Sunday, October 4, 2009

God help us

The NZ Fish and Game model is unique in the world, in that license holders make up councils, that drive the direction of the paid staff, set rules and regulations and ensure that F&G sticks to its statutory obligations. In theory anyway - but the system is easily corrupted. Self interest, commercial gain... all the vices that humans are succeptible can rear their heads within any group of people. Which is why, I guess, each region has 12 councillors.

So, it was staggering at yesterday's meeting to witness the council members present unanimously vote to close F&G lands too all but the pond holders ion those blocks for the first 9 days of the duck season. The value of the blocks is over a million bucks, paid for - and this is the critical point - with money taken from license holders, or more accurately, paid for via the license revenue take. In other words, everyone who bought a license of any sort in NZ (game bird or fishing), and who is a shareholder in those blocks, just got told "no, you can't go on the land that you bought".

2 of the councillors driving this 'initiative' happen to shoot on those blocks. So they just got paid for exclusive shooting priviliges - these are the same councillors who fought tooth and nail to keep upland game preserves out of Auckland Waikato under section 23 of the Wildlife Act - because they are perceived to be paid, exclusive hunting. The conflict of interest is staggering, as is the lack of foresight. I trust that the repercussions are that these councillors are voted out.

They should be, they just ripped us all off.

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