Getting the track sorted between Seddonville and Mokihinui Forks could be a task and a half from what I remember but it’ll be interesting to see it finished. I’ve only been there the one time, and I remember a few small sections that seemed very dodgy just to walk through given how they fell away.

This makes much of Meridians evidance out of date. More people are using the area than they estimate, and you don’t have to chopper into raft the river. Their evidance relys heavily on the Mokihinui Track being in a poor and deteriorating state.

It sucks to hear it’s still going, although I guess that’s still better than it going ahead. Last time I submitted on a power company plan, and read the other submissions, it was brilliantly clear how the energy corps were doing their best to completely overwhelm the councils and re-write their laws from them (certainly a very ‘we can handle all that detail for you’ sort of attitude). There’s tens of millions available in money to burn in hiring policy analysts and legal experts to write their ideal laws and argue their case. It might be that often there are good points being made, but I get concerned about how DoC in particular is handling its recent funding cuts, and what this does to its legislated advocacy role long term. DoC is really the only organisation with the resources necessary to critically analyse some of the submissions that come from energy companies , and mining companies for that matter, from the perspective of environmental longevity and to take it the full distance and keep all the stakes in the open submissions process where people can see them. Environmental advocacy is about much more than publishing a blog that reminds people the environment exists, but unfortunately the Conservation Act doesn’t define it too clearly, I don’t think.)

I don’t remember suggesting a boycott, though I can see why some people would do that. (I’m not entirely sure it’d work for myself, given how abstracted New Zealand’s generators are from the retailers.)