Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

I measure the quality of the summer season by how many swims I have, this summer I managed just one swim. Not my proudest tally, I can assure you.  But that sad tally was only diminished by my inability to make time. Being able to find clean water to swim in will increasingly prove to be the main barrier. The environment, Minister David Parker says, some of the statistics I’m about to mention are an indictment on the country and an intergenerational challenge to turn around.   45 percent of lake monitoring sites worsened between 2011 and 2020 with just 36 percent improving. 45 of New Zealand’s total river length is non swimmable due to risk of bacterial infection.  48 percent of our river network is at least partially inaccessible to migratory fish.  About two thirds of freshwater native bird species were either threatened with extinction or at risk of becoming threatened in 2021.  Minister David Parker is entirely correct. It’s an intergenerational problem that we have largely turned our back to, and yet we