What is the latest suggestion from Landcare Research? Imported dung beetles.
Remember the imported rabbit solution? Remember the imported rabbit calicivirus solution?
Remember the imported (1885) hedgehog solution for Christchurch garden pests, which incidentally has almost wiped out our indigenous skinks and numerous invertebrates?
Remember the cane toad solution in Queensland and the Argentine ants in both Australia and now New Zealand?
In Britain and Germany, they have pilot plants, which collect farm effluent from pits and tanks, ferment it with barley and other plant fibre, burn the methane gas - producing electricity for local communities and as much again for their national grids - and the dry residue is returned free to the contributing farms as fertiliser.
When will we ever learn?
Stuart Mathieson
Dunedin
• In recognition of the importance of readers' contribution to the letters page, the newspaper each week selects a Letter of the Week, with a book prize courtesy of Dunedin publisher Longacre Press. This week's winner Stuart Mathieson, of Dunedin, receives a copy of Lloyd Spencer Davis' Looking for Darwin, Longacre Press, $39.99.
