Wellington's Zealandia bird sanctuary could suffer from tip expansion

Tuesday, 31 March 2020

A landfill extension for Wellington's ever-growing pile of rubbish could affect its neighbour - a world-famous ecosanctuary.

That's the fear of a city councillor, who says the race for the Wellington City Council to extend the near-full Southern Landfill by 2023 will affect Zealandia's precious bird life.

'We're about to destroy a beautiful ecological area that is flourishing, because it [the extension] is quite close to Zealandia,' Wellington councillor Laurie Foon said.

'I really don't think Wellingtonians understand what we're about to do and I think they would choose to change our behaviour, given what we are about to do.'

* Zealandia among Time Magazine's 'world's greatest places'

Zealandia has re-introduced a number of bird species to Wellington which now flourish beyond its predator-proof fence.

*** NZ's plastic pollution and landfill emissions are unacceptable, advocates say

* Too much rubbish for Wellington to handle

Zealandia was Wellington's 'trump card', and no one would want to negatively impact its work, Foon said.

Landfills can be smelly, noisy, and rubbish blowing away from them can escape in to the environment.

'Do we want to be creating so much waste that it's impacting Zealandia?'

The city could be reducing its collective waste instead of making the landfill bigger, she said.

Landfills can be smelly, noisy, and rubbish blowing away from them can escape in to the environment.

A landfill extension for Wellington's ever-growing pile of rubbish could affect its neighbour - world-famous ecosanctuary Zealandia.

'The landfill extension is a really unfortunate thing for Wellington.'

Last year, Zealandia was listed in Time magazine as one of the 'world's greatest places'.

A karuhiruhi (pied shag) at the Zealandia ecosanctuary.

The sanctuary has re-introduced a number of bird species to Wellington which now flourish beyond its 225-hectare predator-proof fence.

Zealandia had a legitimate concern for the extension's impact on their work, Foon said.

'This landfill extension will encroach closer to their boundary where they have flora and fauna spilling over.'

Richard Moore, of the recently closed Poly Palace recycling facility in Porirua, has also opposed the landfill extension.

'This is a time we need to forge a confident path to a more sustainable and resilient future as a region, as the region of the capital,' he said.

The proposed extension would lengthen the life of the current Southern Landfill by about 20 years.

The landfill accounts for about 80 per cent of the council's own emissions.

A Zealandia spokeswoman said they were still in conversation with the council, and it was 'premature to make any statement'.

On its website, the council says the proposed extension has considered impacts including odour, landfill gas generation, groundwater, aquatic ecology and potential land contamination.

A consent was expected to be lodged this year.

A council spokeswoman said they were extremely busy managing issues related to the Covid-19 pandemic, and could not comment on how the landfill extension might affect Zealandia.