Copy of Rotary Club of Port Nicholson Bulletin 15 February, 2018 (Feb 14, 2018)

Rotary Club of Port Nicholson Bulletin 15 February 2018

The Times...They are a changing!

A friendly reminder that with our new Monday morning meetings, from now on the bulletin will be published on Thursday evenings. Please ensure any submissions are received by the editor by 12noon to be confident of their inclusion.

Of Mondays, VIP visits and disasters in the Pacific

The new normal of meetings on Mondays has gone well – so far. A good crowd turned out on Monday to hear Reg Kemper from DoC talk about making New Zealand predator free. A great vision.

My attention has been drawn to two important Rotary matters: both involving a lot of clubs besides ours.

The World President of Rotary, Ian Riseley from Australia, is going to be in our part of the world in March.

He is attending a dinner at the Rotary Club of Feilding on 6 March 2018. Ian will be hosted by DG Mitchell Brown, RC of Feilding President Ken Casey and the members of the Rotary Club of Feilding.

An invitation to attend “this exciting evening” is included in this bulletin. Dinner will start at 6pm, costs $45 (own host bar), and can be paid on the night. The club would appreciate members being at the venue before 6.00.

“Please RSVP to Lindsay Nicholls, nichollsl@xtra.co.nz by 1 March. This will be a wonderful Rotary event.”

On a completely different matter, Stuart Batty, the tireless head of the Rotary World Service Group which organises disaster relief in the Pacific and other places reports, “You will be aware that Cyclone Gita is currently causing havoc in the Pacific and may indeed head down to New Zealand in the coming days.

“We are in touch with Rotary in the Pacific: at present in communication with Rotary Clubs in Samoa and Tonga. Rotary’s Emergency Response Kits have been prepositioned in both countries to enable immediate response.

“We work with Disaster Management Coordinators in effected countries to ensure that the response is well manged and the kits are distributed in a timely manner.

“We have direct contact with New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Disaster Relief Forum who provide at least twice daily situation reports.

“As we prepare to replenish stock in 2018, we are most grateful for both club and members’ support for this vital Rotary Humanitarian Response spanning over four decades.”

Port Nicholson has been a generous supporter of the scheme in the past; in fact, we used to buy an ERK each year (in more prosperous times).

The kits are approximately $800 each, and contain water, food, first aid and some basic cooking equipment, sanitation and shelter. They are not intended as a lasting solution: there is another kit for that which costs a lot more.

I’m keen to see the club support the purchase of another ERK. My thought was that we need a fund-raising event specifically for this. Very open to ideas about what that might be.

John Bishop

President

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Predator Free 2050

Our speaker this week was Reg Kemper, Director for the Lower North Island DOC. He spoke to us about Predator Free New Zealand a vision for us described by Sir Paul Callaghan as New Zealand’s moonshot. It’s pretty ambitious but why wouldn’t we give it a go.

To try to understand what this means in practice, Reg described the Predator Free medium-term milestones as:

Achieve an extra 1 million hectares land controlled through PF2050 projects;
Scientific and technical breakthroughs capable of eradicating one of possums, rats, stoats;
Areas of more than 20,000 hectares protected without fences;
Remove introduced predators from all offshore island nature reserves.

As if we need evidence that aspiring to be predator free is worthy, the statistics show us that many of our species are at risk: 3000 species are in trouble; 800 are in serious trouble and 50+ bird species have become extinct since humans arrived 750 years ago.

Predator Free is a company and it oversees the distribution of funds. The company has agents throughout the country linking partners, who are essential if we are to achieve these ambitious goals. One example of such a partnership is the Remutaka Forest Park Trust. It has 4000 hectares under predator control and it has brought kiwi back to the ranges – where there were none, now there are over 100 birds.

Predator Free Lower North Island has projects at the household/suburban level through to the Pukaha to Palliser block 600,000 hectares – a long term community project. Close to home, Wellington has great community participation with 23 suburbs involved in controlling pests. And what is success? It’s actually recovery of species at risk. There only needs to be an increase in population growth of 2% to be considered recovery.

It was interesting to hear that in our rural landscapes, 6-8 feral cats are being caught to every 1 stoat. Gareth Morgan’s efforts as an independent campaigner has been incredibly successful in influencing change in District Plans to include rules about cats. Nick Smith’s efforts to be anti-cats in the Nelson Lakes area 15 or so year ago resulted in a huge public backlash – because he was a politician. Gareth got slaughtered as well but he didn’t care. So his efforts resulted in a serious step forward for New Zealand predator control.

So - what is the best thing each household could do to contribute to the hairy audacious goal of making New Zealand predator free? Put an A24 Good Nature trap in our backyards and get as many people as we can to put them in their backyards as well. That doesn’t seem too hard.

Brenda Lazelle

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