Dolphins extinct?

Recent research shows dolphins are adversely effected by tourism activities and shipping. the larger the ship the greater the risk ! Those that do tear themselves away from their slot machines should spare a moment for the dolphins that one day soon may be extinct and their visit well may have contributed to that!

Ban Cruise Ships !

Unpure New Zealand believes that cruise ships should be banned from these very special parts of New Zealand. The risks are just too high for the pleasure of a few rubber neckers in glass and steel hulks to enter Fiordlands pristine Fiords.

Who Benefits?

Why does the New Zealand government permit this activity at all? Money greed and power thats why.

The authority that issues the consent for these ships is Environment Southland (the regional council).

Guess who collects all the fees that these cruise lines pay? yep.. thats right! Environment Southland.

According to the Southland Times 23 August 08 Environment Southland will pocket around $1million in "fees" this coming cruise season alone and is anticipating that to increase to $1.3million the following season.

That is a nice little earn at the expense of New Zealands last frontier of Pure, Clean, Green and 100% pure environment!

It is not acceptable to invade our World Heritage Fiordland National Park in this way and we need your help right now to bring it to an end.

Unpure New Zealand is sure that most reasonable New Zealanders would be appalled that this is going on - they simply do not know that it is happening.

Register & Help

Please register on the Contact Page on this site your interest in this issue. Please head your text "Save the dolphins"

Please bring it to the attention of any interested party that might be able to help or link to this web page

This has got be stopped!

 

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"The 100% Pure New Zealand brand does establish a level of expectation among potential visitors that New Zealand's natural environment will be clean and well cared for. Government, and our tourism agencies, recognize the importance of the natural environment in fulfilling New Zealand's marketing promise. This creates an incentive for all of New Zealand to take action to ensure we live up to the 100% Pure New Zealand promise."

Damien O'Connor, New Zealands Minister of Tourism
In reply to us 4 Dec 2007

Huge Cruise Ships in Milford Sound !

In the last few years there has been a dramatic increase of cruise ships in Milford Sound. Cruise Ships as large as 116,000 tons enter Milford Sound. Cruise ship visits to our world famous Fiordland World Heritage park are strongly on the increase. Recently Carnival Cruises has been pounding our media with promotional stories that claim that the New Zealands economy will benefit to the tune of $35 million dollars from a further 12 visits of their Sun Princess liner next year. This tourist season September 07 - May 08 there are 49 scheduled cruise liner visits to Fiordland. Yes that is right 49! *Update September 2008* Environment Southland is busy chest thumping in newspapers that the number of cruise ships scheduled to visiting this season (08/09 has increased to 68 yes thats right 68

We are not talking here about the small cruise vessels that are permanently located in these sounds that provide the normal interactive and most excellent experience for visitors. These cruise ships are foreign vessels the size of super tankers. Some even come complete with on board casinos and pokie machines. Unpure New Zealand believes this defiles our heritage, this tinsel town Las Vegas style tourism.

Huge Cruise Ships in Doubtful Sound and Dusky Sounds !

These same ships visit Doubtful Sound and Dusky Sound as well and can visit most other of our pristine southern fiords. According to the controlling body Environment Southland there can be 2 of these ships or more in a fiord at any one time. It is very probable that more people now see the remote southern fiords from the deck of a huge swanky cruise ship than in any other way. How ironic! Most New Zealanders will never visit any of these places in their lifetime. We can pretty well guarantee that a very large percentage of New Zealanders could not even name one of these places with the exception of Milford Sound.

Cruise Ship Doubtful Sound

Blowing diesel smoke in a pristine environment !

Two Cruise Ships Pass in Thompson Sound

Cruise Ships "pass" each other in "remote" Thompson Sound

Doubtful Sound is home to Bottlenose Dolphins and they are a key resource of the Tourism industry in Fiordland. There is recent comprehensive research that this tourist activity is not sustainable ("Unsustainable dolphin-watching tourism in Fiordland" - Lusseau et al) The research discusses "the plight of the three small populations are the southernmost resident populations of the species and are therefore subjected to higher environmental stress compared to life at high latitudes (Schneider, 1999). The research finds that a about 10% of dolphins surveyed bear marks of physical injuries caused by boat strikes.

Save the dolphins

The research also revealed that there are disturbances to dolphin behavior and it concluded -

"On a long-term basis, bottlenose dolphins cannot sustain the types of activities undertaken by the scenic cruise industry in Doubtful Sound."