arrived at the site before dawn<\/a>, in freezing temperatures, some locking themselves onto diggers and trucks. Police have arrived on the scene.<\/p>\nThe machinery is being used to excavate tussock land for an irrigation pipeline to serve the huge dairy farm.<\/p>\n
“For the sake of the Mackenzie and our rivers, industrial dairy expansion has to stop,” says Greenpeace Sustainable Agriculture Campaigner Gen Toop<\/p>\n
Businessman and developer Murray Valentine has permission to create a dairy farm on the southern shores of Lake P\u016bkaki with up to 15,000 cows under giant pivot irrigators.<\/p>\n
The site is home to the native kak\u012b\/ black stilt, the world\u2019s rarest wading bird with only 100 left in existence.<\/p>\n
“The Mackenzie is a fragile wilderness, home to critically endangered native species, world-renowned landscapes and bright blue glacial lakes. It\u2019s simply not suitable for dairy farming.”<\/p>\n
Murray Valentine\u2019s dairy operation is expected to leach tens of thousands of kilograms of nitrate pollution into the Mackenzie\u2019s vulnerable lakes and rivers.”<\/p>\n
“Greenpeace isn\u2019t against farming it\u2019s against bad farming, which this is a clear example of.”<\/p>\n
“This new mega farm is a shameful example of how the rules there to protect our rivers and our environment from industrial dairying are failing. They are too weak and too loose.”<\/p>\n
The Government is re-writing the regulations around freshwater and agricultural pollution. That\u2019s due to be released later this year.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2019It has the opportunity to protect the Mackenzie and our rivers by tightening the rules and banning new dairy conversions,” says Toop.<\/p>\n
Nearly 30,000 people have signed the new Greenpeace petition to ask the Government to do just that.<\/p>\n
Greenpeace believes the way forward for farming is through \u2018Regenerative Farming\u2019 – working with the environment rather than against it.<\/p>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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