We love WOMAD as an international festival that celebrates diversity, and brings artists together from all over the world. At the same time as we come together to celebrate we remember we’re in a climate crisis fueled by the profits of companies extracting as much oil and gas as possible. We know that the oil industry has knowingly created the climate crisis. This is why it’s staggering to see WOMAD take money from the oil and gas industry. Climate change is an injustice that disproportionately affects our neighbours in the Pacific, indigenous people, and people in the majority world. These are the people who are also the least responsible for causing it. We understand it costs a lot to put on a great event like Womad. But the costs we’re all paying from the actions of climate criminals such as the oil corporations are not sustainable. As the global climate crisis intensifies each year with more fires, floods and droughts, we can’t help OMV continue to search for more fossil fuels to burn. Just 100 companies are responsible for more than 70% of the world’s carbon emissions. OMV is one of those companies. Companies like Todd and OMV are greenwashing their dirty business by sponsoring family-friendly music festivals like WOMAD. Todd Corporation companies and Austrian oil giant OMV were New Zealand’s number 6 and number 8 biggest climate polluters respectively in 2021. On the other hand WOMAD is in a unique position to use its platform to take a stand and protect the values it promotes. If WOMAD ended its fossil fuel sponsorship of future festivals, it could have a big impact. History has shown that when people, businesses, and brands publicly distance themselves from those who are causing harm, they can spark action in many others. For the love of art, music, and everything we hold dear, let’s tell WOMAD that the time has come to take a stand. https://www.womad.co.nz/info/sponsors/ https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/130991637/new-zealands-biggest-climate-polluters-ranked https://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/slider/6547567/On-line-strike-at-festival-backers https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/464595/company-allowed-to-search-for-oil-and-gas-off-taranaki-coast-despite-ban

The Oxford Ohoka area is a pristine back country area close to the foothills of the Southern Alps. The aquifers underneath feed most of the Waimakariri and Christchurch water schemes. Yet this beautiful place is at risk of becoming the dumping ground of toxic waste, soil contaminants, demolition and rubbish. Woodstock Quarries Ltd are applying for five resource consents from ECan and one with Waimakariri District Council (WDC) to expand an existing hard rock quarry and construct a landfill on their quarry site at View Hill. The landfill would take hazardous waste and spread across 12 hectares, with a volume of about 4 million cubic metres. It would accept about 100,000 cubic metres a year of construction and demolition waste including hazardous materials, asbestos, industrial waste and contaminated soil. This proposed landfill will create multiple environmental risks over time. We are very concerned with the possibility of toxic materials leaching into groundwater, sediment runoff, and the risk of the landfill liner failing. With increasingly severe weather there are potential risks from heavy rainfall and high winds spreading dust. We are concerned with the increase in heavy traffic, a proposed extra 20 trucks a day. The Quarry location is 900m from the Ashley fault line, which has been assessed as moderate risk, and no assessment has been made should the Alpine Fault earthquake happen. View Hill is the wrong place entirely for a landfill and the Councils must decline all five consents. Support local residents and sign our petition to stop the landfill! ✍🏼 You can make a submission against the landfill here: https://www.ecan.govt.nz/do-it-online/resource-consents/notifications-and-submissions/notified-consents/woodstock-quarries-limited/ Links https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/130678211/residents-of-small-town-caught-off-guard-by-deadline-for-massive-landfill https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2022/12/residents-from-small-north-canterbury-town-fight-to-save-countryside-from-proposed-landfill.html

The cost of food is becoming unreachable for so many of our people. At the same time, our parks are not reaching their potential as safe community and family focused environments. Food-producing plants need to be in public spaces for locals to harvest free nutritious food. Productive plants clean the air, provide much needed shade from our dangerous sun, and provide nutritious and delicious food for the people - included in existing standard rates. We would need to provide education around when the food is ready to harvest, all that would take is a small sign beneath each tree with information. People could take cuttings from the trees if they love the food it produces, and grow one in their own home garden. Our Council needs to maintain green spaces anyway, so why not add some producing plants into our green spaces? Examples of producing plants are: fruit, nut and tea trees, seasonal vegetables, herbs, and flowers for pollinators. Myself and the community would be happy to assist with design and implementation requirements. Every park could provide local families with free picnicking food during their visit. Every sports field could provide players with nutritious half time snacks. Every neighbourhood street could be a walkway for 'grocery shopping'. Let's grow edibles for strong community sharing and health focused consumption.

Meola Road can be a busy road, that gets very dangerous for school kids trying to cross the street to catch their bus. We are concerned for all our students who are putting themselves in danger by crossing such a busy road. Mistakes can be made, and we don't want to be compromising our own safety. This is very important as students are constantly at risk of being hit by a car while crossing the road to walk home or catch a bus. The safety measures that we currently have are insufficient in protecting our students.

Water is the very essence of all life without it nothing can survive. Cooperations and overseas investors wish to exhaust our natural resource for capital gain. We cannot drink their money. Our natural springs take many many years to replenish and the threat of a water bottling company will collapse our waterways. Future generations yet to be born will have very little or no water. We must stop this from happening. Aotearoa stand with us the Whanganui community for we are all connected by the water and it is our responsibility to protect our waterways.

The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (BORA) protects and promotes human rights and fundamental freedoms in New Zealand. BORA, just like other legislation, can be amended at any time by Parliament. This is why it’s important to make the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment a part of BORA. All laws (current and future) are assessed by the rights confirmed in BORA. Having the right to a “clean, healthy and sustainable environment for all” would prevent the enactment of laws that are inconsistent with that right! A healthy and thriving environment is essential to human life and survival. Yet our Earth’s ecosystems are under threat from human activity, driven by the settings of the economic system and constant economic expansion. In Aotearoa, the environment is under immense pressure from human activities. The Our Marine Environment 2022 report and the Environment Aotearoa 2022 reports show the extent human activities are damaging our marine and land environments. We need to protect and look after the soil, water, flora, fauna and all ecosystems if we are to survive without environmental threats. One way to make this a consistent basis for all our decisions and actions is to acknowledge the basic right of a healthy and clean environment in one of our uncodified constitutional documents. This will absolutely change the way business is done, as the environment is presently sacrificed for commercial “progress”. That needs to change. There will be a process of consultation with iwi and hapū groups, as mana whenua and partners of the Crown under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, before any proposed legislation is put before Parliament. Parliament must make it clear the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment for all is more important than harming our environment for perceived commercial progress. ★ This one law has the potential to transform the way we view the environment in law. Sign the petition to add your power to make it happen! 🌏 Notes Climate change, human activity's alarming impact on marine environment laid bare: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2022/10/climate-change-human-activity-s-alarming-impact-on-marine-environment-laid-bare.html Environment Aotearoa 2022 https://environment.govt.nz/assets/publications/environment-aotearoa-2022.pdf

Health is the largest carbon emitter in public sector- with pollution affecting people’s health. Greenhouse gas emissions in Te Whatu Ora Southern are high compared with other major Te Whatu Ora regions. Actually Nitrogen dioxide emissions were three times that of other Te Whatu Ora regions. Wood chips would reduce current health impacts of burning lignite ( coal), particularly in South Invercargill. Trials with wood chips at Te Whatu Ora Southern 2 years ago show these are able to be burned in the present boiler. There are plentiful local sources of woodchip to fuel the hospital burners. A lot of this is currently burnt inefficiently in farm windrows, causing further air pollution. This could be repurposed for the hospital. People in South Invercargill took up the Environment Southland free loan scheme to change from coal fires to clean energy options that have improved air quality. We are calling on Te Whatu Ora Southern to do the same and change to wood chips with urgency! Petition organised by Jenny Campbell & Coal Action Murihiku - please contact Jenny by clicking her name at the top of the petition to discuss. For more info on the issue: https://www.newsroom.co.nz/coal-switch-a-slow-burner-for-hospitals

Old toxic waste dumps are all over New Zealand, including Auckland. Illegal tip sites in Auckland contain contaminants like pesticides, oil from machinery, refrigerants, household waste, old plant equipment etc which is leaking into estuaries then into rivers which flow into the Waitemata and other Auckland harbours. Horticultural sites especially, used and dumped stores of chemicals. Old dumps weren’t necessarily sealed properly and risk leaching into the environment, especially now with more extreme weather events. Auckland has old farms, wineries, and orchards that used toxic chemicals as pesticides and fungicides, in the decades before proper controls. It is important to manage these old dumps to protect our fresh and coastal waters and flora and fauna from contaminated waste leakage. We call on the council to review historic and current horticulture sites in the region, whether still operational or not, and investigate the sites for contaminated waste. This can be done and funded as part of the next Unitary Plan review. Where they find a toxic dump Auckland Council needs to take action. They could do this in a number of ways: 🌱 Urgent remediation of existing sites 🌱 Give the owners an ultimatum to clean it up, or the council/ government will appoint contractors to do the work, at their expense. 🌱 Ask people to report toxic dumps through an anonymous phone line 🌱 Offer a six month grace period for owners of land with private dumps to come forward without penalty There should be penalties for the owners of private dumps who do not disclose contaminated sites on their land. People who buy land in good faith and subsequently discover contamination, should be able to remove the contaminated waste when found, at the cost of the previous owners who passed the problem on, and those people be liable for penalties. Until old dumps are cleaned up then they will sit there doing damage to ecosystems. If they remain on site without people knowing they also risk human health. https://toiteora.govt.nz/public/contaminated-land/ https://www.thomasconsultants.co.nz/what-is-a-contaminated-site/

The popularity of light utility vehicles and SUVs continues to be on the rise, driven by advertising. Why is this an issue? Well, such vehicles are heavier, often have diesel engines and are less fuel-efficient, therefore meaning that increased sales of them compared to lighter vehicles is linked directly to greater emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and other pollutants across the globe. Climate change and declining air quality are crises we must address urgently. To prevent them from further threatening public health, we should be encouraging behaviours that ensure a safe future for our descendents on this planet. At the least we should be encouraging the uptake of fuel-efficient or zero-emission forms of transport, rather than the opposite. There are a multitude of similarly profitable, alternative products (take electric utes for example) that manufacturers can produce instead that would help meet Aotearoa’s goal of reducing net emissions of all greenhouse gases (except biogenic methane) to zero by 2050, so therefore there is no valid reason for harmful goods to be promoted positively through advertising. To hold vehicle producers socially responsible and thereby pursue a healthier future for the planet and all people, we are asking for just one small regulation to be added to the Advertising Standards Code. Notes: This petition ask is based on a recommendation made in both a UK study by Boyle et al. (2021) and a study by Woodward, Wisniewski and Wild presented to the Transportation 2021 Conference. 8 of the top 10 best-selling new vehicles in Aotearoa are light trucks (utes and SUVs). https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2021/06/02/the-rise-of-the-urban-light-truck-what-to-do-about-it/ Photo credit: https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2021/06/02/the-rise-of-the-urban-light-truck-what-to-do-about-it/

Because growing extra food crops to use for fuel, which is what this policy would cause, drives the destruction of the natural world, will worsen the impacts of climate change and increase the costs of both food and fuel. We are calling on the Government to drop plans for the proposed biofuels obligation because of the overwhelming evidence that: 🌏 Similar biofuel directives around the world have caused massive net increases in greenhouse gas emissions compared to using regular fuel. EU Biofuels policy has acknowledged this, but so far the EU policy response of Sustainable Source Certification has not been successful. 🌏 Growing the feedstocks for biofuel drives tropical deforestation, destroys biodiversity, increases emissions and deprives indigenous people of their land and livelihoods. 🌏 Biofuel obligations drive up food prices, as the majority of biofuels are made from food and feed crops. Food price increases worsen living conditions for the most vulnerable people around the world. 🌏 Non-food ‘second generation’ biofuels, or those derived from food waste are not available in the necessary volumes, or at all. Introducing a biofuels obligation will not change this, as fuel suppliers will naturally try to meet the obligation at the lowest possible cost.* As well as all this, introducing an unsustainable biofuel directive will waste time and resources that could be directed to meaningful climate action. Join our call on the government to drop its plans for the biofuels obligation. We also call on the government to focus on addressing transport and energy emissions using methods that are proven to work, such as renewable energy, electrification, increased public and active transport, rail freight, coastal shipping and demand reduction policies. We also support policies that are likely to be effective in developing a sustainable wood waste-to-liquid fuel industry in New Zealand, as part of a comprehensive and co-ordinated national energy strategy. Low Carbon Kāpiti is a grassroots community organisation and climate advocacy group that hosts the Don’t Burn Our Future campaign. More on this topic from Don’t Burn Our Future: https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2022/07/11/biofuels-in-new-zealand-a-solution-or-a-problem/ https://lowcarbonkapiti.org.nz/wishing-for-fairy-dust-why-the-nz-biofuels-obligation-is-the-worst-kind-of-magical-thinking/ *Government estimates that second generation biofuels from wood waste will cost 2 - 4 times more than conventional, food-based biofuels, and will not be available in the short or medium term. Local supplies of food waste such as used cooking oil and tallow from meat processing are too small and difficult to secure given the demand for them from overseas.

The Department of Conservation has begun its review and reclassification of the status of its “stewardship land”, starting on the West Coast. This includes the Denniston Plateau, which has already been partially destroyed by the mothballed Bathurst Resources’ Escarpment coal mine. The rest of the plateau is of high conservation value, and it, along with nearby Deep Creek, also contains some of the last unmined coking coal measures in the country, with mining permits held by BT Mining - a company set up by Bathurst Resources and Talley’s. Bathurst recently had to close a coal mine in Canterbury because it had breached so many consents. The coal mining industry wants these areas to be classified “Conservation Park”, which is the current recommendation, but in the words of mining lobby group Minerals West Coast: “Some reclassification categories - such as "conservation park", would still allow for mining under existing legislation.” Right now, the draft classifications for these areas are indeed only for "Conservation Park". The Denniston Plateau contains a unique sandstone plateau and rare wetlands, full of endangered and endemic creatures like our giant snail and the unique Avatar Moth, found nowhere else in the world. Also present are the great spotted kiwi and fern birds, and a rare skink found nowhere else, along with a giant snail. Experience in this part of the world shows us that any claims by a coal company that they will “rehabilitate” the land after mining are empty promises. These unique areas would be destroyed, the streams polluted, and the animals in them gone. The world is moving away from coal. We are in the midst of a climate emergency and we must protect our most precious areas both from the impacts of climate change - and from being dug up for coal that will only increase emissions at a time when we need to reduce them. ⏩ BELOW is the public submission to sign onto: Dear Panel members West Coast, The three areas we are concerned about all sit atop considerable coal measures, coal that if burned would contribute to climate change, at a time when governments around the world are attempting to reduce emissions to get the world onto a 1.5˚C warming pathway. We note the government’s Emission Reduction Plan (ERP) specifically refers to “working with nature” to help reduce emissions as part of solving our climate crisis: “Looking after these forests is one of the most important contributions Aotearoa can make to combating global climate change. We also have a significant opportunity to develop native forests that both act as long-term carbon sinks and support biodiversity…” ★ We therefore strongly recommend a much stronger protection regime for the following areas: 🌏 1. Kaw_10 - Waimangaroa - Granity This area contains Deep Creek, a highly biodiverse area, with coal measures under the land. Given the main habitat of the Powelliphanta augustus was obliterated by the Stockton Mine, and rehabilitation efforts have failed, and the majority of the remainder of this species are still living in fridges, it is absolutely critical to preserve, in perpetuity, this last remaining habitat of this critically endangered species. The very nature of the DOC description: “high ecological values” and “overwhelmingly natural and largely intact” brings into question its lowly recommended classification of Conservation Park. A scientific reserve would preserve this area in perpetuity, especially as it would preclude the area from being stripped bare in an opencast coal mine. We therefore recommend that this be classified as an ecological area (under Part 4, S21 of the Conservation Act) with a scientific reserve on the remainder of the Stockton Plateau (sandstone pavement) including Upper Deep Creek/Whirlwind Creek (under Part 3, S21 of the Reserves Act) 🌏 2. Kaw_17-Mount Rochfort, Old Denniston School Site Again, we consider the recommendation of “Conservation Park” is in contradiction to the high biodiversity values of the area. The great spotted kiwi and weka are both found here, along with the Avatar Moth, a species unknown anywhere else in the world, and only identified in 2012. It is also home to the Denniston skink, another species found nowhere else, and the giant snail Powelliphanta Patrickensis We consider this biodiverse area must be protected, not least from being stripped bare by a coal mine, which would likely render at least some of these species extinct. The Denniston plateau contains valuable wetland peatland areas found nowhere else. Not only should they be protected from coal mining, but we note the Government’s Emissions Reduction Plan specifically points to a strategy of wetland and biodiversity protection as part of our climate strategy and to protect them as valuable carbon sinks. We recommend that the Denniston plateau component be declared a Scientific Reserve and that the remainder be classified as an ecological area. We also recommend that the Old Denniston School area be declared as an Historic Reserve (under Part 3, S18 Reserves Act) 🌏 3. KAW_26 - Ballarat Again, we find it odd the recommended classification is only "Conservation Park", given the “high landscape and ecological value” supporting “rare and distinct species.” We recommend that Conservation Area Ballarat be classified as an ecological area. Lastly, and importantly, we also make a wider recommendation that the Government changes our legislation covering these areas: the Reserves Act, the Conservation Act, and the National Parks Act, so they all honour and respect Te Tiriti O Waitangi - the Treaty of Waitangi. Such changes should reflect the rights of Māori to be able to access these areas for cultural purposes such as mahinga kai and medicinal plants for rongoā - without having to seek permission. Ngā mihi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByRGSD_ijh4

Aotearoa is the global seabird capital and home to over half of the world’s marine mammal species. The South Taranaki Bight is a hot spot, hosting six endangered species, one vulnerable species and 18 other species of marine mammals with too little data to even assess. We also have a genetically distinct Blue whale population in the Bight. Kororā, the Little penguin sometimes travel here all the way from Marlborough Sounds to feed. Fossil fuel mining threatens entire marine ecosystems and contributes to ocean acidification and deoxygenation. There are also risks to kai moana and other traditional food gathering on the coast. Drilling and discharging harmful substances in such an important area is irresponsible. Beach Energy Resources NZ (Kupe) Limited has lodged applications with the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) for a marine consent and a marine discharge consent for activities associated with development drilling of up to two wells at the existing Kupe Wellhead Platform some 30km off Manaia, South Taranaki. Climate Justice Taranaki is making a submission to request the consents be declined. 🔥 Critically, we are in a climate emergency. Getting off fossil fuels is crucial. There is no excuse to drill for more oil or gas when the window for reducing emissions to minimise climate catastrophes is closing. We need to reduce our energy demand fast and transition onto sustainable renewable energy instead. It is ludicrous that the current EEZ regulations do not allow the consideration of impacts on the climate from proposed activities. We are requesting the EPA Board of Inquiry to refuse all of Beach Energy's consent applications associated with its planned drilling program at the Kupe field. Please join us.