Canterbury Mornings

An environmental group wants Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage to step in to protect ecological values of Crown-owned land in the Mackenzie Basin, which will be destroyed by a planned dairy conversion.Chris Lynch spoke to Gary Taylor, the Executive Director of the Environmental Defence Society.The conversion involves an irrigation pipeline being built in the Mackenzie Basin which may affect conservation values on public land.The below-ground pipeline is being buried in trenches running eight kilometres, from a Tekapo hydroelectricity canal to Simons Pass Station. Water from the pipeline will supply a planned intensive dairy farm operation which could run as many as 15,000 cows.