Move to higher ground
The front page headline of August 17, "Victory for city heritage", should have instead read "Part-victory for city heritage". The job is not finished yet.
All praise to those who love heritage. I do too.
The troubling part is that all of Whanganui's low-lying heritage is predicted to be under water due to both sea level rises and the extra rainfall this part of the world appears likely to get, which will permanently raise our river level anyway.
Heritage lovers, we either believe in the effects of global warming or we do not. If we do, then the next step in saving our low-lying heritage buildings has to be that they are dismantled and reassembled on higher ground.
You want evidence that hasn't come from an esoteric scientific source? Last summer, the Tasman Sea, which washes Whanganui's shoreline, was 6 degrees higher than normal.
The summer before that, it was 2 degrees higher than normal. How much more evidence of global warming does anybody need? One cannot call the warming of thousands of square miles of ocean a "local" event.
There's only one conclusion: Do not preserve low-lying heritage buildings where they stand, or Whanganui's next generations will call the present one stupid for spending millions making strong and lasting shipping hazards.
STAN HOOD
Aramoho
Taking Seymour seriously
It is quite hard to take Act leader David Seymour seriously for smaller government while he vigorously promotes assisted suicide.
F R HALPIN
Gonville
Backing the ABs
Our mighty All Blacks — the best in the world and a well-oiled machine.
The ABs are so fit and that showed on the faces of the Wallabies. Who is going to beat them? Not even invisible men could do it.
A punter put $140,000 on champion racehorse Winx on Saturday.
Who's going to be the first big punter to put $100,000 on the ABs to win the Rugby World Cup in Japan next year? It will happen, I'm sure.
Congratulations go out to our lady All Blacks as well — your win was fantastic.
GARY STEWART
Foxton Beach
Understanding 1080
I love Whanganui and visit regularly with friends and family. It's the forests and native wildlife that draw me back.
For a healthy forest you need to trap the big four — possums, stoats, wild cats and, most importantly, rats.
We operate a trapping-only group targeting those big four. We have found we can only realistically trap a tiny area by hand, and it is hugely expensive. The scale is the big issue.
To do just 250ha of trapping or ground-based control using comprehensive multi-species pest control, you need to cut trap lines 45km long, in grids through the forest.
Let's calculate that out by just the 116,000ha DoC area in Northland alone. It would mean 21,000km of trap line (nearly around the Earth).
We would need 3kg of trap lure per km. That's 63,000kg per one round of trapping which is done 12 times per year. That's 750,000kg per annum: all carried in by hand.
Then you need traps at spacings suitable for the target pests — 420,000 rat traps, 280,000 possum traps and 105,000 stoat traps and so on.
Then after all that work, rats are still unlikely to be at under 5 per cent residual trap catch. Five per cent is needed for kokako and many other native birds currently at the risk of extinction to survive. So you end up having to use toxin anyway.
Biodegradable 1080, applied safely and efficiently, can knock possums, wild cats, stoats and rats down to near 0 per cent over vast areas of rugged terrain in just three days and nights — not decades, like trapping would require. And for a fraction of the cost.
This allows pest control budgets to go much further and save many more native species' lives than trapping alone.
We don't need to ban 1080, we need to understand 1080.
BRAD WINDUST
Bay Bush Action Trust, Paihia
Send your letters to: The Editor, Wanganui Chronicle, 100 Guyton St, PO Box 433, Wanganui 4500; or email editor@wanganuichronicle.co.nz
