The giving of an achievement award based on a specific ethnicity is not good for the recipient, nor the school, and such a racially-biased award can only be seen in one of two ways.
Firstly, the message is that the recipient was in a lower position than the Dux and Proxime Accessit, therefore - at best - third.
Secondly it suggests Maori cannot compete on a level playing field with other ethnicities and need to have a separate category within which they can be seen to excel. This can only be an insult to all Maori students and is patronising, to say the least.
Are Maori kids capable of toeing the line with other ethnicities? Of course they are - so why belittle them by having what seems to be a "second level" award. [Abridged]
D PARTNER
Eastown
Pest removal
Last month, Doug Armstrong, professor of conservation biology at Massey University, talked to the Whanganui Science Forum about native bird conservation in New Zealand.
His presentation outlined the effort required to preserve and increase populations of our indigenous birds.
I recently walked the Milford Track and was astonished at the success of intensive rat and stoat ground poisoning and trapping with over 900 traps in the Arthur/Clinton catchments.
Additionally, the Department of Conservation has aerially applied 1080 in parts of these catchments between 2006 and 2008, to the whole Clinton catchment in 2014 and 2016, and to the whole Arthur catchment this year.
Cumulatively, this has resulted in a huge decrease in numbers of rats, stoats and possums, and bird populations have increased dramatically.
The frequency of birds and the range of species present was entirely different from other national parks I have walked in - it was inspirational.
It offered a possibility of what might be achieved in other parts of New Zealand.
I encourage those opposed to the use of aerial 1080 to make a pilgrimage to Fiordland National Park to see and hear for themselves the result of carefully applied 1080 in these remote and difficult-to-access areas.
Secondly, ecological sanctuaries like Bushy Park can use all the financial and other support offered them.
They allow rare and endangered birds to breed in a safe environment and provide examples of what a predator-free NZ might look like.
It may be that this goal is never fully reached but it's surely worth making every effort to go as far as possible towards it.
DAVE CAMERON
Whanganui
US recount
Isn't it funny how Green Party candidate for the United States presidential election Jill Stein raised more money in one day to pay for a recount of votes than she managed to raise in all her months of the election campaign?
She says calling for a recount is only to make sure of the validity of the electoral process.
The recount will have no difference to the outcome of Stein's campaign since she got about 1 per cent of the total vote. Yet Stein is so keen on the public being certain of the validity of their electoral system that she is raising the funds for recounts in three states.
The cynical make silly points, like that Stein is calling for recounts only in three swing states that Trump won narrowly over Clinton, and not in the states where Clinton won even more narrowly over Trump.
The irony of the situation is hilarious. Those same left-wing pundits and Democrats who screamed how un-American Trump was for the possibility that he might question the outcome of the election are now supporting the recount that Jill Stein is getting as they question the outcome of the election.
And Hillary Clinton, who described it as "a direct threat to our democracy" that Trump could even consider not accepting the result, has now joined Stein in this recount process.
As one commentator eloquently put it, "Suck it up, Buttercup!" The world has moved on, get a life and act your age.
K A BENFELL
Gonville
