United Future

This is the second independent report within four years to conclusively back the environmental benefits and the safety of aerial 1080 operations. While I appreciate that some people have a strong ethical objection to the use of chemicals, this argument isn't about personal beliefs, it's about what's best for our native wildlife. I think most people would agree that the New Zealand ecosystem is extremely sick at the moment - it's the cure we disagree on. As far as I see it, we have an extremely effective medicine that nothing else comes close to. Like the Commissioner says, we don't have the luxuary of time.

I would recommend anyone who would like to know more about how and why 1080 is used in New Zealand to visit www.1080facts.co.nz

What is it with polls these days where their authors try to tell people what they think before they've answered?

I answered Yes because I think that of all the possible options, properly applied 1080 is the only realistic option for preserving New Zealand's ecosystem, certainly in the short and (probably) medium terms. But it'd be moronic to say something that kills things is harmless. Can't we just leave polls like this one at Yes or No and let people post a comment if they actually have something meaningful to say?

Of coursethere are negative things about 1080, but New Zealand's in a crisis where its ecology is going down the toilet, and it's the least of all the evils. Running over a possum, and similar measures, doesn't make a difference -- it only makes that possum's neighbours fatter. 1080 is the only realistic and affordable measure shown to keep pests at manageable levels, and it mayprovide an opportunity to properly solve the problem before it's too late.

There are hardly any possums left on crown or Regional land. If you dispute this go and have a look for yourself. I travel it by foot and I am lucky to see two a year. To carry on blanket bombing is dumb, plain and simple." The ecology of NZ going down the toilet" not from possums, it's the poison that's killing the Kiwis. What do Kiwis eat, worms. The soil is dieing because of the poision being dumped on it. Go have a look for yourself, the only possoms you will find are on privat land. Do some soil testing in un-poisioned land and compare. You would think this would be a no brainer but DOC has to date not tested for this.

I just watched a few of the 1080 pod casts on this site. A large number were pro 1080. One peice of information I took from these is the time duration of the tests. they tested for three or four days, correct me if I'm wrong but 1080 kills over two weeks.

As a campaigner on social issues for 18 years in New Zealand I despair of the naivety of so many Kiwis who swallow the distorted outpourings of such ivory tower luminaries as the Environmental Commissioner. Today's Greymouth Star published a substantial list of matters which the Commissioner did NOT take into account in her consideration of 1080. To that list I suggest we should add - anyone from the anti-1080 lobby, since none of the many campaigners against 1080 that I know have heard from the Commissioner.
Having lived on the West Coast for many years I suggest that the people who should have been a top priority for the Commissioner are those who have decades, sometimes lifetime, experience of the bush and who know infintely more about the damaging effects of 1080 than any number of computer-twiddlers in the corridors of power.
David Tranter
Queensland.

There are hardly any possums left on crown or Regional land. If you dispute this go and have a look for yourself. I travel it by foot and I am lucky to see two a year.

Kerry, I don't know what part of crown land you've been on but it absolutely contradicts my and many other people's experiences of sleeping in tents or on hut balconies throwing rocks at possums and stoats overnight. But it's not so much the places people can reasonably get to that are the biggest problem here.

Residents should have some say about the means of pest control employed on their doorstep. The West Coast of the South Island has more aerial drops of 1080 poison than anywhere else in New Zealand. A petition that went door to door in the Westland towns of Hokitika, Hari Hari and Kumara in 2010 found that 92% of residents want the drops to stop. That's in an area where there are a lot of farmers. Not all farmers are pro-1080. In fact the Farmers Against 1080 group was formed there. The Westland District mayor and councillors have taken the petition to parliament but they have little say in what pest control methods gets used.

The World Health Organization classes compound 1080 as a 1A (the most hazardous class of poison). The label on the product says it shouldn't be dropped near water and that carcasses should be buried deeply. New Zealand doesn't follow these requirements and it must be of huge concern to people who live in areas like the West Coast.

Jan Wright said on Breakfast TV that there have been 8 dogs killed by 1080 in the last 4 years. If you look at the pro- and anti- 1080 Facebook pages you'll see there are a lot more than that. Not everyone reports it. If people don't report it quickly and it's too late for a positive test to be done, it also won't be recorded as death by 1080. Members of the public need to make sure they report all deaths quickly and get tests done. Be wary of getting financial compensation with a confidentiality clause because we don't want to see ERMA declaring in their annual reports that issues were 'privately resolved.' Without the data from these cases, there will be inaccurate statistics.

On the Poisoning Paradise documentary, a number of farmers talk about the compensation agreements they signed.They were asked to write out invoices to things like 'stock control' in order to get paid for animals poisoned by 1080. This kind of thing should not happen.

One last thing - don't you think there's something unethical about randomly and inhumanely killing lots of types of animals (some of which we want to protect) in an attempt to kill possums, rats and stoats, when there are other options? Ground control is effective, and it could be used more than it is.

I think we need long-term independent research, not a report from the fox inside the hen-house. We need some international scientists to look at the issue here, and they need to do more than just look at the data and research that DoC and the AHB give to them.

1080 is destructive poison that Nukes our native forests and national parks.I liken it to Agent orange,why $100 million dollars every year is spent on it is beyond my rational thinking. That $100m could be better spent elsewhere.Good on you Peter For standing up for What is right!

Firstly, $100 million is spent on pest control, not on 1080 operations. And do you bother to find out how much is lost to our economy when herds are found to be infected with Tb? International markets will not stand for Tb infected meat, and answer me why NZ is considered a leader in Tb eradication? Well there goes some of the reason for the $100 million dollars a year.

Do you put monetary value on our wildlife? If you put $1 per bird, then there goes another $26 million dollars, as that's how many birds are destroyed by introduced pests in NZ.

Are you aware of the extreme amounts of other pest control that takes place through-out NZ? Using a large variety of traps, hunting, and other toxins?

We have a responsibility to our native fauna to give them a chance to continue to breed, free from the pests which humans brought here when we colonised. Just about every single bird species that has gone extinct (of which there are about 40) happened before any 1080 touched NZ soil. A few of these due to habitat loss, and humans hunting to extinction. The rest due to introduced predators, such as; Cats, Rats, Mustelids (Stoats, Weasels, Ferrets), and Possums.

I haven't even begun mentioning the impact on our native plants, through the browsing of foliage, flower buds, and seed banks. There is more to it that meets the standard of your 'rational thinking'.

Well said Illuminati. I am sick of the flawed arguments used by United Future to say 1080 should be banned, such as 'native bird species populations are still declining, which clearly shows that 1080 doesn't work'. What a ridiculous thing to say, a much more rational approach would be to compare how much more bird populations would have declined without 1080. If they are still declining (but far less than they would without 1080) then probably the Parliamentary Commissioner is right, and more use of 1080 could make a much more positive difference.

It really saddens and shocks me that a political party that is in government would be willing to ignore all credible evidence and adopt a policy that could very likely lead to the extinction of more of our native species. I fear for what would happen if United Future got its way.