Myrtle rust found on four sites in and around Nelson
Myrtle rust has been found on ramarama and pōhutukawa trees in and around Nelson city. Severe infections of myrtle rust could kill affected susceptible plants and have long-term impacts on the regeneration of young plants and seedlings. A Ministry of Primary Industries surveillance team found the new infections on four sites in the area recently.
The airborne disease has spread from the North Island and was found in the South Island in Collingwood, Golden Bay earlier this year. Myrtle rust affects plants in the myrtle family, which includes pohutukawa, manuka, rata, kanuka, swamp maire and ramarama, as well as commercially-grown species such as eucalyptus, feijoa and New Zealand cranberry.
The spores are thought to have crossed the Tasman Sea from Australia to New Zealand on wind currents. Over the long term, 10 to 20 years, myrtle rust could affect iconic New Zealand plants including pōhutukawa, mānuka, rātā, kānuka, swamp maire and ramarama, as well as commercially-grown species such as eucalyptus and feijoa.
Severe infections could kill affected susceptible plants and have long-term impacts on the regeneration of young plants and seedlings.
Read the full story here.
Image: MPI
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Labour Party Hypocrisy
Well, here we go again. More Labour Party hypocrisy.
Just as Labour MP Rachel Boyack has cried crocodile tears over National not building the promised new Nelson hospital when Labour had promised (showing both how little a Labour promise is worth and the hypocrisy of their tears) to get the hospital started before their term ended we now have Deputy Prime Minister Seymour calling for the Air New Zealand shares owned by the government to be sold.
Now that is to be expected given Seymour’s party policies but what is astounding is Labour’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds comments in response.
She tells us Air New Zealand is critical national infrastructure and the Government should not be selling its shares.
Very good, but wait. Labour has clearly (and conveniently) ‘forgotten’ which party privatised Air New Zealand.
In 1989, the Labour Government sold Air New Zealand into private ownership. The sale transferred the airline from being a fully state owned national carrier to a privately owned company. The sale was part of a broader wave of Labour privatisations, also including:
• Telecom (1990)
• New Zealand Steel (1987)
• PostBank (1988)
Labour may well have built state houses for working people (not just beneficiaries like Ardern’s government) in the 1930’s but what have they done since? Very, very little other than to ride on that one good thing ever since and, as we are seeing again and again approaching this election, spent most of their time practicing their hypocrisy. Remember the Kiwibuild promise?
If you want truth in politics beware Labour.
Some Choice News!
DOC is rolling out a new tool to help figure out what to tackle first when it comes to protecting our threatened species and the things putting them at risk.
Why does this matter? As Nikki Macdonald from The Post points out, we’re a country with around 4,400 threatened species. With limited time and funding, conservation has always meant making tough calls about what gets attention first.
For the first time, DOC has put real numbers around what it would take to do everything needed to properly safeguard our unique natural environment. The new BioInvest tool shows the scale of the challenge: 310,177 actions across 28,007 sites.
Now that we can see the full picture, it brings the big question into focus: how much do we, as Kiwis, truly value protecting nature — and what are we prepared to invest to make it happen?
We hope this brings a smile!
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