Kiwis need to realise 100 per cent pure is 100 per cent propaganda

Thursday, 18 January 2018

DOC classifies the black-billed gull as nationally critical - but few people appreciate how rare it is (first published January, 2018)

OPINION: Ask Tourism New Zealand what 100% Pure means and they'll tell you: it's not a 'clean, green' campaign, but a campaign that delivers a '100% Pure New Zealand experience'.

What it is is 100 per cent pure advertising, and a slogan fit to replace the fertiliser used in the country's intensive farming.

But while Kiwis do seem to be realising there's something murky about our clean-green image, there is one area we are still fooling ourselves about – the state of our native creatures.

The black-billed gull prefers to nest near coastlines.

Stuff has just wrapped up its Forgotten Species series, a five-part series looking at a handful of the estimated 3700 native species which are either approaching extinction or at risk.

* The world's most threatened gull calls New Zealand home

* This bird is as threatened as the black robin, but few New Zealanders know it**

The orange-fronted parakeet used to be so common Kiwis stuffed pillows with their feathers, now there are only 150-200 adults left.

* Did you know the banded dotterel is as vulnerable as the great spotted kiwi

Despite having one of the highest proportions of threatened or endangered species of anywhere on the planet, 70 per cent of the public feel the state of our country's natives is adequate or doing well, according to a recent Lincoln University study.

Ask study co-author Ross Cullen and he will tell you – 70 per cent of the public is 'totally wrong'.

All countries advertise, and everyone accepts it with a pinch of salt. If we didn't we would all be jetting off to England expecting a village in the Cotswolds and end up at a sleazy pub in Plumstead, east London.

The orange-fronted parakeet is classified as nationally critical. Between 150 and 200 breeding adults remain.

Advertising is advertising, and good advertising brings in tourism money.

However, when the public believes its own advertising, it's no longer advertising, it's propaganda –and that's a problem.

It's a problem because if the populace think something's going well, they ignore it, the political hot-potato cools, and the decline continues.

Case in point – the National Government's Minister for Conservation, Maggie Barry, paraded the new Threatened Species Strategy in front of voters just as the 2017 general election was heating up. It promised to increase the number of at-risk species directly managed by 40 per cent.

The banded dotterel is in the same boat as the great spotted kiwi – nationally vulnerable, with a population predicted to decline 30-70 per cent over three generations.

It's as vulnerable as the great spotted kiwi, but gets nowhere near the same attention.

On the face of it, this seems great, but when the Budget was released a couple of weeks later, almost all of DOC's extra funding was ring-fenced for upgrading tourism infrastructure and developing new Great Walks.

It was a great ad delivered by a great ex-garden show host.

Kiwis might have kicked up a fuss – if the majority didn't think we were doing a bang up job on protecting native species already.

I remember a telling moment after ex-Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Jan Wright's launched her report finding 80 per cent of native birds were threatened.

I was present to hear why Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief executive Chris Roberts didn't fancy this was a problem.

'The people come here for our scenery, not our wildlife,' he said.

Roberts didn't disagree with any of the report's findings, he just thought a visitor levy would do more harm to the country than the rapid die-off of our native birds.

Kiwis have to ask themselves – do they agree with Roberts, and feel the plight can be ignored because tourists come for other reasons, or do the birds deserve to be saved in their own right?

I don't think many people would like the '100% Pure New Zealand experience' to mean the continued disappearance of some of the world's most unique bird and reptile species.