Oral Submission to Council made today by Dan McGuire:

Justine from The Brook

In my view, as a graduate in environmental management at the University of California, the actions of the Sanctuary are far from proper environmental management and should not be funded by the ratepayers. In the first place, the Predator fence was not built according to the application. Groves of large established Beech forest that were required to be left alone were cut down when the fence was built. Currently, by giving additional funding for the brod drop not only will many native and other birds be destroyed in the Sanctuary itself, but adjacent areas such as the hills above Marsden Valley will have their bird populations radically depleted. Years of work by people such as Don Sullivan who have reduced pests by trapping and dramatically increased the native bird population—all this effort will be set back ten years thanks to council’s mistaken belief that it has been supporting a tourist bonanza.

The NZ journal of Zoology which reviews Brodificoum and the toxicity and impacts of Brodificoum on non target wildlife.
shows that many native Birds such as Robins will die in the Sanctuary as a result of the aerial drop and also in adjacent non-target areas such as the Marsden Valley side of Jenkins Hill, where native bird numbers have until now increased due to Don Sullivan’s work.
Dropping 20 tonnes of a highly residual poison in a water works reserve (that previously didn’t even allow a person their dog to enter the catchment) is a hazardous and foolhardy thing to do , given the adjacent population living downstream from the site and the bird life on adjacent, non-target areas which will be severely reduced.

This is the cleanest water supply Nelson has at this time. To pollute it with a poison that takes two years to break down is bad management. It is also our back up water supply in case of emergency and it will be unavailable due to the planned repeated poison drops.

Even where you can fence a sanctuary, it’s not really predator-proof. Especially in this case, where the integrity of the fence has been undermined by a number of problems, it is a sheer waste of money. Continued trapping would have been a far more effective alternative.

Stability of terrain above the fence WILL cause future problems and the next 5 yearly storm will show the harsh reality of what such an event will do to the fence.

We should not get the Sanctuary confused with some grand tourism plan that will reap a harvest of money to support it.
People who have been to one reserve are unlikely to go to another and evidence from other Sanctuaries shows that locals seldom go.
This throws the focus to the other aspect of the sanctuary and that is the financial aspect does not stack up. It is the viability downfall of all Sanctuaries. The fact is, they do not make money.

There are low cost projects such as birdlife on the Grampians that have achieved far more than the Brook Sanctuary without creating the environmental degradation that the Sanctuary has done. Council has exposed the ratepayers to open-ended costs through its financial support for the Sanctuary.