Moves are under way to establish a suitable body to manage a public fund that will be used to reduce manageable nitrogen entering Lake Taupo by 20 per cent.

A total of $81.5 million is going into the fund over the next 15 years as part of a joint funding arrangement between the Crown, Environment Waikato and Taupo District Council.

The Crown is contributing 45 per cent of the total funding, with the rest coming from Environment Waikato and Taupo District Council rates.

Environment Waikato has released a draft Regional Plan change designed to protect Lake Taupo from the effects of nitrogen runoff.

Chairman Neil Clarke said the release of the Draft Variation was an important step forward in making the changes necessary to protect the environmental, economic, cultural and spiritual values of the lake.

Urgent progress was needed to protect the lake, because if action was not taken now water quality would continue to decline, creating a more serious problem which would be much harder to reverse.

Under the Draft Variation, nitrogen loading to the lake will be capped, based on the nitrogen loss from land between June 2001 and June this year.

Tena koe Tuwharetoa,

I am writing from a far and distant land known as Korea. I have been here 2 years teaching English to students from kindergarten to adults. This is an experience of a life time, teaching English and getting paid to do it.

I write because I want to see more young maori people from Tuwharetoa and other tribes. To come here for 1 year teaching English, getting paid to do it, free accommodation, free air fare (return), and the experience of another culture.

Korea has so much to offer our young people. Korea is where the first camera phones were made, international brands such as LG, Hyundai, Kia, Samsung and the martial art of Taekwondo are all born from this country.

Education Minister Trevor Mallard has been told to lead by example after his rebuke about Maori welcomes, and let a woman sit ahead of him at his next powhiri.

National MP Georgina te Heuheu said Mr Mallard was "always happy to sit ahead of women at a powhiri", though there was nothing to stop him taking a seat further back.

Mr Mallard last week criticised schools for performing over-long Maori welcomes, or powhiri, and said they also set a poor example for young women because it relegated them to a secondary role.

The Maori Party appears to be pushing for entirely state-funded Maori language tuition.

Party co-leader Tariana Turia said on Saturday the revival of the language was "a central focus" of its campaign.

"One of our key policy platforms in the Maori Party is that no one should be expected to pay fees for learning te reo rangatira, our official language of Aotearoa, the cornerstone of all that is tangata whenua," she said in a speech to a Te Wananga o Aotearoa student council hui.

Pollution of the Rotorua lakes and Lake Taupo has prompted Parliament's environmental watchdog to urge a systematic review of how environmental agencies and regional councils respond to scientific warnings.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Morgan Williams, said the need to stem pollution of the lakes had been evident for decades, but policy responses had been "glacially slow".

In a 120-page report on Missing Links: Connecting science with environmental policy, he described the failure to save Lake Taupo as a well-researched example of "environmental management failure".

See more at www.converge.org.nz/pma/hikoi2.htm

22.09.2004
By RENEE KIRIONA
A fleet of waka paddling through the Hauraki Gulf to downtown Auckland is part of plans for a second hikoi against the foreshore legislation.

The only New Zealand broadcaster to return from Promax Awards with a gold statuette is Maori TV

Maori Television has beaten off competition from the likes of the Disney studio to pick up two international awards for its promos.

The six-month-old channel won a gold and silver at the Promax Awards in Sydney.

It has become the only New Zealand broadcaster to return from the event with a gold statuette.

The awards are the top accolade for promotion and marketing professionals in the electronic media.

A huge and exclusive American-owned Taupo station seems likely to stay in foreign hands with its $62 million price tag beyond the reach of the Government.

The swanky Poronui Station, home of one of New Zealand's most exclusive hunting and fishing lodges, has been put on the market by San Francisco banker Mark Blake, his brother Todd and sister Wendy for "family reasons".