Thanks to all the amazing people that attended the rally in Napier yesterday and the many more that supported us in various ways.

Here's links to what the Dominion Post and Hawkes Bay Today newspapers had to say about the 280 people that turned up to protest against drilling and fracking in Hawkes Bay and also celebrate all that is good about living in HB

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/6314535/Anti-fracking-group-protest-inNapier

http://www.hawkesbaytoday.co.nz/news/hundreds-turn-out-in-cbd-to-protest-frack-mining/1250861/

It was a brilliant turnout and we definitely sent a strong message to council and hopefully government. Hopefully the attention generated by our rally has helped raise the levels of awareness about the dangers of fracking to the wider public.

It isn’t easy giving up your time and making a stand like we did yesterday but it is empowering to be doing something to help create the environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just future that we all want.

The question most asked since the rally was “How did you get to Napier” and of course I drove from our farm at Elsthorpe. We are all addicted to oil to varying degrees and just like the people asking the question I am a mortal human being trying to do the best I can for my family and wider community. I guess I realise that our collective prosperity ultimately depends on the prosperity of all other life that we share this planet with.

Therefore to get over this addiction we need help from not only those around us but the councils and government who are supposed to be there to support our health and prosperity.

We have been telling ourselves for such a long time now that a growing economy is critical to our prosperity, that it has become a religion that we don’t question (some may be offended that I am questioning it). We pursue this “economic growth” regardless of the consequences. Of course we need an economy but it must operate within ecological limits.

Our wealth is not just our money it is equally

Social: Human development

Economic: Self-reliance, Sustainability, Flexibility, Balanced and Equitable development

Political: Independence, Sovereignty and security of nation state and Governance

Cultural: Identity, Unity and harmony, Preserving and Promoting culture and heritage

Environmental: Preservation through environmentally sustainable development

Drilling and Fracking for Oil in Hawkes Bay does not increase this wealth and ultimately will not make us happier.

The following article appeared in the New York Times on 7th June 2011. It brilliantly sums up where we have got to on this beautiful planet and the change that is essential if we are to preserve "life as we know it". As stated denial is a natural reaction but when we can move past this, taking action in  what ever way you feel apropriate becomes empowering.

THE EARTH IS FULL By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN                            
Published: June 7, 2011

You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we’ll look back at the first decade of the 21st century — when food prices spiked, energy prices soared, world population surged, tornados plowed through cities, floods and droughts set records, populations were displaced and governments were threatened by the confluence of it all — and ask ourselves: What were we thinking? How did we not panic when the evidence was so obvious that we’d crossed some growth/climate/natural resource/population redlines all at once?