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Soraya's avatar

As someone from a cow farm in New Zealand, the Ardern policy was just virtue signalling. Offshore purchase of our land has increased under Ardern. The office supposed to monitor this does not keep records of how much land is owned by foreign entities. Farmland grabs + displacement for Carbon Credits Pine Tree Plantations are a problem for us all in the global south, driven by World Bank and IMF policies.

Cameron and his militant vegan wife used their influence to bash New Zealand pastural cow farms and cow farmers, this in turn influenced regulators to put more and more restrictions on farming and birthed a hostile vegan activist movement in the cities (pastural farming has the most potential for carbon storage). The Camerons own more than one property and I am sure they weren't just trying to drive down the cost of land. Cameron's can't get workers because people will work hard on their own land, but they will not be serfs - which is essentially the model the Camerons want for local kiwi's.

There is a way to farm vegetables with minimal animal imputs - Will Bonsall from Scatterseed Project details this - I am just saying, taking land that had been a cow farm for nearly 100 years and depleting the nutrients within it in under a decade, Camerons were not farming in any sort of healthy way, not that NZ press will detail this.

Auckland NZ has a stabbing a day, one month there were 42 shootings in the city since C19. Dramatic economic reforms in the 1980's emboldened a violence in New Zealand society that has only increased. Cameron + other rich people may believe NZ to be a haven, but what we have is only a veneer of civility.

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Tessa Lena's avatar

Mathew, this is one of my favorite articles of yours, and that's a tough competition! Thank you for thinking out loud without fear.

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