Auckland Council’s 10-year budget for 2021-2031 is open for public consultation until 22 March. This “Recovery Budget” will increase the council’s total capital investment from $26 billion to $31 billion over the next 10 years to deliver infrastructure for transport, housing and water, help stimulate jobs, and respond to the...
On 5 December, a fire damaged St Stephen’s Church in Ponsonby. The nave was heavily impacted, and the building needs extensive repair. The church is a Heritage New Zealand Category 2 listed building made of kauri. Church Minister Rev. Grant Ridout says, “Many people grieve the loss of the stunning...
A new report has found that the health of up to 800,000 New Zealanders could be at risk from nitrate in our drinking water. Nitrate is colourless and tasteless. It mainly comes from synthetic nitrogen fertiliser and urine from cows, working its way into rivers and groundwater. High levels of...
Coromandel Watchdog has a petition which asks the government to place an immediate moratorium on accepting any applications for and any further processing or granting of any prospecting, exploration or mining permits on, in or under public conservation land in Aotearoa New Zealand, including stewardship land, administered by the Department...
What’s good in the draft climate plan: It’s great that the Commission has acknowledged that we need permanent native forests to draw in and lock away carbon. It’s also great they’ve acknowledged that we can’t plant our way out of climate catastrophe. Trees have a role to play, but they’re...
The Climate Change Commission has published their first draft advice on what Aotearoa New Zealand needs to do to meet the scale of the climate crisis, and meet our obligations as a signatory of the Paris Climate Agreement. Public consultation on the draft advice runs from February 1 until March...
The United Nations Decade on Biodiversity gives way to the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. This aims to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide. Restoration is a monumental task. Over the next ten years, every action counts. Every single day. Every country, company, organization, and individual has...
The digital version of Auckland’s Climate Plan (Te Tāruke-ā-Tāwhiri) is online. CTA was one of the submitters to this plan and our submission is here. The launch of the digital plan was marked by a climate action focussed Auckland Conversation: So, Auckland has a climate plan… now what? A recording...
Kevin Hague, the Chief Executive of Forest & Bird, one of the groups that CTA supports, gives a 11/4-minute video message. Image: F&B
Climate change is now the biggest threat to natural World Heritage, according to a report published earlier in December by IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature). A third (33%) of natural World Heritage sites are threatened by climate change, including the world’s largest coral reef, the Great Barrier...