecurity
in their Thriving Nature Plan

The Green Party’s “Thriving Nature” Conservation Plan issued by Co-Leader, James Shaw, is good news for on-land conservation, but they need to look out to sea to include marine conservation.

“They also need to remember to tackle weeds and pathogens as well as predators, says the Environment and Conservation Organisations’ of NZ, Vice-chair, Cath Wallace.
“There is much to welcome in the Green’s Thriving Nature Plan, such as increased funding for DoC and community conservation efforts and for DoC advocacy for conservation. This is great.

“The Plan is land-centric and barely mentions marine conservation and marine protected areas”, says ECO.

“It turns out that the Greens do have some good policies for marine conservation[1] but these are barely mentioned in the new Plan. You have to dig hard to find it on their website”, says Cath Wallace.

“ECO would like to see clear policy on conservation-related biosecurity as part of all the parties’ statements.

“We welcome the Greens’ commitments to a tourism levy for funding predator control, but what about funding for weed and pathogen control? Myrtle rust, Kauri die back and weeds of many kinds are huge threats to land-based native ecosystems.

“Marine invasive species destabilize marine ecosystems. Measures to prevent the arrival of alien marine species and controls on movements vessels that might give them a ride, are essential, but do not feature in the Thriving Nature plan.
“The Greens need to be tell us about their policies and funding on this, as do other parties.”

“The promise to increase funding for DoC and to double the number of front line rangers is brilliant news. We hope other parties will commit to this too.”
“Commitments to restore DoC’s independence of advocacy for conservation is also very welcome. We need to be sure there is funding for that.

“There is a promise there but no detail, nor is it clear what the mechanism will be. We’d like to know more,” said Wallace.

“ECO strongly supports the measures to protect conservation land from mining, but we would like to see that extended to anywhere where there are important conservation values. We would like to see some of the most damaging minerals activity reduced in impact and scope.
**********************************

________________________________________
[1] The Oceans and marine policy is at
https://www.greens.org.nz/sites/default/files/Green%20Party%20Sea%20and%20Oceans%20Policy.pdf

© Scoop Media