Earlier in the year, plans for industrial dairying in the MacKenzie Country provoked widespread opposition due to fears it would irreversibly change the landscape and pollute pristine local waterways. Those plans were eventually withdrawn - but today the Environment Court has quietly let another project proceed:
The Environment Court has approved a large-scale dairy farm in the Upper Waitaki, rejecting a warning from regional councillors that the development would be too big for the area.The site is right next to the protected Ben Omar Swamp, classified as a reserve under the Reserves Act, and home to the critically endangered Black Stilt. While resource consent conditions require the farmer to fence the swamp boundary, all the shit and piss from the cows will leach into the soil, causing nitrates to eventually poison the swamp and choke it with algal blooms - just as is happening to Lake Ellesmere near Christchurch. Plus there's the visual effect of irrigated dairy farming on the unique landscape of the MacKenzie Basin.But the decision has already been criticised by the Aoraki Conservation Board and the Green Party because of the farm's impact on the environment.
The court has granted Little Ben Dairy effluent and land use consents to farm more than 1400 cows for 25 years, 6km from Lake Benmore, just north of Omarama.
The government should not be allowing this. We should keep the MacKenzie brown, for the benefit and enjoyment of all New Zealanders, not turn it into another cow paddock for the benefit of the few.
