South Coast Environment Society | Content

In this issue:

*Radar returns with a show

*Great courses coming up

*Fruit tree list is out

Te Radar‘s Eating the Dog - misfits, failures and those who died trying - Te Radar’s New Zealand heroes - here in Riverton

Reviews of his show are very good. He'll be both fascinating and funny (not an easy combination to achieve!) Winner: Best Local Show NZ Comedy Festival 2009 and Best Show NZ Comedy Guild Awards 2009 Te Radar’s “Eating The Dog” is an irreverent look at some of the more notable characters and events from New Zealand’s history. Te Radar celebrates the bumblers and the near-do-wells, who personify the archetypal “she’ll be right” spirit that epitomises this country. With the aid of a visual presentation rich with photographs, maps, and other images, the show is a hilarious romp through the pages of our history. Radar's here in Riverton on the 9th of August. He'll be performing at the Aparima College hall Riverton 7.30-9.30pm.Tickets are $25 and half the proceeds go to our heritage Fruit and Vegetable projects in Southland. You can book at the Environment Centre and that includes a great supper at half time! Please book early- just a phone call!

National parks it’s mining plans

You'd expect, given the huge anti-mining marches around the country and the anguish the prospect of digging up the national parks provoked, that an announcement of the reversal of National's ill-considered plans would hit the front page. Nope. The Southland Times has given the news a postage stamp sized spot on page 2, nestled amongst images of shoplifters, a cartoon and an advertisement for a closing down sale at a shoe store. The 400 or so Southlanders who marched through the streets of Invercargill to protest the plans to mine the national parks might view that placement rather cynically. Well done to all of you who went into Invercargill from Riverton to join the march. It was worth it! There were plenty who said, marching and protesting achieves nothing, and they were very wrong. Next, the proposed lignite mines. With taxpayers (that's us!) forking out for an ETS bill that seeks to pay for our greenhouse gas emissions, how can we at the same time, support the creation of millions of tonnes of extra gases, through the release of lignite from the ground? We'll have to pay for that on top of the bill we're footing now. Have Southlanders thought this through? No matter how they spin it, and they're spinning hard already, lignite is dirty stuff. Turning it into briquettes, urea or diesel does nothing to reduce the reality that what has been solid carbon, safely stored underground, is going to go up into the air as a harmful greenhouse gas. And that's what we are paying for now. And one way or another, whether through increases in the ETS tax or through the effects of climate change, we'll pay again in the future. Leave it in the ground and call it lignite. Dig it up and it's Lignitemare.

Street side trees - two issues.

Pollarding: As you approach the town of Winton in the heart of Southland, you are greeted by the sight of a dozen or so London Plane trees, pollarded to the max and begging the question, is this a the best way to manage an amenity tree? There are I believe, circumstances where pollarding is a worthwhile process, especially where the branches that are removed each year have some value for furniture making, stock food, firewood or some other use, but controlling the size of a tree doesn't cut it for me. Perhaps modern street side plantings are now made with trees that don't grow enormous, as these ones do. A great deal of ugliness could be avoided by choosing a more appropriate species. Three cheers for the ICC for their defence of the arbutus! Fruiting: News that the Invercargill City Council is standing up against criticism of their street-side strawberry trees is good news indeed.Despite complaints from a few residents that the strawberry-like fruits that fall from the arbutus are being traipsed indoors and spoiling the carpet, the council has said, no, they'll not be chopping the 200 strawberry trees down anytime soon.What a pleasant surprise and a huge encouragement to any one like me who would like to see more fruiting trees in towns and cities.Bring on the nut trees, the apples, the plums and the bushes of black currants, blueberries and gooseberries.People will just have to check their soles.

Water quality: Southland and beyond

“How many warnings does this Government need before they take action to set enforceable water quality standards? I urge the Minister to adopt the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management that is currently lying on his desk.” The Green's Russel Norman puts the heat on the Government for what he calls, 'what we already know', “Intensive dairy farming, as well as inadequate sewage treatment, is responsible for the deterioration of our rivers, streams and lakes, the common heritage of all New Zealanders." The due-out-soon Environment Southland report on water quality in our region is hardly likely to say anything other than, 'what we already know'. Nevertheless, we await the report optimistically, after all, they do say you can't manage what you haven't measured.

Food prices, growers and the ETS

The Emissions Trading Scheme and the increased costs that come with it is worrying horticulturalists. Vegetable growers, already squeezed by supermarkets who, the growers say, pay very little for the produce and charge the customer a greatly marked-up price at the checkout, will now face greater costs to growing and transporting their vegetables and fruits to the point of sale. For the receivers of their goods, that's us, it can mean an increase in the price, which seems very likely. It may mean though, that local growers fold up under the increased demands on their finances. If they can't afford to pay more for trucking their goods to market, for the electricity that powers their packing sheds and for any other incoming materials needed for their operation, they may abandon the growing game altogether. These increases will affect glass and tunnel house growers the most, with their greater need for energy, in the form of electricity, coal and gas. The desired effect of an ETS is to change greenhouse gas using behaviour and it may well work in this field, but I wonder if basic food production like this is an area we want to force change, especially if the change means fewer local growers and more imported food from countries that don't have to carry the same obligation. The solution for the consumer is, of course, to grow your own and it is readily apparent to me, as a supplier of vegetable seed, that demand is considerably higher this winter than ever before. People are preparing for the results of the ETS and other changes; the GST hike, a frozen wage state and so on. Time to start thinking about a little independence from the supermarkets, despite the season.

Monster trucks on Southland roads

Around the end of May 2010, New Zealand's first High Productivity Motor Vehicle (HPMV) permits were issued by the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) to two trucks owned by state-owned coal miner Solid Energy. The permits allow the trucks to carry up to 50 tonne loads along the 60km route between New Vale Mine and a customer in Edendale, Southland. HPMV permits which came into effect on May 1, allow existing weight and dimensions rules for trucks to be amended to allow a new class of vehicle, called high productivity motor vehicles, to operate under a special H permit on specified routes, displaying H plates at all times. We'll at least we'll know what hit us, or at least what it is that's chewing up our roads! (Fonterra, in case you didn't catch it as it flew by)

Farmers’ markets

There are now over fifty Farmers’ Markets trading weekly throughout the country, from the Bay of Islands in the north to Invercargill in the south. That's a significant figure from the recent Southland Times press release and relevant in light of recent concerns expressed about the price (and quality) of supermarket-bought fruit and vegetables. Riverton's farmers' market has the added distinction of being, so far as we can tell, the only fully organic market in New Zealand. It's only small, but small is beautiful! The Invercargill Farmers Market is a busy and well patronised market, held on the grounds of Southland Boys High school on Sundays. Our Riverton market is open for business every Saturday morning, beginning at 10:30.

Environment Society News

Funding and Report time…

We have completed the funding report for the Ministry for the Environment and we will continue to be a half funded Centre for another nine months (re their policy of only one ‘share’ per province and in Southland we have two Centres). We have completed a report the Sustainable Farming Fund and applied for an extension to our orchard programme. We have applied to COGS to support our Green Fingers Garden Club which we will launch throughout Southland in Spring. Great turn out for our AGM We had a lovely evening and Robyn’s banana and white chocolate muffins were worth braving the cold night for. Rob gave an interesting account of the ECO conference he went to in Christchurch. He really felt at home with those around NZ who are trying to protect the environment and he made many new contacts. He was surprised at the calibre of those present ranging from MP’s, through high powered lobbyists to young activists. Another surprise was how well our Environment Centre and our activities are known among all those people. He was proud to know us! Welcome to our new committee members Sandra, Louise, Carolyn and Leah and thanks to all those who have checked in for another year, it’s going to be a busy one.

Subs now overdue if you haven’t paid yet this year! sub form

Staff and volunteer changes

With Anna Star heading off to fulltime work we have tagged her five hours a week to the new secretary of the South Coast Environment Society, Leah Letitia. Leah will be coming in three mornings a week (Mon, Wed, Fri) dealing with all the secretary work for the society as well as supporting other groups and Robyn when needed. Jolene continues to come in three times a week, putting her accounting skills to good use on behalf of the Society and supporting other groups. Jolene’s husband is on shift work so her times vary but you can always leave a note for her. With Robyn ,Chris and Yvonne continuing in their small 3-5 hour a week roles it should enable the office to became efficient and organised and ‘stay in one piece’ when busy patches come. It will also mean that the team can cover for each other when someone is sick or away without the office derailing. Robyn is looking forward to much less office work and much more time doing the things she has passion for : projects and education work. Louise now volunteers on a Saturday morning instead of Monday afternoon. We welcome Sandra a new volunteer on Monday mornings and Karla comes in every 2nd Monday lunchtime. There are gaps presently, Tues-Thurs mornings especially, so if you are keen to volunteer at that time or any time let us know. We would appreciate your help very much. A BIG THANK YOU for the Carpet…. Jo and Brook are giving us a very nice piece of carpet for the office. It will be a mission taking everything out, laying the carpet and putting everything back in. If this sounds like your kind of fun let us know and you can come an be part of the makeover team!

Orchard Project

We will be having a couple big planting days in August ( later than expected as the fruit trees still aren’t fully dormant with the warm winter) transferring one of each of the heritage fruit trees to new locations, mainly in West Plains but also 30 to be permanent at the Otautau arboretum. Put your name on the list if you are keen to help us with these working bees and we will time them to suit those interested and the weather!

The Heritage Fruit Tree list now on line and in the Centre or we can post you one out just give us a phone call 03 2348717. The first round of orders will be processed on the 1st August then the list of the remaining trees will be posted up the next day $22.50 each or 5 for $100. If your place is full up why not considering gifting one to your local school or childcare centre? Trees should be here mid August.

Gathering scions is getting easier. We are mainly doing catch-ups this year and only needing one or two cuttings from each orchard and getting those individual trees we ran out of time for last year. It will be exciting in two or three years time when the trees start fruiting and we see what they all are! We will plant them in groups under the name of the individual orchard they were in and one day relocate them back into the communities from which they came. We have some double ups when both grafts took and after the big shift we will be posting that list up, including where they are from and what we know about them so far. You can adopt these un-named but coded trees if you can guarantee a very safe place for it, as the tree will be our back up if the one in our collection gets damaged. You’ll get a certificate and details of your tree and in a year or two we will ring you and let you know its name and origins if possible. If it can’t be traced you will get to help us choose a Southland name for that variety. These will be available for a $10 donation towards the Open Orchard Project. Let us know if you are interested so we can let you know when the list is available.

SOUP and DVD Nights -note change:

Soup nights around the fire every ‘odd’ Friday from August with DVD evenings with soup every ‘even’ Wednesday.

Wednesday 4th August permaculture programme “Global Gardener’ by Bill Mollison . 7.30pm optional bring a plate for supper to share wile we chat about the DVD.

Friday 13th Pot luck Soup night round the fire, 6.30pm

Wednesday 18th “Think global eat local” 7.30pm optional bring a plate for supper to share wile we chat about the DVD.

Friday27th Pot luck Soup night round the fire, 6.30pm

We will trial this for two months and see how it goes.

Courses in August

We will run as many of these courses we can in August but do need 5 people minimum- Please pre book

Saturday 7 August :- PRUNING WORKSHOP $10pp, Riverton, If you would like to host a workshop in your area between 28/8 & 8/9 please contact (03)2348717 and we will bring this workshop to you.

Tuesday 17 August & Sunday 29th August

BOUNTIFUL BACKYARDS ~ Beat the rising cost of food... turn your backyard into a 'Food Forest'. Three Spring Workshops $10 each or all 3 for $25. Workshop #1 Making your soil come alive, composting, green crops, mulching & liquid manures. Workshop #2 Setting up raised no-dig vege gardens, seed raising, planting timeline, crop rotation & Companion planting. Workshop #3 Fruit trees & berries in your back yard. For more info and other course dates contact info@sces.org.nz. Full set of three courses are held each day- go to one or go to them all. They will also be running as three night classes #1 23/8, #2 30/8 & #3 6/9

Thursday 26 August :- Beginners Guide to Vegetable Gardening~ 1.30-3.30pm $10pp, See how its done and receive Free Seeds, Information Sheets and a Plan to take home to begin your own vege patch

Don’t forget any of our course can be taken throughout Southland- you need 8 people to make them viable to cover the travel!

RIVERTON ORGANIC FOOD CO-OP NEWS

We have had a break-through with our ‘point of sale’ computer programme after finally finding a mentor in Christchurch, who specialises in the programme . Through “Team View” he remotely went inside our computer and from our end it was amazing to watch him adjust our settings from his Christchurch office to ensure we had a trouble-free set up. He has also provided at little cost, both a cash draw and a brand new (but old style) bar code scanner. We can now programme everything in ourselves. It is very easy. We can include the country of origin and organic certification status as the “name” of the code when print our own labels for things we bag up, a requirement for us becoming a Certified Organic Shop. So after nearly 20 years handwriting sales we are going to be in the 21st Century thanks to modern technology. With automatic pricing, adding up and the change needed appearing, we will have more time to be friendly and the new system will speed things up when 2 or 3 people are lining up to purchase things! Little training will be needed as it is so much easier than our old system. Call in and have a play and see for yourself. New volunteers welcome too! Behind the scenes everything will also be easier and will give us lots of time back as the banking can automatically be divided between the groups and recorded by the computer etc. as we have been dreaming of for some time. On Sunday morning 1st August we will be stock-taking then on that afternoon we will be in full operation. If you are free on Sunday come and help us 10-12.30. We will provide a free lunch for the ‘stock takers’ afterwards. Please put your name down on the list in the office if you can help.

Organic Harvest boxes

We have now completed the trial for the Organic Harvest Boxes. They were a great hit! People were impressed with the variety of fruit and vegetables it offered, and said it was great fun opening the box each week to see what was in it. The newsletters were also appreciated, containing information on organics, vegetables, community gardening, and recipes on how to cook and prepare the vegetables. It was fantastic to be able to support local growers by generating another opportunity for them to sell their organic produce. When the spring crops come in we hope to launch the Organic Harvest Box Project, and are currently looking for 3 people to coordinate the project. It could be coordinated from Riverton, or there is also the potential to coordinate it from Invercargill if people were interested in working from town. Anyone interested should contact Robyn or Leah at the Riverton Environment Centre (03) 234 8717. We are also interested in hearing from local Southland organic growers who may be interested in supplying produce for the boxes over the next few years. Thanks to everyone who has helped out with putting the boxes together (especially Leah), and for those who have participated in the winter trial. It was great fun! Nga mihi nu nui ki a koutou!! Anna Star

Seed Savers News

We are presently stocktaking and finalising our 2010 catalogue. These seeds are for those who intend to save their own seeds rather than for general growing and eating alone. We hope to have the list out soon and could really do with a hand as we are soo busy at present. If you have time let Robyn or Yvonne know and they would be grateful!

RIVERTON ORGANIC GROWERS

After the winter break we will start our meetings again on the fourth Tuesday of each month. On August the 24th we will be working together to make up garden plans, what to plant when, how and how much. Meet 7.00 at the Environment Centre. Bring an old exercise book to plan in!

Living and Coping In Times of Great Change

I work as Part-time Secretary and Volunteer in The Environment Centre as it supports my philosophies of living in union with the spirit of the land. Through my journey into Self Realisation and being my own Healer I have learnt much about how the energy system of ourselves and the planet is structured and would now love to share my knowledge and wisdom with others through a monthly fun get-together at the Environment Centre. It’ll be a time when you are welcome to ask, what are sometimes difficult questions eg why am I here; who am I; what the heck is going on and how can I heal myself? The first get together will be:- Wednesday night 11 August 2010 at 7.30pm until approx 9.00pm @ The Environment Centre Suggested Donation: $5.00 Any enquiries please ring me on 021 1260 492 or email me on 1poppyleah@gmail.com With much fun, joy & laughter Leah Letitia

Earthrace / Ady Gil

Do you remember when Earth race visited Riverton? Pete Bethune came to the high school to talk to the kids, while the bio diesel-powered boat sat at the 'T' wharf, looking like something off the set of Water World or Star Wars. One at a time, all of the students went through the boat, getting a feel for how it would be to be powering over the oceans of the world in a water-bat! None of us knew then that the boat would eventually be sunk by a Japanese whaling ship in the bitterly cold southern oceans.

New moon/dark moon

Although I write the Moon Calendar for the New Zealand gardener magazine, I had to rush to Google last night to settle the discussion in our household around the question, "Can you see the moon at New Moon." I thought, yes, you'll see a sliver, but found that I was mostly wrong. The 2 or three days around the New Moon finds no light from the sun striking the face of the moon, so it's not visible. Astronomers refer to this phase as the 'Dark Moon'. Last night, the moon was a slender sliver of white, hanging in a moisty sky. But it wasn't the New Moon. I’d missed that by three days!

Chairman’s Report July 2010

South Coast Environment Society Inc AGM July 20 2010 Remembering everything that we have done over the past year would be quite a challenge, were it not for the Coastline Magazine in which our various activities over the last 12 months have been recorded. So that’s where I looked, using the on-line collection of Coastlines, and this is what I found.

We’ve been very busy. In a rough kind of chronological order and with apologies to anyone I’ve missed or any activity I’ve overlooked, here are our most notable achievements, challenges and highlights: Early in the piece, we lost our organic milk deliveries, due to the power of television. Organic Acres broadcast their activities too widely and the Milk Barons closed them down. Consequently, we’ve not had the tanker chugging away at our farmers’ markets. We challenged Nick Smith over his feeble Emissions Trading Scheme in Queenstown, but had little influence over his actions. More fool he. He should have listened to our wise advice. Look at the trouble he got himself into in Gore last week as a result. We saw Chris and Steve Cole get underway with their fruit tree care business. Robyn and I have seen some of the results of that work as we’ve visited orchards and it looks to be going well. We have bought a digital projector and it has served us very well here and on the road as we do our ‘talks’ and workshops. It’s very good quality and has been trouble-free.

We’ve sold over 500 heritage fruit trees to eager new orchardists in Southland. That’s a huge success for the Open Orchard project and will continue to be a benefit to the region. We’ve held workshops on managing those trees, pruning, grafting and planting. These are very popular workshops whether we do them here in Riverton or in communities all around Southland. MfE has lavished praise on us for our ’pro-active’ approach to all that we do. We would like them to lavish money as well. Our Worm farm and Bountiful Backyards workshops have been very popular and successful and have involved a range of tutors. The Green Fingers garden club for school children has been launched and taken up by a number of schools and individual students. We expect this project to grow and grow.

National Radio, on its Spectrum programme, aired a half-hour-long interview with grafters working on and talking about the orchard project and the skills needed to succeed. Feedback from that broadcast has been excellent. Garden Clubs from near and far have visited our gardens and the Centre in search of inspiration and entertainment and they have found both. We’ve taken our gardening expertise out into the boonies as well, with programmes in Ohai and Mataura causing a stir of the good kind and creating a precedence. Visits to various of the regions Garden Clubs and other interested groups, like the Waianiwa Woman’s Institute have had similar results. The requests keep coming in and look like they won’t stop any time soon. Next is Manapouri.

Radar and his film crew came, filmed and left … left us waiting for the broadcast, that is and wondering what it is they would show, but in the shakedown, it was all good and did nobody any harm. As a result of his visit, Radar has engaged to perform his ’Eating the Dog’ stage show here in Riverton in August. We flew the flag for the 350 movement at Oreti beach, drawing attention to the increasing amounts of green house gas in the atmosphere and making the Southland Times in the process. Our very own Marijke Aalders took out the title of Southland Gardener of the Year with her skills and beautiful garden and received a raft of prizes as a result. The Community Trust of Southland committed to a further round of generous support for the Society and we are very grateful to them for that. Chris and Jolene came aboard our jolly ship and now help us in their specialised ways, whatever they might be - it’s all out of my league and I don’t meddle with their business. They do it well though, it’s obvious. The Organic Group turned 20 during this time. They are a fantastic group and deserved their party. They’ll get another when they turn 40.

Lyndsay McGarry, whom we all knew to be a mighty character, died and we were all saddened by his passing, but at the same time amused by the humour in which he did it. “I told you I was sick” was the perfect message for Lyndsay to leave for us. The Rural heritage day was a wild and wet event, but went ahead anyway. We bravely manned our displays and talked with a lot of other brave Southland souls who weren’t afraid to venture out into the tempest. The clothing recycling parties and natural cosmetics evenings were are roaring success I’m told. I didn’t attend, but ate the leftover the next day (cosmetics, not fashion). We visited Orepuki and Pahi as part of our learning picnics programme (just made that title up because I couldn’t remember what we called our visiting programme. It was fun though.)

I went to Ellerslie and promoted the Centre and Riverton like crazy. We held the very successful Heritage Harvest Festival. It ran very well and there were satisfied people every where. The Harvest Feast was especially marvellous. Estuary Care banners flew in the main street for a couple of months, advertising one of the activities the Society supports. They now hang from the beams in the Centre. Our mural caused and continues to cause a splash in the town. Very colourful and media attractive. The Arts Centre held the Apple Iconography exhibition in support of out festival and orchard work and we were very pleased to be able to forge stronger bonds with them as a result. Those connections continue to strengthen with the ongoing sculpture happenings and other civic expressions of creativity.

We represented our environmental concerns at the Land Care symposium at Te Rau Aroha marae at Bluff and our Pest Busters at the SERN event on Stewart Island, telling our stories as often as we were able and making good connections with other groups in the country. We expanded upon our Trade Aid activities with an significant increase in the amount of TA stock we carry in the shop and a mini business initiative by Chris Cole. We took an active part in the exploration of the town and surrounds looking to the creation of cycling and walking tracks in cooperation with the Riverton Concept Plan steering committee.

We held a public meetings on the 1080 issue and provided several carloads of keen protesters for the anti mining march in Invercargill (and a very successful protest that has turned out to be). I attended the ECO conference in Lyttleton Harbour on behalf of the Society and some of our umbrella groups. As you hear, we’ve not been resting on our laurels or our bums. We are all increasingly busy here, in the shop and out and about with our projects.

Robert Guyton Chairman SCES

Some of our articles were a selection from Robert’s Blog this month robertguyton.blogspot.com. If you enjoy reading discussions on wider environmental issues he posts new topics 2-3 times a day!