Letters to the editor: Motiti Island marine area decision undemocratic

Motiti Island. Photo / File

I wish to support the comments of Bay of Plenty MP Todd Muller, who is critical of the lack of public consultation in the BOP Regional Council's intention to create new marine protected areas in the area of Motiti Island.

These new marine reserves include Okaparu and Astrolabe reefs, Brewis Shoals, Schooner Rocks, Plate Island, Tokoroa Shoals and the Motunau Patch, in short all the rocky reefs accessible to Tauranga based divers and fishers.

The protected areas make up almost 100 per cent of the areas of interest to Tauranga-based divers, for the good reasons they are shallow enough to dive, interesting in topography, off shore enough to have good underwater visibility and are home to most of the Bay's crayfish and palegic fish species.

With the public locked out of submitting on the proposal, it is undemocratic and I am certain that all the fishers and divers in the Bay will support Todd Muller's campaign for legislative changes to take such a decision out of the hands of authorities such as the Bay of Plenty Regional Council.

(Abridged)
Alan Dickson
Tauranga

English should be our No 1 priority to learn

As we emerge from the coronavirus lockdown, it is timely to reflect on the damage we have endured.

Our standard of living is taking a terrible hit, and the debt burdened to be paid back by our children. What worries me is the future of our children's education.

We are almost at the bottom of OECD countries in education, and our children are leaving school ill equipped in their ability to read and write.

No wonder young men and women who end up in jail in increasing numbers are handicapped with too many having an inability to read and write.

So why do we keep turning everything into two languages when our children desperately need to respect and be fluent in the global language of English?

I think if we care about our children's future, we would be encouraging them to learn and read all history, and the exciting world that opens to all of us when we learn to read.

English should be our respected No 1 priority to learn, and I wonder when it will be an official language in this country.

(Abridged)

Margaret Murray-Benge
Bethlehem

Real estate

Your front page article of May 18 tries to predict the future of real estate.

Reading it, one could expect things to hum along pretty much the same.

Now contrast that with a Herald article about the American financial commentator Harry Dent.

He predicted the 2008 crash. He says the pandemic created a perfect storm in a world already burdened with huge debt.

He predicts a depression soon like the world has never known. He says house prices could drop by up to 50 per cent.

But he says the new order will work in favour of ordinary people. The old order was all about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

We will have to wait to see who is right.

Lesley Haddon
Rotorua