I SAW on the television news recently a bit about the serious willow bug problem we are having here in Whakatane and Bay of Plenty Regional Council’s response to solve it.
I have written to Television One telling them to save the footage as this problem comes around every 10 years and the regional council solution is the same every 10 years, so if they just replay this footage in 2026 and 2036 then they will save some money.
When the first bug appeared some 10 years ago I rang the regional council for information and they said the same as last night: they were doing research with scientists to find a solution. I was given the number of this scientist and I called him.
When I asked him for information about the research the guy just about wet himself with mirth. I took this to be a “no”, so I did a bit of research myself and came to the conclusion that maybe we plant another species among the willows that would be unaffected by the bug.
We went out, bought the new plants and fired up the digger and did it. Several years later the person who peer reviewed the Whakatane River and stated that it was a mining enterprise and not a river management exercise that the regional council was undertaking with their gravel extraction, visited our section of the river to see how progress on the rebuilding of the river was going. The first thing he said was “that’s good what you have done; we are planting the same trees in our area”. After 30-odd years of the same management of these river systems and some major expensive mistakes along the way, I think it about time we either took back management control ourselves or made sure we employ the very best as problems don’t get solved by standing around and looking at them.
Richard Holmes