I had read about this book on the oilcrash.com site, and I mention the book and the author on my page More environmental thoughts. I am certainly not a professional book reviewer, and I have no training in such matters, having failed my English "O" level first time, though I have reviewed The Great Unravelling and the novel, Perfume, on Amazon. By far and away the most important aspect of a book for me is - did I enjoy reading it? The book has to please no-one but me and I am not specifically writing a review for anyone else. If others find my review interesting or valuable, then I will be happy about that, but is not my main aim in writing it. More, it is to get my own thoughts in order about what the book means to me, and as an aide-memoir. If the book illuminates or relates to comments I have made elsewhere on my internet site, then this is valuable to me in keeping my site up to date and relevant.

I purchased Collapse for NZ$39 in Johnsonville, and there were a good number of copies for sale. Having read the book, this cheers me, as there will be a good number of people, hopefully, who will purchase it and come to enjoy it and find it as stimulating as I did. Collapse is written by Jared Diamond (link), who is something of a polymath -he started his career as a physiologist but has expanded his learning into geography and environmental studies. He calls on all his various skills and knowledge in this book, to weave a very interesting and salutary tale about human history and different early societies' environmental impacts, and as importantly bring the present day under the same sort of scrutiny - the only difference being that we know the outcome for our ancient civilisations but we don't yet know, though may fear, the outcome of our present one.

Here's a thorough resume of this book:

Jared Diamond starts by introducing his book to the reader, with a plan of the chapters to come, the subject matter and the nature of the arguments he will present. In this introduction he states the five principal factors that he uses to analyse what has happened, or is now happening, to the societies he is examining. I might as well state them here:

The damage that people inadvertantly inflict on their environment.

Climate change, i.e. natural changes in local or global climates.

Hostile or competing neighbours.

Decreased support by friendly neighbours.

The society's response to its problems, environmental or other.

Jared Diamond's book is divided into four unequal pieces. The first and smallest piece is about the southwest of Montana in the present day. This is one long chapter on the environmental issues facing this part of America, which would, Jared states, indeed be a collapsed society, except that it is a small part of a much bigger society that can still support it. Jared Diamond chose this area because his parents took him on fishing and walking holidays there and he has kept up his friendship with the local people of the Bitterroot Valley. He examines the troublesome environmental legacy of mining, the problems of making a living from farming, the subdivision of farms purchased by wealthy outsiders, water issues, pollution, soil impoverishment, salinisation, deforestation, forest mismanagement and fires, global warming and snow resources, introduced pests, and loss of fishing. In other words, that relatively small area, a beautiful and desirable area of the USA in which to live, has an understory of serious environmental problems that aren't immediately apparent but which, nonetheless, threaten the very viability of the region and its ability to support its human population. Southwest Montana is shown to be a modern microcosm of the areas examined in the second part of the book.



The second, and longer, part is Jared Diamond's examination of the collapse of some ancient societies. The first is Easter Island. This small island, discovered by Dutch explorers on Easter Sunday, 5th April 1722, amazed the dicoverers with its bare and barren form, being completely treeless, but set around the coastline were truly massive solid stone statures of figures set on a series of platforms, with their backs to the sea and their gaze to the interior. The statues were an amazing enigma, because there seemed to be no possible mechanism by which they could have got there. There was no timber for sleds or frames, nor any material for ropes or pulleys or rollers. The few thousand , rather miserable inhabitants found by the Dutch, seemed quite incapable of accomplishing such a task. I read Aku-Aku when I was a boy of twelve, and it seemed such a romantic story. The enigma was only solved after examination of the island's ponds and debris made it clear that at the time of Easter Island's initial settlement there was an abundant forest of very large trees. The painstaking archeological detective work done by the many archeologist and scientists who have visited Easter Island and that has allowed Jared Diamond and others to reconstruct the island's history - there being no written record and only the meanest oral record - is truly remarkable. Basically the inhabitants of Easter Island committed ecological suicide. In a sentence, the forest that sustained them, of which they built their houses, which they use to erect their statues and construct their canoes with which they caught their fish, was cut down to the last tree, and their fate was sealed. Their's was a isolated society from which there could be no escape and no rescue. Of course, Jared Diamond is making a supremely important point here. If we were to extend the Easter Island experience as a metaphor for the present day, then all of humanity is an isolated society living on an unfathomably remote island in the vastness of space; our statues and our worship is our consumerist society and the felling of that abundant forest is our unsustainable abuse and plundering of our natural environment. And just as for the Easter Islanders, if we fail to heed the warnings in our society, there will equally be for us no escape nor any thought of rescue.



Jared Diamond next travels to three other islands in the eastern Pacific, Managareva, Pitcairn and Henderson. He attempts to link the experiences and ultimate failure of these islands to four of his stated five principal factors, the missing one being the presence of hostile neighbours. Here he relies quite a lot on supposition - intelligent, interesting and coherent supposition - but supposition nevertheless.

Jared then turns to the fascinating society of the South Western United States, the Anasazi; their sites such as Chaco Canyon are still a wonder to our modern society. Again archeologists have been able to extract amazing information from such things as tree rings and packrat middens. As Jared Diamond says at the start of this chapter, the Anasazi collapse is not only a gripping story, but also illustrates well the themes of human environmental impact, climate change and population problems intersecting and spilling over into warfare and societal collapse swiftly ensuing after attaining peak population and power.



Following chapters in this second part of the book include an examination of the Maya civilisation of the Yucatan peninsula of what is now modern Mexico. This is deliberately included to show how even a large, culturally advanced society living in a reasonably robust ecosystem can still ultimately fail.

An extensive examination then follows of the experiments in colonisation of islands and continents on the fringes of European civilisation in the north Atlantic. From east to west these are the Orkneys and Shetlands, the Faeroes, Iceland, Greenland and ultimately Vinland (Labrador and Newfoundland). This part of Jared's book is perhaps the least successful in my view. Jared's thesis is that despite observing how the Inuit were able to thrive in such an unforgiving environment, the Vikings were stuck in their ways and could not adapt to self-inflicted environmental damage and the changing climate - "The Viking way of life is not negotiable"!. Whilst self-inflicted environmental damage certainly plays a part, at the best of times the Greenland colony, on which Jared Diamond pays the most attention, was a marginal endeavour. I think it likely that many people would consider that major climate change, the so-called Little Ice Age, would have been quite sufficient on its own to render the Greenland colony untenable and cause great hardship for the colony in Icleland. However these chapters are interesting, and of course Iceland has managed to adapt and survive despite the vicissitudes ot the climate and undoubted major environmental damage. Indeed, Iceland is now, on a per capita basis, one of the world's richest countries.



Still in the second part of the book we now come to examine three rather different societies that have succeeded in surviving up to the present day. First is Papua New Guinea hill tribes. who appear to have discovered a sustainable agriculture to provide for their relatively modest needs. This Jared Diamond maintains is an example of bottom-up organisation, i.e. coming from the combined and learned experience of the ordinary inhabitants of the area. Second is an examination of the island of Tikopia in the south west Pacific, midway between the Solomon and Vanuatu archipelagoes. This island, not a tourist destination, was the subject of a classic anthropological and ethnographical examination by the New Zealander, Raymond Firth, who published the book We, the Tikopia in 1936. (He died only three years ago at the age of 100) This society turns out to be a bottom-up and top-down success. In other words, the whole society from chiefs to ordinary people co-operate to limit population growth and keep the forests productive. Finally in the part of the book Jared Diamond examine Japan, a densely populated country with a total population now of 126 million and a population density of 340 per sq km (UK 250). Despite these figures, Japan is by a long way the most forested advanced nation in the world, still about 70% forested (New Zealand about 30%). In the late 1600s Japan was rapidly being denuded of trees and deforestation would threaten the viability of the Japanese population. Yet this population too managed to deal with this problem, treatises on silviculture were published, and the shoguns (the top-down) made sure that re-afforestation continued.



We now reach the third part of Jared Diamond's Collapse. Entitled modern societies, here are examined the Rwanda genocide, the island of Hispaniola and the different experiences of the two halves of this island, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, before turning to modern day China. Jared Diamond calls the tragedy of Rwanda " a Malthusian crisis" - in other words the stresses on this society of overpopulation, poverty and food shortage were the ultimate, if not the proximate, cause of this ghastly genocide. In Hispaniola Jared Diamond contrasts the extreme poverty and environmental degradation of Haiti, the poorest country in Latin America, with the better life in the Dominical republic, which would seem to be due to the environmental foresight of who would have otherwise appeared to be the typical Latin American dictator, Joaquin Balaguer. He used all the powers that such a dictatorship gave him, including shooting illegal loggers and bulldozing wealthy Dominican's mansions in the Nation Parks. No-one knows why Balaguer behaved like this and why he was so fixated on keeping and improving the nation's forests and environment. Jared Diamond thinks that he was what he said he was, just a committed environmentalist. For the chapter on China, Jared Diamond starts by stating that China's environomental problems are severe, and are likely to get worse.



The final country to be scrutinised in Collapse is our own near neighbour, Australia. This is a 35 page chapter and makes fascinating and worrying reading. He makes an ironic point at the start that the way Australia is "mining" its forests and fisheries, they will be completely depleted long before its iron and coal reserves, the irony being that the former are renewable, the latter aren't. We are told that Australia's soils are the most unproductive of any continent - the soil is unbelievably old and leeched of all its goodness, and there are no geological processes in Australia to renew them. Australia has the third largest exclusive marine zone in the world yet the value of its fisheries is 55th. Probably the most worrying environmental issue for Australia today is the salinisation of its soils. Being an ancient continent, salt has built up under the soil, up to as much as 100 kg salt / sq m of surface area. The practice of clearing land of forest, cropping and irrigation, overgrazing and high levels of immigration has made the problems of environmental degredation ever more urgent for the burgeoning population.



Part four of the book is entitled "Practical Lessons" . It starts by asking "Why do some societies make disastrous decisions?". Here Jaren Diamond sums up the factors examined in the earlier parts of the book, such as environmental fragility, the importantion of societal norms that do not help in a new environment, the insidiousness of much environmental degredation (the terms "creeping normalcy" and "landscape amnesia" are used) and what is identified as the commonest problem, the unwillingness or inability to take action even when the problem is identified. This is identified as a "rational behaviour" of conflicting interests. Additionally Jared Diamond talks about "the tragedy of the commons" where a commonly owned interest is not protected because it makes no sense for one person to protect the resource if others are only to ignore this or take advantage. It is painfully difficult for people in society to abandon core values when they seem to be incompatible with survival.

A very interesting chapter pertains to the experience of big business and environmental issues. Whilst it is certainly true that much big business has a very bad environmental record, Jared Diamond is able to give examples where this is not the case, and how such companies have been able to benefit from their good environmental record.

Chapter 16 brings a catalogue of the most pressing environmental issues facing all of us, and he makes the rather sobering thought that if only 11 of these issues are dealt with, the 12th could still kill us! Chapter 17 brings us issues related to unsustainable urbanism and transport issues, and the final chapter has a very worthwile list of answers to one-liner objections that those wanting to dismiss environmental concerns are wont to use. Here are some:

The environment has to be balanced against the economy - this argument presupposes that looking after the environment is more expensive than not doing so. But this puts the truth backwards, environmental messes cost us huge sums to put right, eg. avoidable sickness, toxic waste cleanup, loss of farmland, flood damage etc. etc.

Technology will solve our problems - This expression of faith in future technology presupposes that past technology has always solved more problems than it has created. Self-evidently this cannot be true, otherwise we would not be having to solve all the problems we now have. And if we agree with this argument we must also agree, that as from today, all technology will help solve old problems, and not create new ones of their own.

If we exhast one resource, we can find another one to substitute. - such claims often ignore the long time frame of development of such resources, and tend to down play the likely problems.

There is plenty of food in the world, our distribution needs to be improved, or GM food and farming technology will deal with this. - the flaw in these arguments are that so far rich countries have shown very little interest in providing their excess food to poorer countries, and even if we did improve third world nutrition, without a proper family planning programme, burgeoning populations will bring back Malthusian problems.

Where is the problem? We have never been wealthier or healthier or longer-lived, we are improving our environment. - this is the lot of the wealthier nations certainly but 80% of the population still live in poverty and near starvation. We should note that the decline of past societies often occured precipitously only a decade or two after their peak power, population and wealth.

Why should we believe doom and gloom merchants? Look how often they've been wrong. - Yes, but then predictions of the optimists have often been just as wrong the other way, for instance, how the green revolution will feed the world. There may well have been false alarms in the past, but false alarms don't stop us paying for a fire-service, or insuring our houses.

Most countries can accommodate human population growth, it brings economic activity, wealth, inventiveness. - this is a very commonly heard argument of economists, politicians and business. Check the statistics, the bigger the country, the poorer (in size, China, India, the US, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Russia, Japan, Bangladesh) The wealthiest countries, the smaller. (Luxembourg, Norway, the US, Switzerland, Denmark, Iceland, Austria, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands) In particular the wealthiest countries have low population growth, 1% or less, the bigger, poorer countries high growth, except China, forced population control, Russia, increasingly dire health. (If you read my internet site, I have long said that high immigration is destructive to our economy and personal wealth.)

Environmental concerns are an affluent First World concern, who shouldn't be foisting their views on others. - if fact it is the Third World that is bearing the brunt of environmental destruction, and third world inhabitants are well aware of this.

These concerns are too remote for us to deal with - in fact most and maybe all the environmental concerns mentioned in the book will become acute within the life time of young adults now alive.

Jared Diamond then finally draws the threads of his book together, how the experiences of older civilisations, which at first sight don't seem to compare with those of modern societies, can be compared, and how we, as individuals in such a large complex society can act to achieve change.

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So there we are, my review of Collapse has metamorphosed into a rather detailed synopsis, and I haven't even started the review yet! So here is my abbreviated review:

Did I enjoy the book? Yes. Very much yes.

Was the book moving? It was at turns enlightening, moving, concerning, frightening.

Was it well written? Yes, but some editing would have been helpful.

Is the book important? It is difficult to think of anything more important than the subject of this book.

Should you read the book? Yes, unless you are one of those right-wing bigots who's "reviews" are published in the Amazon book pages, "reviewers" who are basically just slagging off at Jared Diamond.

Do you need to buy the book having read such a detailed synopsis?! Yes. Support an excellent writer and a concerned environmentalist.

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There are a number of internet site that I would like to list below, with comments. I have not directly linked them to the synopsis above, but you should have no difficulty understanding what subject the reference pertains to. Note also that Jared Diamond provides a comprehensive bibliography.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0670033375/ref=cm_rv_thx_view/002-0418241-9351231?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance Read what others think of this book at Amazon.

http://www.energybulletin.net/4624.html An overview of the problem of societal decline, rather shorter that Jared Diamond's book. However the writer attempts much looking into the future, which Jared wisely declines to do. Whilst Collapse contains a lot of new information for me, in fact Jared Diamond's book is not entirely original, and many authors have covered similar ground in the past. However in adding to the volume of work and making it accessible to the public, Jared Diamond is performing a valuable service.

http://www.edwardgoldsmith.com/page53.html In this powerful essay, Edward Goldsmith finds that internal moral and political decay and unsustainable agriculture underlie the fall of the Roman Empire, while the Barbarian invasions were merely the coup de grace. The comparisons with our own society and misguided sense of permanence are unsettling. . One of the criticisms of Jared Diamond's book is that it didn't examine some of the truly major civilisations, such as Mesopotamia or Rome, so here is an article to make up for this deficit. This article was originally published in The Ecologist thirty years ago, July 1975. So this might be a good place for me to admit here that whilst my concerns about enivironmental issues have been present for many years, eg. as a member of Forest and Bird, Greenpeace etc., it is undoubtedly true that I am a johnny-come-lately in understanding the true urgency and revolutionary nature of these issues as compared with people like Edward Goldsmith, who has been eloquently writing and talking about these issues for thirty years, or many other concerned individuals such as Prince Charles.

http://www.ecobooks.com/books/history.htm One of the works acknowledged in Jared Diamond's suggested further readings. Written by Clive Ponting and published in 1993 it would appear to have quite a few similarities with Collapse. A comment I can make here, which I think is very important, is that unless one has a professional training in anthropology, history, archaeology etc. it is difficult for the lay person to refute or argue points made in such books as Ponting's and Diamond's. I suspect they contain quite a lot of simplification, not a few factual errors, and a good deal of supposition. But I am not sure this matters. Sometimes we just need to stand back from the minutiae and survey the overall theme. This is that most civilisations have had their beginning, their apogee and their collapse It is Jared Diamond's thesis that the collapse is mostly related to self-inflicted environmental degredation and over-population, such that the society is no longer able to be sustained. There seems nothing to suggest that our own civilisation won't have a similar arc of history as those other civilisations, if we let it.

http://www.gonorthwest.com/Montana/northwest/Bitterroot_Valley.htm Some tourist information and links. I think it is a comment on what Jared Diamond is writing about that a Google search for Bitterroot Valley comes up with almost nothing but real estate firms.

http://www.netaxs.com/~trance/rapanui.html An Easter Island site with lots of links.

http://mysteriousplaces.com/Easter_Island/html/sites.html An Easter Island site with a good number of photographs

http://www.desertusa.com/ind1/du_peo_ana.html A good overview of the Anasazi people and lots of links to browse.

http://raysweb.net/canyonlands/pages/johnson.html A look at the decline of the Anasazi, citing a much more complicated picture than mere environmental factors.

http://www.civilization.ca/civil/maya/mmc01eng.html A nicely set out site with a lot of information on the Maya

http://www.europhysicsnews.com/full/15/article1/article1.html A technical but fascinating article describing cutting edge physics applied to archeology in Greenland. And interestingly a refutation of Jared Diamond's comments in regard to the Norse Greenlanders not eating fish, they did. This disproves the hypothesis, which is partly advanced by Jared Diamond, that the Norse culture was inflexible and couldn't adapt to change or a sea-based subsistence. In fact this article shows that the Norse gradually increased the amount of food taken from the sea over the four hundred years of their habitation in Greenland. So here Jared Diamond is probably incorrect, and one has to acknowledge in archeology and history there is often a major degree of disagreement on the particulars.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-wood010603.asp A brief overview on Raymond Firth's work in Tikopia

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-wood010603.asp An informative obituary of Raymond Firth from The Guardian .

http://www.japanfs.org/en/newsletter/200303.html The first part of this web page is an interesting article on the sustainable economy of the Edo period of Japan.

http://www.lian.com/TANAKA/englishpapers/cyclical.htm Another web page on the sustainable economy of the Edo period, with a plea for modern society to learn from this. I enjoyed reading this article (written by a Japanese, Yuko Tanaka)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/asia_pacific/1027824.stm A BBC news article on China's pollution

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/world/2002/disposable_planet/waste/chinese_workshop/default.stm A moving photographic essay on the toxic waste problems that rich western nations are exporting to vulnerable countries, including China. I will write to our minister of the environment about this to see what happens to our old computers, and ask her to ban any dumping of them here or exporting them abroad.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/chinaenv.html An overview of environmental issues in China.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/01/12_402.html The Inuit have many words for snow, none for pollution. But that hasn't helped Inuit nursing mothers, who's breast milk contains dangerous levels of mercury, in addition to PCBs, DDT, chlordane, etc.

http://www.cidi.org/humanitarian/hsr/haiti/ixl23.html A summary of environmental issues in Haiti

http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab/salinity/default.htm An up to date article on the problem of salinisation in Australia. So far, 2.5 million hectares of land are seriously affected and a further 15 million hectares at serious risk in the near future. Over the past century, 15 billion trees have been cleared from the Murray-Darling river basin, a similar number from Western Australia and countless others from the rest of Australia. Absurdly, 300,000 hectares are still being cleared every year.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3564857.stm A BBC news page from last year on salinisation of land in Australia

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4443175.stm Even while I was reading the chapter on Australia in Collapse, this news item appeared on the BBC news site. "State governments in Australia have been warned that a funding row threatens "catastrophe" for one of the country's most important river systems. Years of excessive irrigation and drought have left the Murray-Darling river basin in crisis. A decision by officials in New South Wales and Victoria not to commit extra money to help its revitalisation has provoked much anger". This news item does not bring much consolation to the people of that part of Australia. This is an example of Jared Diamond's comment about even when people know there is a problem, they are incapable of dealing with it. The state governments of NSW and Victoria, the Easter Islanders of the so-called lucky country.

http://www.edwardgoldsmith.com/page158.html A detailed and expert review by Edward Goldsmith, of irrigation and salinisations issues around the world. The last part of this report considers the Murray River catchment. Sooner or later, says Goldsmith, the technical fixes will run out: thus the future is bleak for the US Southwest - as, indeed, it is for Sind, Iraq and South Australia. How long will it be before vast areas of those regions are abandoned, their best farmlands being transformed into uninhabited salt encrusted deserts. Go to Edward Goldsmith's home page and browse his site. Goldsmith was the founder of Ecology magazine.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab/rome/default.htm Another Australian contribution from Keith Suter, planner and "futurist" and member of the Club of Rome since 1991. He revisits the publication, "The Limits to Growth", that gave the Club of Rome some intitial publicity in 1972, . This book stated that if the world's consumption patterns and population growth continued at the same high rates of the time, the earth would strike its limits within a century. Although the thirty years of prosperity and the rise of neoclassical economics have dimmed the memory of this publication and put its predictions on the back burner, a century is a long time, we still have 67 years to go. Peak Oil might see a move to see it republished, using more up to date information and modern "computer modelling". And this time, maybe it will be taken more seriously. This article is well worth a read. (added 30/7/05)

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New Zealand Easter Islanders

http://www.country-wide.co.nz/a-man/view.php?content=cgi-bin/viewArticleExt.cgi&articleID=3000&emailLink=1 This link takes you to an article by Denis Hocking of the Farm-Forestry Association in New Zealand, about the importance of forestry as a environmental issue and the lack of government support to getting trees on land that really need it. Indeed, it is claimed that land that was forested, using government money, after the disastrous effects on the East Cape landscapes of Cyclone Bola, are now being sprayed and cut down to return the land to pasture. This is unbelievable. Are memories so short? See my letter to the minister for the environment below.

http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/docrep/004/y2795e/y2795e06.htm An article in the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation web site, on the remedial work taking place in the East Cape region of the North Island of New Zealand. This is quite a hopeful article. It clearly demonstrates the benefits of afforestation, but it shows the folly that changes in the political environment can bring, for instance in 1984 many government subsidies were withdrawn and the free market was going to provide the solutions. This philosophy came to a shuddering stop with the occurrence of Cyclone Bola in 1988 when most of the area was drenched with 600mm rain in just three days, and inland of Tolaga Bay received 900 mm in the same time (one yard of rain for my American readers!) In the aftermath of this disaster, the East Coast Forestry project was set up. It is this project that would seem to be under attack if the report of forested land being returned to pasture is true, and the subject is part of my letter to the minister. The effectiveness and adequacy of this reforestation will be tested by subsequent cyclones, and also by the pressure that will inevitably arise in about 20 years time when private foresters will be wanting to harvest their trees.

http://www.cawthron.org.nz/Assets/cawlec93.pdf Link to a pdf document - the 1993 Cawthron Memorial Lecture "New Zealand's clean, green image - fact or fiction? given by Helen Rigg Hughes, Parliamentary Commissioner for ther Environment. This is a fair overview of environmental issues in New Zealand, she mentions cyclone Bola, and soil issues are a major concern.

http://www.seafriends.org.nz/enviro/soil/erosion.htm An excellent web page on soil erosion, from a New Zealand site, the writer is unfortunately unacknowledged. Well worth reading, and also go to the Seafriends home page, the Marine Conservation and Education Centre, Leigh, New Zealand - the site of New Zealand's first Marine Reserve at Goat Island is here.

http://twm.co.nz/wet2004.html Details and links in regard to the major storm and floods of February 2004 in the lower South Island, I mention trying to sleep in my tent in the Marlborough Sounds during the night of this storm, on my web page. This was another "100 year storm", of which we seem to have had quite a number recently. Major erosion of hill farms were again a feature of this storm. This particular page is from a Maori radical site promoting indigenous weather management.

Dominion Post article on East Cape Forestry Project 30/6/05 I haven't received a reply from Marion Hobbs yet, see below, but this article does explain the scheme and what is happening. I have some concern that the original programme was to re-afforest some 200,000 hectares, but this later was reduced to about 100,000 hectares. And of more concern is that it is now 17 years since Bola, and that only 38,000 hectares have been planted. A further 60,000 hectares are still needed, and the programme was supposed to be over 28 years. Planting rates will need to considerably increase to keep to this schedule. I would also hope that strict controls are placed on harvesting of trees in the commercial blocks so that the land isn't again opened up to erosion.

Letter to Marion Hobbs, Minister of the Environment



Rt Hon Marion Hobbs
Minister for the Environment
Parliament Buildings
Wellington.

Dear Ms Hobbs

I write about two matters

1 Recently there has been a good deal of publicity about the vast amount of computer (and other electronic hardware) that needs to be disposed of. I have these questions
a) Is it legal to dispose of such items in ground-fills? If it is wouldn't you agree this is highly unsatisfactory, considering the amount of toxic elements in such electronic components. I would ask that there is set up a country wide disposal system for such unwanted and unserviceable electronic goods. If necessary this should be paid for by a levy on the goods when they are purchased. In addition I am concerned there is no proper disposal system for batteries used in electronic goods. I would suggest this should also be dealt with centrally. It is not moral to be disposing of toxic materials in land-fills to poison our descendants. In addition, some of the elements in these goods are very rare and expensive. We should be recovering this as the world's supply of such materials is limited.
b) We also know that tens of thousands of tons of old computer hardware are being exported in containers to poor countries such as India, Bangladesh and China. There are some horrifying stories of the effects of all these toxic materials on the people of these areas, including vulnerable young children, who are being paid pitiful wages to deal with this. Not only this, heavy metals such as cadmium, arsenic, lead and mercury are seeping into the soil and ground-waters of these areas, leaving a many thousand years toxic legacy for their children and descendants. This is immoral. Do you know if any waste computer, electronic and similar materials are being exported from this country? If so, will you legislate to ban this? If we make use of such equipment then it is our ethical duty to deal with the consequences of this and not export our mess to someone else.

2. It came to my attention recently that there has been spraying of herbicides on forests planted in the aftermath of Cyclone Bola, these forests being paid for by the taxpayer. These forests are then being cleared to return the land to pasture. I find this information almost impossible to believe as I cannot believe that New Zealander's memories are so short, or that they should be so stupid to risk further major damage to the East Coast catchments.. The information came from a web site
http://www.country-wide.co.nz/a-man/view.php?content=cgi-bin/viewArticleExt.cgi&articleID=3000&emailLink=1
This was written by Denis Hocking - a member of the Middle Districts' branch of the NZ Farm Forestry Association. This article contains some alarming information, I quote :
There are three major environmental issues that ought to be considered with land use changes into or out of forestry:
First, and undoubtedly the most obvious for land owners, is soil conservation. Trees are very effective at holding unstable hillsides together, protecting both the hills and downstream investments.
The latest NZ Journal of Forestry has an excellent article by Landcare Research scientist Mike Marden on just this issue. The title: "Future-Proofing Erosion-Prone Hill Country Against Soil Degradation and Loss During Large Storm Events: Have Past Lessons Been Heeded?" pretty much says it all.
In this regard news that young pines are being sprayed and land returned to pasture on Waipaoa Station, in the East Coast hinterland, needs careful consideration.
I do not know the area or the plans, but I understand the trees involved were planted with central Government subsidies as part of the East Coast afforestation scheme.
This project was a response to the devastation of Cyclone Bola and an attempt to 'future-proof erosion-prone hill country' .
Somewhere out there in an otherwise very uncertain future, another Cyclone Bola is heading for the east coast and it would be nice to think that something has actually been achieved and landowners are better prepared.
I hope this Waipaoa project isn't going to undermine what has been achieved.

I think you will agree there is a prima facie case of a major environmental mischief going on here. I have these questions
a) Is this article correct and if so will you take measures so that this is stopped immediately and that the owners of this station replant the affected area at their own expense?
b) After Cyclone Bola there was much talk about the reforestation of this area. How much progress has been made in this regard, and is the programme being adequately funded? Is planting still taking place? How much exposed land is still at risk and what is the timetable for achieving replanting of forests on this land? Has it been considered that there might be an opportunity for planting other species than radiata pine, such as oak, ash, Tasmanian Oak, walnut etc.? Many such valuable timber trees have grown extremely well in the Eastwoodhill arboretum. We suffer from a very short sighted arboreal monoculture in New Zealand.

Thank you for your time. I will be interested to hear from you about these matters.

Yours sincerely,

Dr John K Monro