I think the Bent Spoon brickbat is a significant error of judgement in this case. The DVD is designed to be a persuasive documentary. It doesn't try to be anything else because the information available up until now has been completely biased in DoC's direction and it was important to show the other side of the argument. What impressives me about the documentary Poisoning Paradise is that it features two of the country's best qualified scientists on research evaluation and design. Their review of DoC's scientific literature on 1080 shows serious flaws which is reason enough to be concerned. The scientists' assertions that up to 40% of some of our bird species are killed in a single aerial drop needs serious follow-up investigation, and perhaps the skeptics would be better advised to concentrate on evaluating this research themselves. Go to the primary sources of information and look at it thoroughly before you discredit it. I'm studying in the United States on a scholarship at the moment, which involves research on 1080 for a book that I am writing. From what I have learnt so far, I suspect the Graf Boys are right that aerial drops of 1080 should be stopped. I don't dispute that birds suffer from predation and that we need to control pests. I think if you asked enough questions, you would discover that the makers of the documentary have spent a lot of time in the bush and know first-hand, the effects of pests in our environment and the need to control them. The dispute is about how that control is managed.

I have been an adventure guide since 1979 and in that time have been responsible for 100's of thousands of international tourist and kiwis safety on our rivers and mountains. Through that time i have worked (battled) with the department of (conservation?) i feel like giving them another name. 5 years ago the white water rafting community applied through the west coast conservancy for concessions to raft west coast rivers Pristine world class rivers. Through the application process we were initially turned down because DOC were worries about us scaring the Blue Ducts down stream away from their homes. They said they were always going to take a precautionary approach and so in the end we formed a blue duck trust and showed them how we were going to mitigate their concerns. I know of other tourism venture that were turned down. One was a venture that flew tourist to a hill near Franz Josef. they were going to parachute clients off a small part of the side of the hill. DOC turned them down based on a small snail they might get disturbed by people being in the area. TRUE story. There are many more like it. DOC always say they must take a precautionary approach. that being the case why are they NOT taking a precautionary approach to 1080. It has been banned every where else in the world just like 245T and other chemicals had been several years ago and we were still ariel dressing it all over our land. DOC are committing genocide on our lands just like the days when we were spraying 245t on our farms. This practice was hushed because our government didn't want the world meat market to know we had sent them meat that was exposed. Now look at all the sick people in NZ. Its disgusting and i like you must do some thing about the poisoning of our forrest. and rivers.
This from the Dairy industry http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqT5flXBMgo this is by no means an isolated case. Once i stood in front of a tourism meeting and said the only reason NZ appears to be so green is because the crass grows fast over the rubbish so fast. Chemicals have and continue to poison our land and water ways. Now we have dead spots in the oceans and fish are turning up dead. thats our poisons doing that. If you keep you head in the sand and don't take a real good look you will always discuss such things and at the end of a conversation say oh well what can we do any way. If you do that then more fool you are. There is a solution to all this and I among many people i know are working toward change. We know we do not have much support from any government agency. So business and the public MUST get involved. Read learn. Write to DOC through the official information act. You have the right to receive a reply within 21 days of sending your letter. If you don't get a reply right to the ombudsman he/she will be very happy to chase your concerns.

If you know of a 1080 drop in your area coming up take a shot gun and go shot some pigeons and other birds and animals at least they will have a quick death. And you will have a good feed from it. No thats no extreme its so called human. We just had a 1080 drop in tokaanu loads of the stuff and have not heard or seen or friendly Morepork since.

thats absolute rubbish the rats and possums are coming back faster and birds life not to mention insect life is depleting at a rate faster than we care to admit. DOC are now saying they will run surveys to find out the truth. the rest of the world already decided what's right but here in NZ where we are perhaps the most chemical contaminated country on the planet. We still burry our heads in the sand and suggest that all this poison is worth the risk. It is not worth the risk as our grand children are going to tell us one day.

Possums can be used by industry to earn money we really need. Have you seen the state of the factory that produces our 1080. it dosent look the kind of place that makes the millions of $ we are told by DOC that it cost to run the 1080 program. Yes i understand business there are wages helicopters etc.
But that small 1080 factory is a sham. I cant believe we are related to them in business.

I will fight by talking to international agencies regarding 1080. when our exports of deer eels etc are effected what then. We will not recover from that damage. What about our clean green thats bull as well. We are NOT clean green. We are heads in the sand.....

There is no excuse to use poisons on our lands NONE what so ever and you will never convince me other wise. People in our country never use to be as sick or and unhealthy as they are now. Take a look around its chemical related.

Kathy where do you live? do you know any more about these american scientist how we can find them. If not i will put in an official information act request for information but would rather go right to the scientist. Thanks for your comments great stuff

Time and i mean the future will show you that chemicals insecticides are changing the life on our planet. 1080 is an insecticide and you should try spraying the stuff on your garden. Insects are a very important part of our ecosystem. Do you honestly believe that poisoning 99% of of forrest to control one or two animals is a good thing. You will eat your words when we have no bees and important life left. Not that you would believe what science is saying about bees. I guess you could pollinate our plants yourself. It is said that 7 years after bees leave the planet life will no longer exist as we know it.

We must move forward with caution we should not be interfering with nature. read and learn more much more.

Let me explain why most pro 1080 people avoid leaving details on these sites. Anybody who follows this debate closely will know that in the toolbox of the anti’s includes firstly misinformation followed by scaremongering and a splash of intimidation.

Rubbish you say! Well why don’t you talk to your mates who hijacked the trademe blog site and are “Making a List” of 1080 supporters for future retribution. You could ask the pest control worker down south who had his dog poisoned or the contractors that had their brake lines cut overnight during a drop not to mention the chopper pilot Chris Short could well have killed had he not complied with demands, just to mention a few.

Your minions are working hard to sabotage our reputation overseas in any country they can with a torrent of lies to anyone silly enough to listen.

1080 supporters out number anti’s by a huge margin but keep their heads low because of the aggressive unpredictable people that flock to your banner.

It troubles me that you place more importance on maintaining deer stocks than protecting our unique bird species and magnificent forests. Perhaps you could clear up for me how much the NZDA paid (or do you prefer the word “supported”) you to make your latest propaganda film?

After reading your rant I am starting to think that you actually believe what is coming out of your mouth. Every point you make is the complete converse of the truth.

In regard to the dog, when exhumed it had a gutsfull of bait not "traces" as you suggest! Refer paragraph in brackets from article. (The convulsing dog was shot by its owner to put it out of its misery, and buried, but was later exhumed by police, who confirmed the poisoning was deliberate.)

The use of 1080 is supported by 60 years of experience, scientific research both local and international, every credible scientist with a background relevant to this topic, the vast majority of the agricultural sector and true environmentalists. Your observation of meeting more anti than pro people is hardly surprising as they are your crazed fan club turning up to your traveling circus, they hardly represent the masses and certainly not the well informed!

You say 90% of people using the backcountry would like to encounter a deer, perhaps the question should have been would you rather see a deer or a kiwi because that is the implication should aerial 1080 be banned!

You talk of unproven findings, that’s really rich, lets talk about the 12,000 birds you estimated DOC killed and splashed all over the papers, when in fact none of the natives you found following an heavy snowfall had any traces of 1080 in them. You thrive on assumption and I suspect are getting quite wealthy from the anti 1080 cash cow? are you selling more anti 1080 DVD's than you did hunting DVD's?

According to you the Pro 1080 community have "vested interests" ... and of course the NZDA are just good citizens, ha.

Well this is an interesting debate. there is only one credible story in my mind and that is the one who is giving his name. Statements made without identity bare no weight at all. No poison is good for any aspect of life. Thats the bottom line for me. Our people are suffering the results of chemical set in main stream. take a look at your family friends and love ones. Any one suffering in some way. Any one dead that you wondered why that was. Im not the only one saying what im saying none of my friends like what's going on. But where there is life there is hope. Its not to late to say no to poisons and feed people and the ecosystem real live safe food.

chemicals of all kinds must go http://www.saicm.org/index.php?ql=h&content=home

The world bank. This is an xtract from an update. They talk about protecting our bio-diversity. Our NZ government and those who say its ok to load our land water ways and oceans with chemicals. I tell you again the finger is being pointed at you.
Thursday, January 07, 2010

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Today's Headlines:

* Development Aid Central To US Interests: Clinton
* Aid Groups Warn Of Sudan War Risk
* China To Fund Kenya's Second Port, Road And Railway
* Interview: UNEP Urges World To Redouble Efforts To Reverse Biodiversity Loss
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Interview: UNEP Urges World To Redouble Efforts To Reverse Biodiversity Loss.
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In an interview with Xinhua, UN Environment Program (UNEP) Deputy Executive Director Angela Cropper said "... 'Biodiversity is being lost at an unprecedented rate and we need to redouble our efforts to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss if we hope to preserve our chances of developing sustainably and of living healthy lives even as the climate changes,'...

'We have failed to meet biodiversity targets. Human activity is causing the diversity of life on earth to be lost at a greatly accelerated rate. These losses are irreversible, impoverish us all and damage the life support systems we rely on every day. But we can prevent them,' she added...'Saving biodiversity requires effort from everyone. Through activities around the world, the global community will work together to ensure a sustainable future for us all,' she said....

Cropper said world leaders agreed at a 2002 UN summit in Johannesburg to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on earth. According to Cropper, if the world does not reverse the loss of biodiversity, many, if not all, of the other strategies for protecting increasingly threatened species and habitats will be doomed to failure." [Xinhua/Factiva]

We certainly are in suppport of trapping, and ground based cyanide operations. That is what we are advocating for all of New Zealand, for areas where pest control is deemed necessary. Cyanide is a humane killer, and does not cause secondary poisoning. In fact, possums that die from cyanide, can be fed to your dog. We are still opposed to poisons like 1080 or brodificoum, in bait stations. An animal that is killed by 1080 or brodificoum, even when the delivery mechanism is a bait station, can travel, and die where other birds or animals can be poisoned by them - on land or in water.

New Zealanders have their head up their... sand when it comes to what is happening in the world of natural resources and DOC are the biggest trouble offenders. I cant believe between DoC and Dairy farms alone how much damage is being caused then i read stuff like this and think surely they see this to. But they dont do they!!!! they dont give a shit.
1080 has some thing to do with presure on the environment dont you think. Remember no real study by DOC showing true effect has NEVER been completed. NONE.

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 7 March 2010 22.59 GMT
Article history
Environment
Conservation
Humans driving extinction faster than species can evolve, say experts
Conservationists say rate of new species slower than diversity loss caused by the destruction of habitats and climate change
The IUCN lists west African giraffes as an endangered species. Conservationists say the rate of new species is slower than diversity loss. Photograph: Graeme Robertson

For the first time since the dinosaurs disappeared, humans are driving animals and plants to extinction faster than new species can evolve, one of the world's experts on biodiversity has warned.

Conservation experts have already signalled that the world is in the grip of the "sixth great extinction" of species, driven by the destruction of natural habitats, hunting, the spread of alien predators and disease, and climate change.

However until recently it has been hoped that the rate at which new species were evolving could keep pace with the loss of diversity of life.

Speaking in advance of two reports next week on the state of wildlife in Britain and Europe, Simon Stuart, chair of the Species Survival Commission for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature – the body which officially declares species threatened and extinct – said that point had now "almost certainly" been crossed.

"Measuring the rate at which new species evolve is difficult, but there's no question that the current extinction rates are faster than that; I think it's inevitable," said Stuart.

The IUCN created shock waves with its major assessment of the world's biodiversity in 2004, which calculated that the rate of extinction had reached 100-1,000 times that suggested by the fossil records before humans.

No formal calculations have been published since, but conservationists agree the rate of loss has increased since then, and Stuart said it was possible that the dramatic predictions of experts like the renowned Harvard biologist E O Wilson, that the rate of loss could reach 10,000 times the background rate in two decades, could be correct.

"All the evidence is he's right," said Stuart. "Some people claim it already is that ... things can only have deteriorated because of the drivers of the losses, such as habitat loss and climate change, all getting worse. But we haven't measured extinction rates again since 2004 and because our current estimates contain a tenfold range there has to be a very big deterioration or improvement to pick up a change."

Extinction is part of the constant evolution of life, and only 2-4% of the species that have ever lived on Earth are thought to be alive today. However fossil records suggest that for most of the planet's 3.5bn year history the steady rate of loss of species is thought to be about one in every million species each year.

Only 869 extinctions have been formally recorded since 1500, however, because scientists have only "described" nearly 2m of an estimated 5-30m species around the world, and only assessed the conservation status of 3% of those, the global rate of extinction is extrapolated from the rate of loss among species which are known. In this way the IUCN calculated in 2004 that the rate of loss had risen to 100-1,000 per millions species annually – a situation comparable to the five previous "mass extinctions" – the last of which was when the dinosaurs were wiped out about 65m years ago.

Critics, including The Skeptical Environmentalist author, Bjørn Lomborg, have argued that because such figures rely on so many estimates of the number of underlying species and the past rate of extinctions based on fossil records of marine animals, the huge margins for error make these figures too unreliable to form the basis of expensive conservation actions.

However Stuart said that the IUCN figure was likely to be an underestimate of the problem, because scientists are very reluctant to declare species extinct even when they have sometimes not been seen for decades, and because few of the world's plants, fungi and invertebrates have yet been formally recorded and assessed.

The calculated increase in the extinction rate should also be compared to another study of thresholds of resilience for the natural world by Swedish scientists, who warned that anything over 10 times the background rate of extinction – 10 species in every million per year – was above the limit that could be tolerated if the world was to be safe for humans, said Stuart.

"No one's claiming it's as small as 10 times," he said. "There are uncertainties all the way down; the only thing we're certain about is the extent is way beyond what's natural and it's getting worse."

Many more species are "discovered" every year around the world, than are recorded extinct, but these "new" plants and animals are existing species found by humans for the first time, not newly evolved species.

In addition to extinctions, the IUCN has listed 208 species as "possibly extinct", some of which have not been seen for decades. Nearly 17,300 species are considered under threat, some in such small populations that only successful conservation action can stop them from becoming extinct in future. This includes one-in-five mammals assessed, one-in-eight birds, one-in-three amphibians, and one-in-four corals.

Later this year the Convention on Biological Diversity is expected to formally declare that the pledge by world leaders in 2002 to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010 has not been met, and to agree new, stronger targets.

Despite the worsening problem, and the increasing threat of climate change, experts stress that understanding of the problems which drive plants and animals to extinction has improved greatly, and that targeted conservation can be successful in saving species from likely extinction in the wild.

This year has been declared the International Year of Biodiversity and it is also hoped that a major UN report this summer, on the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity, will encourage governments to devote more funds to conservation.

Professor Norman MacLeod, keeper of palaeontology at the Natural History Museum in London, cautioned that when fossil experts find evidence of a great extinction it can appear in a layer of rock covering perhaps 10,000 years, so they cannot say for sure if there was a sudden crisis or a build up of abnormally high extinction rates over centuries or millennia.

For this reason, the "mathematical artefacts" of extinction estimates were not sufficient to be certain about the current state of extinction, said MacLeod.

"If things aren't falling dead at your feel that doesn't mean you're not in the middle of a big extinction event," he said. "By the same token if the extinctions are and remain relatively modest then the changes, [even] aggregated over many years, are still going to end up a relatively modest extinction event."

Species on the brink of being declared extinct

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists 208 species as "possibly extinct", more than half of which are amphibians. They are defined as species which are "on the balance of evidence likely to be extinct, but for which there is a small chance that they may still be extant".

Kouprey (or Grey ox; Bos sauveli)

What: Wild cattle with horns that live in small herds

Domain: Mostly Cambodia; also Laos, Vietnam, Thailand

Population: No first-hand sightings since 1969

Main threats: hunting for meat and trade, livestock diseases and habitat destruction

Webbed-footed coqui (or stream coqui; Eleutherodactylus karlschmidti)

What: Large black frog living in mountain streams

Domain: East and west Puerto Rico

Population: Not seen since 1976

Main threats: Disease (chytridiomycosis), climate change and invasive predators

Golden coqui frog (Eleutherodactylus jasperi)

What: Small orange frog living in forest or open rocky areas

Domain: Sierra de Cayey, Puerto Rico

Population: No sightings since 1981

Main threats: Unknown but suspected habitat destruction, climate change, disease (chytridiomycosis) and invasive predators

Spix's macaw (or little blue macaw; Cyanopsitta spixii)

What: Bright blue birds with long tails and grey/white heads

Domain: Brazil

Population: The last known wild bird disappeared in 2000; there are 78 in captivity

Main threats: Destruction of the birds' favoured Tabebuia caraiba trees for nesting, and trapping

Café marron (Ramosmania rodriguesii)

What: White flowering shrub related to the coffee plant family

Domain: Island of Rodrigues, Republic of Mauritius

Population: A single wild plant is known

Main threats: Habitat loss, introduced grazing animals and alien plants

Source: IUCN and Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. To mark the International Year of Biodiversity, the IUCN is running a daily profile of a threatened species throughout 2010. See iucn.org.