The Decline of the Once Powerful Conservation Movement

It is hard to believe, now, that the conservation movement was once a power in New Zealand. From the enormous popular agitation to save Lake Manapouri, all through the battles of the 1980s to protect native forests, conservation was a major political issue. The public filled large halls for the Native Forests Action Council’s (NFAC’s) pre-election meetings asking ‘Which party will save the forests?’

Where is that public now?

Certainly, we are now beginning to realise, as we may not have in the 1980s, that our resources are not unlimited, and that everything comes at a cost. This message, admittedly, has not yet reached the self-styled ‘Green’ Party, which continues to lie to us that with just a bit of minor tinkering ~ electric cars here, windfarms there ~ and of course support for transgender rights! ~ we may continue our current unsustainable lifestyles indefinitely.

But there is more to it than that. One of the great strengths of the New Zealand conservation movement in the past was its understanding that, because a healthy environment is something that everyone needs, the environment is therefore an issue above and beyond politics. Concern for the environment is not naturally a prerogative of parties of any particular political complexion. People of all political persuasions wanted to save Manapouri and save native forests. It was National, not Labour, that promised to add two South Westland forests to Westland National Park if it were re-elected in 1981 ~  the new conservation movement’s first major victory. Even in the past, when the Green Party had better claim to some genuine environmental concern than it does now, many conservationists resented the party’s very name, for that very name implied that anyone with green concerns should be voting for a leftwing party with a range of other crazy policies. In fact, people with environmental concerns may well differ completely on any other political issue. This is why any environmental party or group or association, to be successful, should be very careful to be a single issue pressure group and to avoid any other political entanglements.

Treaty Bill

Alas, the wokesters are now in charge, and political neutrality an absurd relic of the past. As a melancholy example, one need look no further than the attitudes of conservation organisations towards David Seymour’s bill dealing with the ‘principles’ of the Treaty of Waitangi.

I myself cannot see how anyone could possibly object to a bill committing our country to racial equality and the sovereignty of the Crown and Parliament. Nor can I see any constitutional objection to our sovereign parliament ~ the very parliament that has made reference over the years to the ‘principles of the Treaty’ ~ taking the logical and necessary next step of explaining what those principles are. Nor can I see any objection to leaving the final decision on the matter to a referendum of ordinary citizens ~ whom we do, after all, trust every three years to decide on our rulers for the next Parliamentary term. (I am charitably assuming, of course, that our ‘rulers’ are our elected government, and not some faceless bureaucracy that always gets its own way….)

Nevertheless, some people obviously do object to this bill. Unless they occupy a different reality,  however, they must be aware that the bill is, rightly or wrongly, strongly supported by very many other New Zealanders. That is an undoubted and indisputable fact. Those New Zealanders supporting the bill may be misguided, but the fact of their support is absolutely clear. The sensible course of action, then, for any organisation, would be to try to avoid taking sides. Any taking of sides is going to alienate some members and supporters ~ not all of them, doubtless, but many. Unless a bill touches some absolutely fundamental concern of your organisation, it is often wise to say nothing. You would have to be very stupid ~ and very arrogant ~ to take a completely unnecessary political stance on a highly controversial matter which is bound to alienate many of your members. You would only do it if you were convinced of the rightness of your attitude ~ and the wrongness of everyone else’s ~ to an alarming degree.

Regrettably, such arrogance and stupidity now characterise the leadership of Federated Mountain Clubs Inc. (FMC) and the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society.  Both these organisations very firmly oppose this bill. Their attitudes are incoherent, as well as actively working against the very needs of conservation which they allegedly serve.

Needless to say, neither FMC nor Forest and Bird (F & B) saw fit to consult their memberships in any way before telling the Select Committee what Head Office had decreed the members wanted.

Both organisations claim, of course, to be concerned about conservation. FMC argues that it is section 4 of the Conservation Act which ‘enables iwi Maori to make an essential contribution to backcountry management’, and that since governments since 1987 ‘have abdicated responsibility’ for interpreting section 4, that job has been left to the courts ~ which has now led, allegedly, to ‘clear understandings’ of what section 4 means. Section 4 says that ‘[t]his Act shall so be interpreted and administered as to give effect to the principles of the Treaty.

Since David Seymour’s bill says that a basic principle of the Treaty is equality, section 4 would, if his bill becomes law, give Maori exactly the same rights as all other citizens ~ no more and no less ~ to be involved in backcountry management. Absolutely nothing in the bill would prevent Maori involvement. the new bill would make the position absolutely clear ~ that everyone’s rights are exactly the same. What is unclear about that? What is wrong with that? Does not the public conservation estate belong to all the public?

Incredibly, FMC still declares itself to be the champion of public ownership; its submission repeats its foundation statement that our public lands ‘belong to the people of today and tomorrow’. Yet in the same breath it is arguing for greater rights to the public conservation estate for one racially-selected element of the population.

Forest and Bird opposes David Seymour’s bill because the organisation has ‘a long association with Maori’ ~ yes, so? ~ and the bill would do away with ‘the rights of iwi, hapu and whanau to protect te taiao’. But absolutely nothing in the bill prevents anyone of Maori descent from involvement in conservation decisions.  They will have exactly the same rights as the rest of us. What is wrong with that?

Exterminated Species

Maori do not have a gene for conservation. The environmental record is clear, for example, that before the arrival of Europeans, Maori were responsible for the destruction by fire of between a third and a half of New Zealand’s original forest cover.  Maori were responsible for the extermination of far more species of birds before European arrival than European settlers have eliminated since. The nine lost moa species were just the tip of the iceberg. As well as birds, of course, there were other extinctions ~ three species of frogs, for example, and who knows what else? Shane Jones was not the first not to care about Freddy. (For a pretty full list of all recently extinct species, see the Department of Conservation’s 2020 discussion document Proposed Extinct Species Trade Regulations.)

Indeed, even some final extinctions in European times were only the culmination of longstanding Maori activity. The huia was finally exterminated by European ~ and Maori! ~ hunters; but the huia had been widespread in the North Island before Maori arrived, and it was pre-European Maori hunting which had driven it back to its last strongholds in remote ranges where it survived until European settlement. The Stephens Island wren had actually been widespread on both main islands until the Polynesian rat, introduced by Maori, had exterminated it there. Stephens Island was merely its last precarious refuge ~ the infamous lighthouse keeper’s cat that destroyed the last specimen merely administered the coup de grace to an already almost extinct species. The three Big South Cape Islands extinctions of the 1960s were almost certainly caused by ship rats accidentally introduced by Maori muttonbirders. 

Words fail me as I see these organisations actively working against their own avowed principles. It is completely disingenuous, to put it mildly, to assume that any Maori input anywhere will be conservation-oriented. It is wilful blind stupidity.

Should you doubt this, look no further than the former Urewera National Park, now left to the tender mercies of Tuhoe, the local tribe and new owners. (Well, actually, ‘Te Urewera’ is now a legal person in its own right; but for all that the tribe does definitely seem to be in charge.) Tuhoe have abandoned DoC’s predator control programme, which, at very considerable public expense,  maintained part of the area as a ‘mainland island’  with a recovering kokako population. The kokako population is now ‘crashing’, to quote the former DoC Mainland Island manager, who has described the Te Urewera Act as the ‘death warrant on kokako’.The local kiwi population is also endangered. The public are unwelcome in what was once their own property; the very few huts that have not yet been destroyed are now filthy hovels.

FMC, incidentally, is quite proud of its role in the current Urewera disaster. It was very sympathetic to Tuhoe at the time of the illegal huts destruction, and now boasts, in its submission on the Treaty Principles bill, that it ‘took a great deal of interest in, and [was] involved with, the Tuhoe Treaty settlement, and took what we believe to be a principled and pragmatic approach to the subsequent management of Te Urewera…’

DOC

The Department of Conservation, however, continues to give Tuhoe $2 million of our money each year, does not know how much of that is spent on predator control, and does not appear to be even the slightest bit concerned. It suggests that questions about predator control be directed to the tribe; which does not respond to inquiries.

This is our country now. Do you like it? 

And have you, incidentally, ever heard a peep from Forest & Bird about this?

It is good to encourage everyone to draw on their cultures’ rich traditions of environmental protection and preservation. The opposition of these ‘conservation’ organisations to Mr Seymour’s bill goes far beyond that, however. The opposition is racist, stupid and self-destructive. These organisations are now the enemies of conservation.

Other formerly environmental organisations have also leapt on the woke racist bandwagon. The Environmental Defence Society (the EDS) claims that the bill is ‘divisive’. What?! The divisions already exist. Has the EDS not noticed?  They are currently getting worse every day. This bill is just about the only way in which we can begin to end them.

EDS also alleges that it is somehow ‘unconstitutional’ for Parliament to interpret the statutes that it itself has made, or to correct misinterpretations by the courts. Evidently, once Parliament has launched a statute, it must be left unamended and unrepealed for ever, for the courts to misinterpret. And EDS, to its eternal shame, repeats the nonsensical claim that the current application of Treaty principles in Resource Management practice is ‘workable, effective and predictable’. If only! 

The mentality of the conservation ‘movement’ ~ if there is still enough support even to call it that ~ amazes me. The environmental crisis ~ extinctions, habitat destruction, pollutions and plastics and poisons and -cides of all kinds, resource shortages, climate change and the rest ~  this crisis threatens to destroy our civilisation, if not our very species. If it does ~ when it does ~ humans will be far too busy just trying to stay alive to worry about anything else. Does not the conservation movement worry ~ is it not perplexed ~ that at this most momentous of times for the natural environment and for life on earth as we know it, public interest in conservation is but a fraction of what it was a mere generation ago? Evidently not; because it considers it appropriate to fritter away its energies, and lose widespread support, by pointless irrelevant stands such as this. One has to despair. What hope is there if people like these are our best hope?!

I am sick of all this woke rubbish. I have been a member of Forest and Bird for over fifty years; I was for quite a few years the chair of the North Canterbury branch. I served on FMC’s national executive for quite a few years, and was actually national president for three years (the maximum allowable term)  around the turn of the century ~ before the Tuhoe settlement! I do not, however, intend to remain a member of either organisation any longer, or offer any support to these self-flagellating racist morons with a death wish. I hope that some of you may follow my example. Why would you stay?

Footnote: (1) The original article has been abridged somewhat. For original go to CPR website or the direct website link to this article is: https://www.nzcpr.com/the-decline-of-conservation/