{"id":536,"date":"2017-09-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-09-13T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/new-zealand\/press-release\/water-activists-flood-into-ecan-offices-to-save-rivers\/"},"modified":"2024-07-12T14:57:19","modified_gmt":"2024-07-12T02:57:19","slug":"water-activists-flood-into-ecan-offices-to-save-rivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/press-release\/water-activists-flood-into-ecan-offices-to-save-rivers\/","title":{"rendered":"Water activists flood into Ecan offices to save rivers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pro-democracy water campaigners have taken over the regional council offices in Christchurch today. <\/p>\n

They\u2019re demanding that local democracy be returned to the people of Canterbury so they can get on with saving the region\u2019s ailing rivers.<\/p>\n

Around 100 Cantabrians have occupied ECan\u2019s lobby and are refusing to move.\u00a0 They have hung banners reading Save Our Rivers – Democracy Now.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we are standing up for our rivers and we are taking our democracy back\u201d says Greenpeace campaigner Gen Toop.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWe will not to be silenced and we will not stand aside and let our rivers continue to be destroyed by too many cows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Backed by Greenpeace, local activists are calling for urgent action to save rivers, including a return of their democratic right to vote for their regional councillors. <\/p>\n

Seven years ago the Government sacked the region\u2019s democratically elected councillors.\u00a0 They also restricted the ability for Cantabrians to legally challenge decisions about water management made by those commissioners. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government have stolen democracy from the people of Canterbury. In return they gave us more big irrigation, more cows and more polluted rivers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The activists have set up \u201cThe People\u2019s Ecan\u201d inside the lobby where they are listing their demands of ECan to clean up rivers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will be sharing stories about what\u2019s happened to their rivers and drawing up a manifesto of change for the regional council.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only way to have clean rivers in NZ is to have fewer cows.\u00a0 But the Government and ECan are enabling big irrigation schemes to go ahead which will mean more cows and we all know more cows means more polluted rivers\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cAll political parties vying for government who are serious about saving our rivers must both reduce the dairy herd and return democracy to the people of Canterbury immediately.<\/p>\n

Updates are being posted via social media to:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/greenpeace.nz\/ecan-action <\/p>\n

ENDS<\/p>\n

Background<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just months before the removal of local democracy former Prime Minister John Key said his Government intended to remove regulatory roadblocks to water storage and irrigation in Canterbury. (1)<\/a><\/p>\n

Government documents then disclosed to The Press under the Official Information Act, revealed that the protection of Canterbury’s economic contribution and its future growth were indeed a “key consideration” for suspending democracy. (2)<\/p>\n

ECan have\u00a0 been heavy handed in trying to shut down recent protests about water pollution.\u00a0 Two weeks ago they served local artist Sam Mahon with an injunction to try and prevent him from handing them a larger than life sculpture of Nick Smith relieving himself in a glass of water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christchurch, 14 September: Pro-democracy water campaigners have taken over the regional council offices in Christchurch today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2218,"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":[22,21],"p4-page-type":[7],"class_list":["post-536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-greenpeace","tag-freshwater","tag-freedom","p4-page-type-press-release"],"yoast_head":"\nWater activists flood into Ecan offices to save rivers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" 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