The Wire with Castor

This week on The Wire for Rāhina Monday!

Joe speaks to Executive Officer Jane Cartwright from the New Zealand Breastfeeding Alliance and Paediatric Society neonatal specialist Nicola Austin about World Breastfeeding Week and what it means to Step Up for Breastfeeding. Joe also spoke to Dr Nic Rawlence, from the Paeleogenetics Lab at the University of Otago, about how deer may have had something to do with the extinction of moa, and how this ties in with making Stewart Island Predator Free.

Trishil speaks to Genna Hawkins-Boulton about the need to have compulsory consent education in schools - part of OurActionStation. He also chats with Professor Stephen Hoadley about a move made by Russia to ban 32 prominent New Zealand figures over ‘Russophobia’. Finally he speaks with Nicky Snoyink from Forest and Bird on their appeal against the consent granted to Stevenson Mining heading to the environmental court.

That's us for the Monday Wire!

Forest & Bird appealed resource consents granted to Stevenson Mining in 2017, for a new proposed opencast coal mine at Te Kuha on the West Coast of the South Island.  

The Environment Court hearing begins in Christchurch on Monday 1 August and is expected to run for two weeks. Respondents to Forest & Bird’s case are the West Coast Regional Council, the Buller District Council, and Stevenson Mining Limited.  

Trishil spoke to Nicky Snoyink from Forest and Bird about the case, hoping to learn more about Te Kuha and their efforts to block the construction of a new mine and it’s potential damage to the ecosystem.

After long and hard efforts to implement predator eradication tactics. Predator Free Wellington has seen some major results. 

Bird rates have risen dramatically, up by fifty one percent across the Miramar peninsula.

The organisation has been celebrating this strongly, so Liam has spoken to their own James Wilcocks about the new results. 

In the aftermath of the US supreme court overturning Roe v. Wade, the United States House of Representatives has been passing several bills in efforts to protect certain rights. 

These include protecting same-sex marriage, interracial marriage, and contraception. 

With the US House, the US Senate, the supreme court and the president all seeming to have different levels of power, it can be hard to understand the different levels of authority in the leadership. 

This prompted Liam to talk to UoA professor Maria Armoudian about the system and the recent bills the house have been passing.