The council, cats and protecting our frungle
This blog is all out of order. It’s not the one I was planning to share but events have overtaken things. Sailors may want to give it a wide berth too (see what I did there?) as it is about the opposite of water, it’s about *shudder* being a dirt dweller.
Our home
About three years ago Paddy and I bought a house on a piece of land (and before any of you lot start on about me making him swallow the anchor, he was the one who suggested it and he is very happy here – he has a very large garage!)
It has a substantial amount of regenerating scrub behind it, sadly mostly broom, blackberry and Old Man’s Beard, due to years of neglect from being a rental for a decade. It needs a bit of work but its ours and we love it. I called it a forest and Paddy called it a jungle so we compromised and have name it ‘the frungle’.
A bit of bush bashing into the frungle shows old farm tracks with a lot of clear space under a canopy. One day it will be an amazing place for us to wander through and have places to just sit and be. It will need work to get there though, access cleared and I have a vision of a nice terraced garden leading up to it.
We’re not afraid of the hard work needed to get there. When we arrived the garden in front of the house was a mess of infill soil, rocks and tree roots. I cleared the roots, ripped all the rocks out to make a rock garden and have created a lovely flowering area that all the neighbours comment on. We love our little patch of dirt and are doing what we can to make it better for everyone.
The council
Last week we received a flyer in our letter box from the council, with one of those cutesie brochures with cartoon people holding seedlings that you would have to be a nature hater to object to.
It said they wanted to redesignate part of our property as a Significant Natural Area (SNA) and include it in the district plan. The flier included a map that was so tiny it was impossible to tell where our property was on it and a phone number that went straight to an answering machine. When Paddy finally found a copy of the map online that he could expand we discovered they wanted our frungle, the entire section next to us and most of the property our neighbour lives on, along with other neighbouring properties. There are nine of us affected locally. One is away overseas and one threw the flier in the bin because she doesn’t read English. Hardly the most robust consultation.
According to the ‘Our City Tomorrow Planning for Growth’ website there are 160 properties in the Wellington City area affected. Around 50% are owned by the Wellington City Council and the rest is private land.
So why worry about a new property designation? Well this would put our little frungle in the same category as the nearby park filled with walking tracks, wind farms and other areas of special significance – all of which we thoroughly support the need to protect. When Paddy spoke to the council they said not to worry, we can still do what we like with our land – and that might be true, for now. But all it will take is one change in the district plan affecting all the significant natural areas and it’s no building and predator baits in the backyard, and if we complain we don’t have a leg to stand on because it will affect all significant natural assets.
Our family
This is where I know some of my green friends and I differ, and that’s okay. I’m a big fan of live and let live. When I discovered some of the people behind this move were involved with Predator Free Wellington a few alarm bells began to ring.
I love and will always have cats. Cats are family to me and one of the reasons we bought where we did was because it was a cat friendly area. It’s off a cul-de-sac, away from traffic with a decent enough sized backyard to keep a meow happy and not prowling.
I wake up every morning to the sound of birds not being murdered by my cat. She is well-fed and drugged (catnip) and gets lots of love and attention. In the year plus we have had her here her prey count has been zero birds and one live mouse I had to move to a safer location myself. She is a menace to anything stuffed with catnip and and utter thug when it comes to other cats. There are actually less moggies in our frungle since she arrived.
Before Tilly (aka Dingbat) arrived there was Ollie. In 16 years his bird count was two and one we are pretty sure flew in the window, got stunned and was passed off as his own catch. He was so proud when he did find something (live mice usually) that I find it hard to believe he led a savage, bird corpse-strewn double life. Once, when moving flats, we discovered a massive mouse hole behind the beanbag he slept on. Not only that, the mice had also been pulling rubble from inside the walls to build a little ramp for easier access. I had to respectfully ask him to hand in his cat card after that.
I find it hard to believe that I have had the only two dud cats in the world when it comes to hunting and I think if you make sure they are well-fed and entertained your backyard tuis will be safe. Ours certainly are.
It sounds a bit paranoid but there are areas around the country now where you can’t replace your cat when they die and I suspect those places probably started their lives as SNAs.
Treating everyone like an arsehole
Don’t get me wrong, I have zero issues with council land and reserves being declared SNAs. I just want to know that we can keep our own piece of dirt, the one that we pay a mortgage and rates on, safe for us and our family and protected for the future. I would like us to be trusted to look after our own backyard.
One area that has managed to work with its community and agree to voluntary protection of privately owned natural resources is the Hutt City Council. Their mayor apologised to the community for the distress the situation had caused and committed to working with them to protect their natural resources rather than doing it to them.
“With the involvement of mana whenua, land owners and other groups, we will be able to lift the profile of this issue and it will give us the opportunity to understand more about the importance of biodiversity to our community, as well as what we can do as a community to protect and enhance it.”
For this the council is now being sued by Forest and Bird.
According to Forest and Bird’s North Island regional manager “Voluntary arrangements on their own won’t be enough to protect and restore our native bush and wildlife. The good efforts of the majority can be undone by the reckless actions of a few.”
Their solution appears to be that, to get the best out of human nature, you need to treat everybody as though they are going to behave at their worst. Someone might be an arsehole so we will treat all of you like arseholes to make sure that doesn’t happen. That really does seem like flawed logic to me.
This is not what I want to be doing
This whole situation makes me really sad. I am not the sort of person who regularly complains to councils. I used to be a council reporter back in the day and spent just about as much time in council chambers as they did. I know how hard they work and I know you can’t please everyone..
I am a greenie. I never, ever thought I would be in a position where I would be opposing Forest and Bird. I am for policy about protecting the environment. Paddy and I often have spirited discussions about banning plastic bags. I’m all for it and he reckons noone has ever asked a dolphin whether they like the taste of plastic or not (don’t worry he’s winding me up – he uses reusable bags!). I am for protecting the planet for the next generation.
I’m a dirty leftie. I am all for public health and public education and putting my taxes towards benefiting all of us, particularly those worse off. I don’t believe in holing up in our private worlds, doing what we want and not caring about anyone else, but we need to do this together.
To the Wellington City Council,
If you come between me and my home and my family, I will fight you. And I don’t want to fight you, I want to work with you. Considering local body elections are coming up really soon, I would hope you feel the same.
The petition
As a group of concerned residents we are starting a petition on behalf of our community and those around the city who may not be aware of what may be happening to their land. We hope the council will take notice of this and work with us rather than against us. If you would like to support us, please visit the Welink below
Wellington City Council, trust us with our own backyards (change.org petition)
