Sundarban is the world’s largest mangrove forest and a UNESCO world’s heritage site.The construction of this coal power plant will definitely have a devastating and irreversible impact on the Sundarbans, its ecology and biodiversity.This project violates the environmental impact assessment guidelines for coal-based thermal power plants. Large amounts of fly ash, coal dust and sulphur, and other toxic chemicals are released throughout the life of the project.

This new road will damage the "physically, spiritually and socially significant" Mimitangiatua River and Mangapēpeke Stream of Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Tama and Poutama. It will destroy 44.4 hectares of indigenous forest and wetlands that are home to dozens of threatened native species such as the North Island Brown Kiwi, Archey's frog, Long-tail Bats, Fernbirds, North Island Robins, Giant Kōkopu and Shining Cuckoo. This proposal is opposed by the Department of Conservation, Forest & Bird and landowners who are being forced from their homes. Some iwi are yet to be fully consulted and other iwi are still deciding, being so far unsatisfied with mitigation offers. Mangapēpeke means 'frog stream' and frogs are a well known environmental health indicator species. No amount of proposed tree planting and pest control can mitigate the damage actual forest removal and pest introduction this road will cause. The 'bypass' should not go ahead. It makes no sense to destroy ancient forest communities just so cars and trucks can get from A to B a few minutes quicker. The touted safety improvements do not stack up when well-known fog and black ice in the proposed area is taken into account. Nor when increased speeds will also increase accident rates. The age of large truck transportation is coming to an end as fossil fuels become ethically unaffordable. So let's be practical, do we really need a brand new $200million road? It is time to move on from fossil road projects and create a vibrant, sustainable Taranaki economy. An upgrade of the existing road makes far more sense.

Auckland Council is proposing to destroy all of the Pines together with “up to 70%” of the regenerating native bush using industrial-scale clear felling. Council plans to replant a native forest that will take 30-50 years to establish, providing it is properly maintained. Council plans to run an 8m-wide track into the under-storey, flattening a natural knoll in the process, to bring in heavy equipment to clear fell. Council plans include three skid sites up to 40m wide for dragging logs. The three skid sites alone will totally destroy any vegetation and soil structure. This site will become at very high risk of erosion and instability. The historic Western Springs Monterey Pine Forest, planted in 1923, is the only urban forest of its size in central Auckland, containing some of the tallest trees in Auckland. The under-storey is a 90+ year old regenerating native forest. It provides habitat for native and exotic birds (including Morepork, swallows, tui, fantail and heron), insects (including huhu) and other fauna. This forest offers one of the very few Auckland habitats suitable for the long-tailed bat, a threatened nationally vulnerable species. Historically this forest was recognised as an area of special ecological significance and is currently a Significant Ecological Area (SEA). No ecological studies have yet been done by Auckland Council in relation to this plan. This site will become at very high risk of erosion and instability. Auckland Council, which lacks skills to manage this forest safely, have been damaging its integrity for years with inappropriate felling and topping. Council have also failed to re-plant, despite promises to residents. The pines predisposed to failure can be surgically removed, by skilled arborists, with minimal damage to the native under-storey. Council appears to have failed to consider many issues and risks in their planning - most especially the key issue of lack of maintenance. The new native plantings will require even more maintenance than now. Local residents have never been consulted on this proposal. They are really worried about the potential risks to their concrete houses and the possible consequences of this project destabilising the hillside. Residents are still waiting for Council and Waitemata Local Board to provide the detail of the plans. Council and the Board are not being open and transparent nor will they provide copies of all the expert reports, including safety plans and geotechnical information, being relied on to support their decision. Residents want Council to enter immediately into a partnership with local residents on the management and preservation of this historic forest SEA. Residents will set up a volunteer guardianship group to work with Council to maintain the safety of this forest and to help develop and maintain the Forest for the benefit of future generations. The Resource Consent allowing destruction of the forest and the naturally regenerating native bush MUST NOT be granted. Your signature will help persuade Council and the Board to do the right thing. Please Volunteer: westernspringsvolunteers@gmail.com

Heartbreaking how immigration New Zealand's recently discovered profiling system seeks to tear apart a family in mourning. It is simply an unjust and unfair system that predicts possiblity of threat. I have appealed on behalf of this family on multiple occasions but responses seem to indicate that this family's plight is falling on deaf ears. Hon. Minister, the deportees in question, Tawaketini and Josese Gaunavou have appealed on humanitarian grounds, but unfortunately the bureaucracy of the system refuses to understand their circumstances or even review their case. The brothers are expected to leave New Zealand and their widowed mother and younger siblings and return to Fiji, a place that no longer holds anything for them. All we seek is that this case be reconsidered, that the deportation liability be overturned because I don't believe New Zealand can be so heartless and unrelenting in their approach to humanity and the plight of those we bring into New Zealand. This family has had to liquidate all their assets back in Fiji to be able to give their children a hope for a future here in New Zealand and in the last 8 years have spent over $114,000 in education for their children and immigration cost and now that New Zealand has their hard earned savings, the system is dispensing of them like used rags. Please consider this mother's plea.....her children have never broken the law, have had great positive influence on the youth in their community but that doesn't seem to phase anyone in ministry. Again, please allow this mother to keep her family together and her sons the ability to make a future for themselves.

We're sick of seeing the state of our rivers getting worse. Dairy intensification is continuing in Southland. Wetlands are still being destroyed. More cows are being piled onto our Southland Plains. More cows mean more sick rivers. The central Southland plains are geologically similar to the Canterbury plains - porous glacial outwash gravel. Like Canterbury, it is the wrong place for intensive industrial dairying. Like Canterbury, Too Many Cows are destroying our rivers and threatening our aquifers. We want our rivers to be swimmable but also liveable for the creatures that depend on them for life, such as trout, galaxids, bullies, mudfish and tuna eels, as well as the mayflies, beetles and others. In 2012 Environment Southland said they would work to improve the state of our rivers. They expected a 10% improvement by 2020. Since then, the quality of Southland rivers has continued to deteriorate. We need a stop to more cows - a sinking lid policy on intensification and support for farmers to transition away from intensified dairying to lower impact regenerative farming. We demand Environment Southland to pay more than lip service to cleaning up our rivers: • Stronger regulations with enforceable prosecutions. No more stock in our rivers and streams. • No more draining of wetlands. • No new dairy conversions or intensification of current farms - we need an enforceable sinking lid policy. Cow numbers need to go down, not up. • Intensive winter grazing must be phased out (this is where the worst nitrogen leaching and sediment runoff occurs). Replace with fewer cattle numbers and wintering barns. • Active support for transition away from intensive to regenerative farming If you care about the health of our rivers and the quality of our water, SaveOurWater- Otago/Southland asks you to please sign this petition. (you can also find us on facebook) Today we visited Environment Southland and showed them firsthand whats lurking on our riverbeds https://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/102454510/poo-protest-at-environment-southland http://www.channel39.co.nz/news/frustrations-dumped-environment-southlands-door Listen to this podcast with Jenny Campbell on Radio Southland to hear why http://www.accessradio.org/Player.aspx?eid=fb84139b-e3e9-488d-8945-f29a96069ee4

For the sake of wildlife, our climate, our oceans and creeks, we urgently need to phase out plastic shopping bags now.The Council is consulting on the Waste Management and Minimisation Plan. But the scope of the plan does not include a phase out of plastic shopping bags. Sign here to tell Council this is an top priority. In 2015 the Local Government Conference called on central Government to introduce a levy and phase out single use plastic bags. In 2017 Auckland mayor Phil Goff signed an open letter calling on the government to do the same, or enable Councils to charge their own levy. Currently Councils are unable to apply a levy to plastic bags. However, they can do many things, such as work in communities and with retailers to educate and support the phase out. It's time Council instructed staff to act on this urgently. 17,000 tonnes of soft plastics were sne tto landfill in 2016. Considering the light weight of plastic bags this is a huge number. Time to ban the bag.

Straw Free Waiheke is committed to make Waiheke plastic straw free. We're already halfway there with 36 venues pledging to ditch plastic straws. But we need your help, and your voice, to achieve the dream of ridding our island paradise of plastic straws? Over 500,000 straws are being produced every day globally. Unfortunately, a vast majority of these straws end up in our streets and seas. In a year, it has been estimated that at least 1 million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles are harmed when they entangle themselves in or ingest plastic pollution littered in our oceans.

The Tegel application documents can be found here in the update comment. It is a joint application to the KDC and the NRC Resource consent applications made to NRC include: the taking and use of groundwater, the diversion of surface water as a result of flood protection works the discharge of contaminants (mainly odour) to air earthworks for the development of the site and quarrying Application number - NRC APP.039494.01.01 Enquiries about NRC applications Stuart Savill Phone: 09 470 1101, free phone 0800 002 004 Email: stuarts@nrc.govt.nz

Single-use disposable plastic bags are not recycled and although often reused, they pollute and poison the marine and land environment and negatively impact human and animal health. The ingestion of plastic in our sea waters seriously threatens turtles, whales, sea birds and myriad other creatures. Plastic bags take several hundred years to break down leaving microscopic pieces of highly toxic plastic in the environment as they fissure. Toxicity from plastic components has been scientifically linked to metabolic disorders and threats to fertility in humans and sea creatures. Stopping the use of single-use disposable plastic bags is a relatively easy way we can make a positive difference.

Labour have acknowledged that cannabis is a medicine by proposing to amend the law so that terminally ill patients no longer risk going to jail for possession or use of medicinal cannabis. With this in mind, medicinal cannabis should be available for doctors and medical practitioners to prescribe as they would any other medicine. This includes for chronic pain such as migraines, degenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis, mental health issues such as stress and all cancer treatments, regardless of whether terminal or not, to name a few. The fact is, Labour are continuing National's precedent in denying New Zealanders our human right to access medicine. Currently, Labour's Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill does not go anywhere near far enough increasing access for those who need it. The Bill so far has the full support of the National Party and is not what the voting public had in mind when Labour campaigned on legalising medicinal cannabis. Now is the time to have YOUR say. Submissions to the Health Select Committee are now open until the 21st of March, and we encourage everyone who wants better access to medicinal cannabis for ALL sick New Zealanders to write a submission, regardless of length. With around 70-80% of Kiwis in favour of better access, please share this petition far and wide and encourage friends and family to also write a submission and engage in our democracy. https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/bills-and-laws/bills-proposed-laws/document/BILL_75877/misuse-of-drugs-medicinal-cannabis-amendment-bill Proposed Bill wording: 'The Bill will introduce an exception and a statutory defence for terminally ill people to possess and use illicit cannabis and to possess a cannabis utensil.'

The plastic problem in the environment and in the ocean is ever increasing. Recently on a short haul flight I was very upset and disappointed to see the amount of plastic that was used. I thought about the fact that this was just one flight, I thought about all the other flights that day and the day after and the amount of plastic those flight must produce. On that same flight I read an article in the Air NZ magazine talking about the good work they are doing to contribute to conservation and offset carbon. The amount of damage carbon emissions do is massive, so why not limit the amount of damage done in all other areas. I believe one way that Air NZ could really make a difference is to stop using so much plastic!! As a leading airline that represents New Zealand, bringing millions of people from all over the world to our shores, I believe they have a responsibility to set a good example and lead the movement to end single use plastics in this country. For example they could use biodegradable cups, filtered water served in metal jugs instead of using bottled water. Milk from a jug instead of small plastic throw away containers. Paper or biodegradable rubbish bags, there are many sustainable options available. Some of them made right here in Aotearoa. We should all be doing our bit to support local businesses and protect the environment. How about you, Air New Zealand - will you do the right thing? Will you make the move to a healthier and more sustainable Aotearoa for future generations?!

There is poo on our beaches! Auckland's waterways and beaches are seriously polluted by stormwater regularly contaminated by sewage, trade waste, heavy metals, toxins, chemicals, and oils thanks to years of inaction by the council, and fear of rate rises. We need urgent action so that New Zealanders can enjoy our urban waterways and beaches without fear of sickness or injury or swimming with poo and we protect our freshwater and marine organisms from pollution and destruction. We need action now, not in 10 years time. Give us back our beaches, estuaries, lagoons streams and rivers! This campaign is about raising peoples’ awareness of what is going on under our feet with inadequate infrastructure to cope with climate change and the massive intensification of Tamaki Makaurau, the Auckland region. So far there is almost a sole emphasis on rural areas and the problems intensive farming is causing to our rural waterways and lakes. This is really important. but so is the disgraceful state of many urban waterways and beaches where people are now regularly being told they cannot swim. These problems have been neglected and overlooked for too long. This is not the Aotearoa NZ we want our children to grow up in. We have to act now for our own planet's survival, our fresh water and marine life marine, and our children's futures. No more sewage or contaminated stormwater in our backyards and beach environments. We need to work together to clean this up - Māori, Pakeha, diverse communities, churches, community organisations, environmental groups, businesses, political parties, schools, and individuals. Awhina mai!