THE huia was a spectacular bird, prized by Maori, and the wearing of its skin or feathers was reserved for people of high status.
It became extinct early last century, being rare even before the arrival of Europeans, but its extinction was accelerated by collectors for museums throughout the world wanting specimens - before they went extinct. What an irony.
These days we are driving species to extinction through neglect and ignorance, made worse through greed for resources, both mineral and natural.
A recent example is the fishing industries fiddling their quota by throwing huge quantities of fish overboard to keep within their quota so they could catch more of the desirable fish. Their fishing methods are not designed to be very selective, the nets not really giving small or unwanted species of fish a chance to escape, even if the nets have large enough escape holes large numbers still get trapped and crushed in the end of the net.
The industry doesn't have any incentive to improve its methods to reduce undesired catch. Yet Country Calendar (May 14) showed a Hawke's Bay fisherman who had worked on large trawlers and, having seen the wastage, went out on his own and developed a net with a metal cage in the end of his net with holes that allow undersized fish to escape uninjured and grow. This is something the Government should put research and investment into, not only would it preserve our fisheries but increase its value because people the world over are wanting to buy from properly managed and sustainable fisheries. Its value is not necessarily immediate, but in the long term, as other fisheries decline or disappear like the North Atlantic cod fisheries, their value will increase. If the rest of the world also took up and developed this way of fishing and the immediate value of our fish didn't rise, that would be even better because the planet would be a better place.
Since starting to write this comment, some other cases of squandering of resources have come to light. On the June 20, information from Forest and Bird showed some Canterbury irrigators had been using far more water allocation than they were reporting and Ecan has apparently turned a blind eye but, having been caught out allowing this flagrant theft to happen, have promised to prosecute in the future.
The other bizarre news today, worthy of a Darwin Award, is that clean New Zealand air is being canned and sent to polluted China at about $30 a can. It is illogical to allow and even encourage squandering the resources and energy involved in the cans and shipping.
One wonders if you asked the proponents of this scheme if they understood climate change and its causes, they would probably reply that they did.
I would like to propose that we create a new award for those who understand what is happening with climate change but prefer to profit from making the situation worse. This could be called the Huia Award.
-John Milnes is concerned about our profligate use of our planet's resources and procrastination about solving the problem.