Some of our recently thriving waterways are now as dry as the Mars surface and the water in others could kill a dog. Photo / Supplied
Some of our recently thriving waterways are now as dry as the Mars surface and the water in others could kill a dog. Photo / Supplied
COMMENT:
When I was a young kid, but just old enough, I'd fly from Auckland to Christchurch to see my extended family who had lived in Leeston for as long as Leeston has been Leeston.
The small town outside Christchurch was my great outdoors. I learned to move sheep, carryhay bales, fear electric fences and feel a sorry for the working dogs.
I once saw my uncle crack one with his macrocarpa-root crook hard enough to make it yelp in terrible pain and crack his stick. He said words I'd never heard before and took the crook home, set it with glue and wrapped it in wire. He gave it to me; I still have it.
My cousin, a few years older, was my hero and showed me how to hunt eels with a three-pronged spear. I remember the first night we did it.
We leapt about and hugged as the eel, having a terrible time, wrapped its fighting body tightly around and around the handle of the spear.
The next day we saluted it by putting it on the barbecue. I was at an age where I was in it for the murder, not the kai. I ate tiny bits of it with all of the bravery of a kid in front of his hero.
At other times, when the whole family gathered for Christmas or whatever, we would go to Coes Ford with inflated tyre tubes and laughter and race down the river and get sunburned. Those are memories that made my life as a Kiwi kid.
The creeks with the eels are now dry. The water at Coes Ford, infected with toxic algae, can kill dogs.
This is my lifetime. Shame on me for allowing this to happen. Shame on us.
Water is at our very essence. Signs of water on Mars give some indication that it could once have supported life. Water is, in very real ways, everything.
But if I'm starting to sound too much like a hippie (or scientist), let's agree that it's vital to the New Zealand brand and the economics that follow from that.
While I may not always share their politics, in this area I should see tremendous value in the Green Party. Yet I find them strangely wanting.
The state of some of the country's rivers is deplorable. Photo / File
James Shaw maintains the respectable face of the party, but even I'm not sure what I mean by that. Marama Davidson, while apparently popular with her base, doesn't seem up for a leadership role.
Chloe Swarbrick, invariably discussed in relation to her age, is a superstar regardless of that, and her work on cannabis reform is important. Golriz Ghahraman seems to spend more time fighting on social media than anything else, although in fairness there is a constituency to talk to there and she receives a terrible toll for doing so.
Julie Anne Genter talks about roads, but I've never been entirely certain to what end. Jan Logie is doing some great things around justice, but we don't hear much from Gareth Hughes or Eugenie Sage.
There is no loud, clear and consistent voice on water quality. I can't understand it.
It's an issue people feel strongly about. A poll from January revealed 82 per cent of Kiwis were extremely or very concerned about water quality in lakes and rivers. It was the top issue, beating out health, the cost of living, child poverty (sorry kids) and climate change. Given those numbers, it's potentially a vote-winning issue for the Greens. But bugger the politics, cleaning up our waterways is the right thing to do.
Big, urgent problems such as climate change are difficult for people to understand, but the loss of our water is not. Further, if we can't clean up our backyard, what hope do we have for tackling the bigger issues?
