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To: The House of Representatives

Say no to a pipeline through a Kiwi sanctuary by Mount Aspiring National Park

June 2019 - We’ve just heard that the plan by a company to build a water pipeline from Mt Aspiring National Park through a Kiwi sanctuary has stalled - the sanctuary is safe!

You were one of many thousands of people who came together to preserve the home of the Haast Tokeka Kiwi. Together we protected their home and stopped a new bottled water business selling precious spring water overseas.

The company, Okuru Enterprises Ltd, had permission (first given 25 years ago) to take and export 800 million litres of spring water each month from a catchment high in the mountains - right through a sanctuary for the Haast Tokoeka Kiwi.

However the company's permission ran out last week and the Department of Conservation stopped considering their new application because of insufficient information.

As a result of our combined people power there was constant pressure on the project, and on the politicians with the power to make decisions on the project.

Okuru Enterprises still have permits from the District and Regional Councils for the water take, land use and coastal use. While there is nothing stopping the company trying to restart the project they will need to reapply for permission from the Department of Conservation all over again, and face public scrutiny each step of the way.

For now the kiwi sanctuary and surrounding forest is saved!

Here’s how our community made it happen it happen:
🌏 When news first broke in April 2017 we launched into action, launching a petition calling for the end of the project and save the Haast Tokoeka.
🌏 18,534 of us came together to support the call.
🌏 The petition showed public support which helped power media stories keeping attention focused on the issue.
🌏 We consulted with allies and conservation experts.
🌏 We targeted Maggie Barry, the then-Minister of Conservation to put pressure on her decisions on the project.
🌏 In August we went to Parliament to deliver it to MP Eugenie Sage - who a couple of months later became the new Minister for Conservation. ActionStation members chipped in to make it a positive, visual event. Volunteers dressed as kiwis and students from Tuia te Matangi, a bilingual Maori-English school from Nelson, stepped up to give the kaupapa awesome support.
🌏 We presented our crowdsourced submission to the politicians considering the issue sharing personal stories on why we need to save the Haast Kiwi. It included expert opinion from conservationists to the Environment Select Committee.[2]

After our coordinated collective actions, it’s a win for the Haast Tokoeka Kiwi!

We call on you to urgently withdraw permission for a pipeline to be laid through a sanctuary that is home to New Zealand's rarest kiwi, the Haast Tokoeka by Mount Aspiring National Park.

There's just over 400 Haast Tokoeka left in Aotearoa. The Department of Conservation (DoC) says its status is "Nationally Critical", and 33 of them are believed to live near where the pipeline is to be laid.

Why is this important?

A company called Okuru Enterprises Ltd, now trading as Alpine Pure has been given the right to take and export 800,000 tonnes of water – about 800 million litres – each month from a water catchment high in the mountains at Mount Aspiring National Park.

As part of this arrangement, the company has also been given the right to lay a pipeline to transport the water out to sea to waiting ships through a sanctuary for New Zealand's rarest kiwi, the Haast Tokoeka.

There's just over 400 Haast Tokoeka left in Aotearoa. DoC says its status is "Nationally Critical", and 33 of them are believed to live near the pipeline.

Our national bird cannot afford for this risk.

The use of DoC land costs the company just $5000 year, and the consent which expires in 2027 costs nothing, except for minor administration and processing fees.

It'd bad enough we're selling off our water for private profit at next to nothing. It's worse we're willing to put our native kiwi at risk.

The resource consent states that Okuru Enterprises must develop a ‘kiwi management plan’, with the objective of “avoiding adverse effects from construction and ongoing activities within conservation land on Haast tokoeka [kiwi] living within a 100ha radius of the proposed pipeline route”.

It goes on to state that if kiwi are adversely affected, they will be “removed from the site”.

But here’s the thing, ‘If things go wrong, we can just move the kiwi’ is a really bad precedent to set.

To make matters worse, the endangered Fiordland Crested Penguin also lives in the pathway of the pipeline at Jackson’s Bay.

The proposal to take our water, ship it off shore for what seems like marginal benefit to the local community but with a potentially catastrophic cost to two species that are already at critical risk of extinction looks like a bad one.

As we know from our own history, humans tend to underestimate how wrong things can go, and it’s usually our wildlife, trees, rivers, birds and lakes that pay the cost.

Please sign the petition and share it with your friends today.

Read more:

http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11777864

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/88099749/from-national-park-to-overseas-plan-to-export-billions-of-litres-of-west-coast-water

http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/04/company-given-right-to-lay-pipeline-through-kiwi-sanctuary.html

Mount Aspiring National Park, West Coast, New Zealand

Maps © Stamen; Data © OSM and contributors, ODbL

Updates

2019-06-14 11:35:08 +1200

Petition is successful with 18,910 signatures

2017-04-14 16:22:59 +1200

10,000 signatures reached

2017-04-13 16:44:41 +1200

5,000 signatures reached

2017-04-13 07:06:02 +1200

1,000 signatures reached

2017-04-13 00:34:29 +1200

500 signatures reached

2017-04-12 22:37:10 +1200

100 signatures reached

2017-04-12 22:28:40 +1200

50 signatures reached

2017-04-12 22:20:33 +1200

25 signatures reached

2017-04-12 22:14:03 +1200

10 signatures reached