In a country where the wildlife is truly unique in the world and many still hunt and fish for wild food, New Zealand’s entire ecosystem is under serious threat from attacks by its own government, where each year enough poison to kill the human population 10 times over is aerially dropped over large areas of land and waterways in what is widely being called ecocide.
In his testimony as part of the ITNJ’s Commission of Inquiry into the Weaponisation of the Biosphere, Alan Simmons describes the disastrous impact that the 1080 poison program continues to have on the New Zealand bush, its native inhabitants and its people.
Alan grew up in the rugged outdoors of New Zealand and has had an extensive 40 year career leading fishing and hunting tours in NZ and abroad, serving on numerous government wildlife boards and committees, and founding a political party to address the problem of 1080.
As the ITNJ heard recently, from fellow activist Sue Grey, the program was intended to protect the land and native wildlife by reducing and controlling the numbers of rats and possums, but countless other species of non-target animals, fish, birds and insects are also affected through either consuming the poison pellets, feeding on poisoned carcasses or via contaminated waterways. Once thriving native bird populations are being decimated, many wild and domestic animals die excruciating deaths, and even human lives are at risk from poisoned livestock and wild animals.
There is substantial opposition by the people of New Zealand, where in a population of 4.5 million a significant 300,000 have joined the social media campaign to end the program. Nonetheless, the media is largely silent, protestors are characterised as terrorists and the questionably named Department of Conservation refuses to acknowledge the program’s wretched failure, continuing to put corporate outcomes before the needs and rights of the people.
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