High and Dry

A record dry winter continuing the warming trend and the high country ignites in a huge blaze in mid-Spring, the moment hot winds off the Australian continent hit.

It‘s notable that there has been very little talk of land use adaptation to widespread fire risk in the New Zealand election campaign, despite everything that has happened in 2020. Maybe it will be talked about more once awareness of the scale of South Island property damage sinks in.

In truest of form, Federated Farmers had an immediate crack at the press frame, but perhaps crackhead interpretation of reality is a more appropriate description of their ludicrous appeal to abstract notions of a ‘clean’ landscape.

A lot of questions should be asked of politicians about their general awareness of the reality of large scale forest fires. What kinds of funding and organisational strategies do they claim will be needed? Whether and how do they imagine government has a role to play? Are they fiddling with emissions and economics or are they performatively fronting in communities trying to learn about the risks on the ground? Is their objective to maintain control over South Island property and markets or striving to be a guardian of Te Waipounamu? Who has credibility in this area?

So far, only the conservation minister has said anything.