<&>Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English Version One <&>Copyright 1998 School of Linguistics & Applied Language Studies <&>Victoria University of Wellington <&>side one <&>0:12 and coming up to the <.>m poison drop sometime soon how do you feel about it emily coming from a younger perspective i think it's i think quite frankly it's really terrible eh because i mean what what future is there going to be for us you know underneath it's our maunga and we'd like to see other things like um the money that's used go to alternatives there's alternatives we don't have to drop poison on the mountain eh there's um a lot of research could be done into it and i'm sure that there is alternatives like um voc it's just it doesn't need to be done the poison doesn't need to be dropped sniffs <&>1:00 because it's gonna as it's already been proven it's gonna kill a lot of other things other than possums and um tut it's also gonna get into our water ways and how <.>d how do we know that in our generation when we have children and voc and how do we know that's it's not gonna you know that there's not gonna be some rare form of cancer that's caused because of this and how do we know that it's definitely gonna break down there's just not enough been gone into finding out that it's definitely gonna happen like that you know that it is gonna break down we don't know that and you know for our future generations our children and you know us in twenty years not that we're all gonna be here or anything you know in taranaki but for the people who are here it's got to take care of it take care of the maunga it's really important <,> do you think you feel really strongly about <&>2:00 what's happening to the mountain because you're under it you're near it yeah i think i feel really strongly because it's just another one of the things that we're doing to the you know to the earth that that isn't gonna be there in many years to come if we don't take care of it it's just another one of the things i mean we <.>can't we can't just stand by and let it keep happening and happening i mean they they thought agent orange was okay in the sixties and and look what it did you know i mean it's just i think i feel really strongly i do feel strongly about all environmental issues but especially this one i mean it's a beautiful mountain and we live underneath it and we've got to take care of take care of it sure the possums are voc killing it but it's there's other ways to go about you know there's other ways the professional possum trappers say that they <&>3:00 can do it to the extent that the poison can and i think we should give them a go why do you think there's such a conflict of interest between yourselves and say the taranaki regional council who think that it's a a good way to go with the ten eighty poison the regional council wants the job to be done like everybody does but they they want it to be done the cheapest quickest way and um i don't think they've got the energy or the time to put into researching it tut and also um because it's all been organised already before any of the public was told what was going on it's really hard to stop the wheels in motion like you know they've already they've already organised the drop and it's really hard to stop it now and i think they they just want to get the job done and we want to stop them from not <&>4:00 doing the job we're we're into them doing the job and that but just not in the way that they're going about it <,> voc oh <,> yeah like i say i think i think they just want to they haven't got the well they've started they've started you know the wheels in motion for dropping this poison and now it just takes too much effort to stop it i think before the public knew about it they started to voc started the wheels in motion inhales <.>then how does er your um your schoolmates how do they feel about it tut i find generally that not many of them actually know what's going on because of the fact that it's being kept so hidden but the ones that i do speak to and you know who i do explain it to the general feeling is that it's no good whatever you know whatever the possums are doing i think everyone realises that <&>5:00 there's another way to go about it and we all feel that everything that's going on these days in the world this is just another thing to add to it and it just doesn't you know we don't need any more any more to add to the problems already and yeah i think that's what they think as well well you know the people that i've spoken to about it the general feeling from the young people is that you know we shouldn't do this to our mountain do you think do you think a lot of the awareness has to come from say the younger generation yeah i think it does because um tut because it when you come down to it it's in fifty years it's gonna be us and our children that are here and we've seen what has happened from from oh right from the beginning of time to now and how it's how the world is you know the pollution and the poisons and how much damage it's <&>6:00 caused and i think the people need to listen to us because voc um you know we're gonna be the ones who are here in the future and we're trying to do something and make you know the world a bit of a better place for us to live in for you know for <.>the for the future generations to live in and for us <,> now people can get quite <.>emo emotional especially about the mountain yeah do you think emotions <.>y will um play er a heavy part in in trying to um tell people that hey something's going wrong with our mountain they're trying to poison it um i i don't think emotion does have much to do with changing the regional council's point of view because they look at <.>it you know their job is to get the books balanced and you know to get the job done and it's all legal you know <&>7:00 legal i don't know what the word is not not jargon but you know um tut like emotion doesn't have much to do with it in their point of view but for us to tell the people i think it does to help people to understand i mean everyone gets quite emotional about things like this because you know of the fact that it is our mountain and we live right underneath it and um if we can get that point across to people well then that's i think you know i think using emotion does get that point across to people do you think that um the taranaki regional council and doc have taken a a <.>im impersonal you know a very alienated um look at at the mountain and the <.>e <{><[>eradication process <[>yeah yeah i think they have eh they haven't i mean they i don't think they've realised that that they live underneath it as well or i i don't know if they've realised what they're doing but they don't seem to listen like we had a meeting <&>8:00 last week and they don't seem to listen to the people the people put them in there and now they've just <.>sh shut themselves away from the people and they're not listening to us you know they they have taken a really impersonal impersonal attitude towards it all i mean their attitude now is that it's it's started and we as the people no matter how emotional we get we're not gonna stop it and um yeah i think that's i'd see it as impersonal yeah the way that they've gone about it and as a young person as a sixteen year old underneath the mountain how would you like them yeah what would you like them to do tut what would i like them to do if you could talk to them now or if you could say something what would you say i'd like to say you know listen to us and look around at at the world you know and the mistakes that other countries have made and take a stand at stopping the mistakes <.>w i'd <&>9:00 like to ask them why why they think it's been this poison has been banned in other countries if they still believe it's okay i'd like to say that it's not okay for them to use something that has been banned overseas on our mountain and it's yeah i'd just like to tell them that it's not good enough they've got to listen to the people it's just you know they can't go about things doing what the people don't want because we put them in there we put the regional council into the the power that they're in and now they're just not listening i'd like them to look around at at um the other countries that are now so far gone as far as their poisons and they can't walk on their mountains they can't just you know walk up and kneel and take a drink of the water out of the rivers on their mountains because they're just <&>10:00 so polluted and i just don't want it to happen here <&>10:03 <&>ten seconds where recording stopped and started again <&>10:13 well i think there's a whole lot of issues that sort of people need to know about er and perhaps the first is that you know we we do have a whole lot of um introduced er animals on the mountain like er the possum and they do need getting rid of um tut but i think er personally i think the um the regional council is um stepping outside its policy by going ahead and actually planning this er this drop of poison on the mountain this uncontrolled drop of poison without actually considering and looking at er some of the alternative methods of eradication of the possum before they do that because with this poison dropping then um particularly uncontrolled dropping from the air then there's whole lots of really dangerous sort of side effects coming out of that um <&>11:00 particularly with voc er um the possibility of of the er poison getting into waterways <,> tut now um it's interesting when you talk to regional council people and people advocating the use of ten eighty what they say is that the poison actually breaks down into um harmless byproducts but the interesting thing about one of those um harmless byproducts they talk about is that <.>i it breaks down into a substance called fluoride and um scientific evidence from round the world is showing that um fluoride once it was considered safe but now every area that has had fluoride in its water supplies <.>i it's having um <.>in er they can measure the increase of er hip fractures and bone marrow cancers in young men and hip fractures in elderly women um and all these things are increasing and er i think there's a direct connection there between the potential of you know spraying out this um poison and <&>12:00 then poisoning the people because it's coming down into our water supplies and um i think we really need to question that do you think a lot of people especially a lot of taranaki people are are aware exactly what's happening with the er <.>eradi the poison drop inhales well as time goes by i think they are gonna er they'll be made more and more aware um i believe there's a a march being organised up up the um through new plymouth tomorrow and um we've had um there was a protest meeting called last week which was quite well attended um yeah i think the issue's just starting to become you know the public are just starting to become aware of what's really going to happen and do they know what what kind of <.>e effects it will have on the mountain and on the water <.>s water supply no i don't think so i think the wool's been pulled over their eyes a little bit and um a lot of the harmful effects have being sort of <&>13:00 glossed over like um all the scientific reports i've read indicate that um inhales in areas exhales er well what the poison will have is an effect on the er tut <,> the insect life and thus birds eating the insects will be um affected er any rodents will come out during the day and the moreporks will be able to er um so they'll be prey to bird life sort of er during the day er that's particularly happens with the wetas too they er they get affected they really like eating this bait and of course it wipes them all out um and <,> the effect on the possums themselves when they die they'll sort of burrow up <.>un under trees and that or with the um you know taranaki is er a mountain of water and um any of those possums they get washed down washed to sea er you know it's <&>14:00 quite likely we'll end up with er dead poisoned possums on the beach you know it's bad enough here already we've got enough you know pollution in um tut out in the sea with the er you know all our seafoods then er let alone this as well it's it's totally crazy so basically it will kill off the possums but it's um likely to harm other animals and also the land as well okay the estimates of er possum kills vary from between um our er measurements that have been done in other areas around the country indicate that the um effectiveness of this particular poison can go from zero percent up to ninety percent there's no doubt about it it can kill possums but um what the department of conservation in the coromandel and in northland have er discovered is that um in the longterm land based professional hunters is <.>a are far <&>15:00 better than um using the poison far more effective socially environmentally and economically so um you know the taranaki er department of conservation and and regional council i think have been a bit um well they've been stepping outside their sort of policy really by steaming ahead and going you know going for this poison drop without really giving the people a chance to come up with proposals and er you know look at a land based um eradication methods through through hunting before they sort of consider all this dropping poison on the mountain then what's the taranaki environmental education trust's stance on on the whole matter well the trust itself is sort of er geared up to um tut er look at all possible ways that um we can develop a sustainable future and <&>16:00 tut um yeah we're really keen that the possums that we form some effective eradication method um to get rid of them cos you know if we just let them go unchecked um the levels of the bush will go down and down and we'll just end up with a desert so with a mountain sitting in a desert and that'll be a real tragedy so what what we're pursuing at the moment or would like to be able to pursue further is to run some education programmes alongside um the conservation corps programme that we're already running and to investigate the downstream effect of of by being able to say um catch some possums and like we're exploring the idea of being able to get um this new electronic trap so we can and then to be able to um tut skin them and to tan them and to make clothes and i'm sure if when we do that then that'll open <&>17:00 up a whole whole wide range of possibilities for our young people to er you know to increase their skills to er to be able to utilise something that's that's there and also to help get rid of it and then protect the forest at the same time and for the youth organised down at the conservation corps and we're also building um biological toilets you know composting one that don't need water so we don't have to flush everything down the river and um we could equally set up or be involved in the setting up of er so we'd have to sort of develop contracts with the hunters and then at the same time develop contracts with um <,> doc to facilitate their payment and then er we'd have to look at then utilising the skins and er <.>y you know not only sending them off to <.>m market to get priced but to start that sort of development of people doing stuff with the products <,> but even that is a far better initiative than <&>18:00 anything else that the regional council or doc have come up with isn't it yeah well it's a tragedy see they're if they're allowed to go ahead they're just going to spray the stuff around and then er all the possums will be left up there dead and so it's like er you know each each possum represents so much native bush and it's just like going up there with a chain saw and laying waste um large areas of the bush and it's in a national park tut now the fact that these possums are up there eating the bush anyway it's far better that we um clears throat do whatever we can to pull them out and then use them <,,> <{><[>seems <[>just just to leave them up there as er poison lumps of meat is inhales it's disaster seems pretty obvious that that the environmental way to go is is so much easier and more effective why voc have hasn't it been taken on board well clears throat in other areas like um i just <.>had i just had a big talk last night to a <&>19:00 chap in the coromandel and he was saying that he's <.>qui he was very much surprised that um doc and taranaki have taken this attitude of er of using poison before they've explored the alternatives of land based hunting because in the coromandel and the maurihau they're actually doing that <.>th the hunters are seen as a better alternative than using than using poisons and also in northland the same thing's occurring hunters are being used before the er the poisons they've learned that er you know it's better to use people so it looks like taranaki has to make a mistake before they actually learn well hopefully not you know hopefully we'll get them to see the common sense and er you know i think it's a case of people just standing up and being counted and saying hey this is not the way to go you know we don't poison the mountain we don't poison our water supplies um we have to start looking after the place and we can do that best by just getting out there and physically sorting out the possum problem <&>20:00 <&>end of sample