Press release - January 23, 2017
Greenpeace shares people's concerns about human sewage on Auckland's beaches, just as we care about cow sewage in New Zealand's rivers.
Both are separate issues but add up to the same thing, a lack of respect for water.
As Greenpeace campaigner Steve Abel says:
"We really need to prioritise water protection, it's marker of a healthy society that your waterways are healthy"
"Water is the most essential ingredient in life - letting sewerage and animal waste go into our fresh water and seawater is both disgusting and crazy.
To put things into perspective there are six and a half million dairy cows in New Zealand. Each produces 14-15 times more effluent than the average human.
62 per cent of our monitored rivers are unswimmable.
In Auckland there seems to be an across the board acceptance that we have a sewage problem matched by a willingness from council and ratepayers to tackle the issue even if it costs billions.
Greenpeace would welcome a similar acceptance and willingness from the Dairy Industry, which still seems to be in a state of denial with the likes of Dairy NZ and Irrigation NZ planning new irrigation schemes that will drive an increase in the number of dairy cows.