Community Wins for the Environment

The news can be a dumpster fire for depressing and hopeless tales. I am a self confessed news junkie. I spend way too much of my time reading about the depravity of humanity and losses for the environment. It is not great. And to be honest, it is really draining on my energy and happiness sometimes. People can be little shits, okay and reading about them is not fun.

Stories that draw my attention often are community groups going head to head with large corporations or government bodies who wish to raze and pillage the earth. One such news story this week was a win, which was nice.

DOC, Riverlea Environment Society, and Forest and Bird took Hamilton City Council to Environmental Court due to a large development being built very close to an important habitat for the critically endangered long tailed bats, or pekapeka. There were concerns that this 2000 home development would put undue pressure on these bats. DOC, Forest and Bird, and Riverlea won. The judge ruled that the development would need to be delayed, that a buffer zone of 15 metres was needed between said development and the bats habitat, as well as a blanket ban on cats in that new residential area.

The judge also deemed that HCC’s early planning for this development didn’t even consider the bats in the first place. Well done, HCC.

However, it should never have come to this. Why does the community have to be fighting against the institutions that are meant to be representing our best interests? Best interests perhaps have morphed into where can we get the most money while disregarding people's actual wants and even fair democratic processes.

Due to Covid, many councils are experiencing extreme financial pressure, and why not sacrifice a few bats in the name of a multi-million dollar development, which will bring over 2000 new families into the area. 2000 people who can pay rates and fines and all that tasty money stuff.

And as I write this we have Taranaki iwi alongside environmental groups going against Trans Tasman Resources who wish to mine 50 million tonnes of iron sand annually off the south Taranaki Coast.

And we have the fight for the Canal Trees, an Auckland section with one hundred year old native trees facing the chop by a developer. Auckland Council refused to step in for that one, saying there were enough green spaces in the area, with Canal Reserve being on the same road. Like they have this strange quota that they have to make up - but what about the birds that call those trees home and the insects and the microorganism and all that in between. Humans are not the only ones who have uses for green spaces..Phil Goff, the Auckland Mayor, has yet to make an appearance at this site to listen to the community on the matter. For a man who said that he wishes for Auckland to be the greenest city in the country and with his 1.5 million trees in ground policy upon entering his second term, he has a poor way of showing it. Because you know what is better than planting new trees, limiting deforestation.

I do not think change will come from the top, not when there is conflict of interest running rampant. Not when mayors can not even make an appearance to hear what their people care about.

We will have to fight this thing the way we have been fighting it now, I guess. Making enough noise at the bottom, that these people at the top have to listen.

But, we do need to celebrate the small victories for nature that we gain. The news is awash with nature getting shafted. So, let’s celebrate that the bats are being considered at the very least for this new monstrosity of a development.

And I hope that we get more and more wins in the future.