Hundreds turn out in CBD to protest frack mining
It took less than a couple of days to organise, but it turned into one of the more successful protest rallies in Hawke's Bay in recent years when about 280 people stepped out against hydraulic frack mining exploration.
Rallied by organic farmer Greg Hart, opponents gathered at Clive Square from noon to hear short speeches before raising their placards, walking through the Napier CBD, up Emerson St, across Hastings St and down Dickens St, heading to the Hawke's Bay Regional Council in Dalton St.
It was an orderly protest, with police having to do little but ensure crowd safety as numbers spilled on to the road outside the council offices where a a TAG-Apache oil and gas exploration proposal briefing was taking place inside.
Mr Hart opened the rally, and as well as warning against the geophysical dangers - "we know that fracking is insane" - called for a "change of consciousness," to a new paradigm based on "love and abundance" to protect the food resource.
Internationally-recognised Hawke's Bay biodynamic luminary Peter Proctor reckoned "this fracking thing is unbelievably bad".
The number at the rally was possibly the biggest for a protest in Hawke's Bay since the Enough is Enough hikoi in Hastings in 2008.
