Anti-1080 campaigner Chris Short dies

I am probably not the most competent person to write Chris Short’s obituary, simply because I have never known him. It was an article in the Dominion that attracted my attention and made me wonder: what makes a man hijack a helicopter and camp for six freezing nights on the slopes of Mt Tongariro? Most of us will think that he must have been rather extreme since people don’t usually go that far for their beliefs. So, what was it that made him go so berserk that not even the prospect of jail stopped him? He was a bushman and a hunter and, I am told, a turning point in his life was when he was caught in a 1080 drop and that night had to listen to animals screaming in pain around him as they died. It must have been quite an ordeal since 1080 kills slowly – it is an agonising death over many hours. New Zealand, I found out, buys 90% (!) of the world production of 1080 – a poison that the rest of the world has long ago considered as far too dangerous – and drops it in tonnes into forests and streams. This has been going on for forty years. The DoC spends millions of taxpayers’ money on propaganda to reassure us that 1080 “does not cause significant harm”. Chris Short was convinced that his exposure to 1080 caused his kidney cancer. He will never be able to prove it, nor will anybody else who dies as a result of NZ’s use of 1080. Fact is that NZ has a significantly high cancer rate and GPs have to deal with patients’ increasingly unexplainable health issues. Chris Short went to extremes to make New Zealanders watch the 1080 documentary “Poisoning Paradise”. One cannot possibly do more than he did to wake up a sleeping nation. A philosopher once said “All that is required for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing”. Chris Short did something. For me he is a hero.

To loose a great friend is hard for us all,Chris your love for the bush and the passion you held to protect it is irreplacable, and I know the deal you held with mother nature was fulfulled. Rest in peace brother,Scotty.

A sad situation when all our lives are effected by these Chemicals and GMO technology's...."The World According to Monsanto" should all have us worried!. God speed.