Thursday, March 28, 2024

Vandals slash environmentalists’ tyres

Neal Wallace
The farmers attacked in what is being seen as an anti-irrigation protest by environmentalists won the 2015 Canterbury Ballance Farm Environment contest.
Reading Time: 2 minutes

It was believed 44 tyres on centre pivot irrigators were slashed by environmental vandals.

Richard and Annabelle Subtil of the 12,000ha Omarama Station in the Mackenzie Basin woke on Saturday morning to discover the damage, which cost $30,000 to repair.

Police believed it was an act of protest because the irrigators, which were working at the time, were 500-600m from the main road and because of the tone of subsequent social media traffic.

“Social media stuff out there points in that direction,” Subtil said.

The attack left him dumbfounded, saying he and everyone else who farmed on the banks of the Omarama Stream took care to ensure they did not affect water quality.

“If these people think they are helping the situation then that is very sad and very disappointing.”

The farmers voluntarily sampled water from the stream and gave the results to Environment Canterbury.

A recent Cawthron Institute analysis of aquatic life and water quality in the stream described it as “excellent”.

Subtil was working with several science organisations and had installed lysimeters on irrigated paddocks to monitor the moisture and nutrient holding capability of the soil, with results showing losses to be negligible.

The Central South Island Fish and Game office had been in contact with a message of support.

Subtil said he was not denying farming had negative impacts on the environment and had been open and committed to working with others to ensure he was doing all he could to reduce his impact.

“We’re not saying we have got everything right but we’re working hard to make it right.”

The state of the environment at Omarama Station was his generation’s legacy and he said he had no intention of leaving it polluted and degraded for the family’s fourth generation to inherit.

Subtil said he was stepping up security as a result of the attack.

Irrigation NZ chief executive Andrew Curtis said the attack was unusual and worrying and would do little to resolve differences of opinion.

Irrigation had become contentious in the Mackenzie Basin where some people thought the golden landscape should not be altered.

Curtis said the attack of the Subtils was illogical.

“It makes no sense picking on someone who is a leader in irrigation and doing a really good job.”

He suggested all irrigators improve their security.

Before Christmas Curtis said his organisation decided to be proactive and engage with critics and this Friday it was meeting Greenpeace.

It would allow Greenpeace to air its concerns but to also learn what irrigators were doing to improve water quality, the time it would take for those steps to have an impact and the limitations imposed by councils.

“We decided that this back and forth discussion was not productive, that you can only resolve differences if you go and have a conversation.”

Similar invitations would be extended to Forest and Bird and Fish and Game.

Total
0
Shares
People are also reading