Greenpeace says a $40,000 attack on a farmer\u2019s irrigation machinery could be a sign of overwhelming public frustration about polluted rivers.<\/p>\n
The environmental organisation is responding to media inquiries following an incident at the weekend.<\/p>\n
The police said 44 tyres on three pivot irrigators were slashed with a knife on Richard Subtil’s farm in North Otago.<\/p>\n
Mr Subtil reportedly believes the action was designed to \u201csend a message\u201d about irrigation in the Mackenzie Country.<\/p>\n
In the fight over New Zealand\u2019s dirty waterways, irrigation is being seen as a major battleground.<\/p>\n
On one side are those who believe dairying should use irrigation to keep expanding and intensifying.<\/p>\n
In the other camp are those who want to save New Zealand\u2019s rivers from more dairy pollution.<\/p>\n
The sort of pollution which comes from overstocking and farming cows on marginal land. <\/p>\n
\u201cObviously public fury is running high this summer,\u201d says Greenpeace Campaigner, Gen Toop.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is possible that someone has taken out their frustration on this farmer\u2019s equipment. \u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cAs a non-violent organisation Greenpeace does not condone such an action.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can understand though, as people see familiar rivers turning to algal soups over summer, how upset New Zealanders are getting that their genuine concerns about their polluted rivers are being ignored,\u201d says Toop.<\/p>\n
Mr Subtil, a sheep farmer,\u00a0 thinks that he may have unwittingly fallen victim to someone who \u201chad an issue with irrigation.\u201d<\/p>\n
As New Zealand\u2019s largest environmental organisation, Greenpeace is committed to peacefully opposing plans to build large irrigation schemes across the country used to convert more farmland to industrial dairying.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe New Zealand public is starting to realise that we can have more cows or clean rivers, but we can\u2019t have both.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ends<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Greenpeace says a $40,000 attack on a farmer\u2019s irrigation machinery could be a sign of overwhelming public frustration about polluted rivers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[22],"p4-page-type":[7],"class_list":["post-1945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-greenpeace","tag-freshwater","p4-page-type-press-release"],"yoast_head":"\n