Myxomatosis supported

Press, 11 June 1987, Page 2

Myxomatosis supported

Continued support for the introduction of myxomatosis to control rabbit numbers and for a fungus to control weeds were among remits passsed at the annual conference in Timaru of the South Island high-country committee of Federated Farmers.

The conference decided to support the Agricultural Pest Destruction Council in its efforts to introduce myxomatosis.

A guest speaker from the Commission for the Environment, Mrs Helen Hughes, said an audit of the proposal to control rabbit numbers had begun in Marlborough, Central Otago, Waitoki Valley, and the Mackenzie Basin, j Delegates'urged her to look into the damage, rabbits caused tb' the high country and in reply she said the audit was not just concerned with the introduction of myxomatosis but with the land and its management as well. A report from the commission on myxomatosis will be produced for the Speaker of Parliament

and Minister of Agriculture in late August and submissions on the introduction of the disease will close on July 10. The conference also wanted research to continue into importing and using a fungus to control hawkweed, otherwise known as hieracium.

Other remits passed at the conference included:

Strong opposition to the use of pastoral lease conditions as a means of removing land or imposing further conditions on a pastoral lease. Strong opposition to land surrender as a trade for the issuing of a re-. creational licence or special lease.

,A call for .the Govern-; nfent: to increase, funding - for soil conservation and . for the Crown to take ' responsibility for damage caused by flooding from the Crown’s rivers. Mr H. R. Ensor, of MidCanterbury, was elected chairman of the committee after Mr M. R. Murchison, of North Canterbury, stepped down after six years.