Submission to the Environment Protection Agency on Glyphosate use in rural Coromandel.
The EPA called for submissions on how Glyphosate is being used. Glyphosate is a controversial herbicide that has been called a “probable human carcinogen ” and implicated in causing Hodgkins Lymphoma. Monsanto lost court battles and has had to pay millions of $ in compensation to people whose health has suffered. People are observing that the roadside spraying around the remote rural roads has increased in area and frequency this year. Is Monsanto NZ trying to use up the stocks before Glyphosate is probably banned by the European Union in 2022? The NZ EPA will review Glyphosate use after assessing all the submissions on its use in NZ. It’s extraodinary that the EPA doesn’t already have a database of Glyphosate use.
Read the submission below.
Submission from Manu Waiata Restoration & Protection Society to the Coromandel Catchment Committee
Meeting 16 November 2018 at Whiritoa
In 2015, Manu Waiata made a submission to the Waikato Regional Council Long Term Plan that stated,
Where communities have demonstrated opposition to the use of aerial poisoning for predator control, Council will support alternative means.
Coromandel Colville Community Board has resolutions passed in 2007, 2009, 2011, and 2017 opposing use of 1080 and similar residual poisons, and supporting hunting and trapping with cyanide only.
Thames Coromandel District Council passed supporting resolutions in 2009 and 2018.
In May 2017, a full page OPEN LETTER published in the Hauraki Herald and the Mercury Bay Informer was signed by kaumatua, iwi trust representatives, community groups and general public, stating “DOC does not have a social licence to carry out aerial poisoning over Moehau and surrounding forests…. We call for a halt to the proposed 1080 drops over Coromandel forests this winter.”
The Resource Management Act s5 (and likewise the Hazardous Substances Act s5) creates a legal (fiduciary) duty of managers to enable communities to manage their own environments for their own well being:
All persons exercising functions, powers, and duties under this Act shall, to achieve the purpose of this Act, recognise and provide for the following principles:
RMA s5 Purpose
(2) In this Act, “sustainable management means managing the use, devleopment, and protection of natural and phyusical resurces in a way, or at a rate which enable people and commiunities to provide for their social, economic, and cultural well being and for their health and safety….
Section 5 means that Council is entrusted with a fiduciary duty (legal obligation ) to ensure that the Coromandel community has the capacity to practice the predator control of its choice to protect its health and well being.
Coromandel communities do not want our hunting and recreational environment poisoned. Our health is put at risk. The pig hunting clubs dare not eat wild pig meat from the forests that have been poisoned.
The Acts carry greater legal weight than DoC and the Minister of Conservation. Council in its role of local government, should be carrying out its fiduciary duty to protect the interests of its communities.
SUBMISSION: THAT the Regional Council passes a resolution stating:
“Where communities have demonstrated opposition to the use of aerial poisoning for predator control, Council will support alternative means”.
Our local government resolutions do not carry adequate weight unless Regional council supports them.
Thank you.
Manu Waiata Restoration & Protection Society
Wendy Pond, Secretary
Registered Office: 2225 Wyuna Bay Road
Coromandel 3581. Ph 866 8581
15 November 2018
Coromandel Our Backyard 
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