The Guardians of the Sounds, an environmental group made up of Marlborough Sounds property owners , recreational users and tourism operators, would like to make our feelings known to your select committee and would very much like the opportunity to address your committee in person.
The Marlborough Sounds, and in particular the Queen Charlotte Sound, is the largest recreation and tourism area between the Hauraki gulf and Fiordland., it is not only Nationally important but Internationally important. Our tourists tell us that there are very few Sounds like this in the world and it is of international importance that they are protected, enhanced and restored for future generations.
For our government to threaten this piece of paradise that so many of us are working so hard to restore, by bringing back the fish stocks, getting rid of introduced pests , to bring back the bird life and getting rid of wilding pines and other invasive weeds to restore the bush. It is getting more and more beautiful every year. We must preserve this area for future generations.
It would be an absolute tragedy for you to allow it to become one great big aquaculture growing area. I’ve run out of time so have to send this for your deadline, let me come and address your committee and we will tell you of the 25 years of experience we have with adverse effects of Salmon and mussel farms and why the Sounds people don’t want you to allow this industry to turn our beautiful sounds into one great big CESS PIT.
The Marlborough Sounds stand to be more drastically effected by this bill that anyone, if the industry want to grow aquaculture, do it on the fringes of the open sea coast don’t despoil our beautiful inland waterways, Aquaculture is the single biggest polluter outside of dairy farms in NZ, and to grant them licenses to occupy large areas of the Sounds is akin to Privatization of the seabed, that your Foreshore and seabed bill supposedly guaranteed for all New Zealanders !
We have two main Sounds, the Pelorus and the Queen Charlotte. The Pelorus was designated under the Marlborough District Plan to be the Industrial Zone, well as tragic as it now seems it is full to the eyes with Mussel Farms and salmon farms, every bay is completely ringed with them .
The Queen Charlotte was to be preserved for Recreation, and Tourism, ( that earns more than all other sectors of our economy ). The Aquaculture industry says that the two industries complement each other, Bollocks, I’m a tourism eco-tour operator and let me tell you our tourists who come here for our Clean Green Image, have seen and heard of the environmental disasters this industry has created all around the world and they are appalled that our government would allow this industry with its history of pollution and disease in our beautiful Sounds .
The salmon industry started in Norway , became diseased, moved to Scotland become diseased moved to British Columbia, where they now have over 100 of them, guess what ,they have all become diseased, so they moved to Patagonia in Chile, where they now have over 800 salmon farms with over 2000 applications for new farms , but the industry there is riddled with disease.
Now our Government want to invite these huge multinational companies to our Country , this is a huge mistake, however if you must, keep them out of our treasured inland waterways, put them on the edge of Cook Strait where they can get deep cold water with plenty of current flow to flush the colossal amounts of Nitrogens, phosphorus, Ammonia, methane gases, out into the open sea.
Each farm deposits more waste on the sea bed every single day than the amount of sewerage from a town of over 20,000 people, each farm produces more than 300 times more nitrogen than the Picton sewerage scheme.
The nitrogens and other toxins are of huge concern to the Sounds community we don’t want our beautiful sounds turned into one great big Cess Pit.
These nitrogens create algal blooms, the industry say they don’t cause them but they don’t deny that they feed them , last year an algal bloom killed 2 millon dollars worth of their own fish !
Those same algal blooms could kill our wild fish stocks and worst case scenario, they could kill our residents who eat the kaimoana, just like it killed the dogs recently in the Hauraki gulf.
You know that most of NZ’s lakes and waterways are hopelessly polluted with Nitrogens from Dairy farms and fertilizers, please don’t allow this industry to pollute our Sounds any further.
Look to what has happened around the world , British Columbia are asking that all open cage salmon farms be converted to closed containment within 5 years, before the entire natural environment of their Sounds is ruined completely by the pollution.
In its true form “closed containment” means land based , and for salmon farms to be allowed in the Queen Charlotte you need to learn from the Canadian, Scottish and Patagonian experience. Put your stick in the ground , we don’t expect the industry to change their methods over night but you need to send a signal to these people that they cant keep on dumping these enormous amounts of waste into our moana and expect the environment to subsidize them.
With closed containment they can draw as much sea water as they like, circulate it through their pods but have to filter the waste before returning it.
NZ is very sympathetic to pioneer industries that contribute to our economy, create jobs etc, but after 40 years, ( 25 years in the sounds, ) you need to say hang on you are no longer a pioneer industry and its time you cleaned up your act.
Look at the Dairy industry our new District plan says that Dairy farmers are not allowed to let their effluent flow into rivers or lakes, the cows are not even allowed to walk through streams.
All vessels on the Sounds from now on must have holding tanks to collect and we have to dispose of our waste in an environmentally friendly manner.
You must not allow this double standard to continue, this is a filthy industry and must be made to comply.
We are concerned about the minister being able to overrule district council aquaculture laws, remember they represent the communities.
Don’t allow this industry to privatize our Sounds.
The Sounds community will feel extremely aggrieved if we are not invited to speak to this committee
Yours Sincerely,
Pete Beech .
Guardians Of The Sounds