ABSTRACT
This concluding chapter summarizes the book’s argument and highlights the social processes that led the government to pursue a 29-month aerial pesticide spraying operation over densely populated Auckland suburbs. In doing so, this chapter emphasizes the central role that the government played in this story, both in creating and exacerbating the PAM problem and then manipulating the public into accepting the spraying operation. Additionally, this chapter underscores that the effectiveness of the manipulation was mediated by the cultural context, which the education system had an important role in shaping. This chapter also reflects on how New Zealand’s PAM pesticide spraying operation can inform us about similar biosecurity spraying operations, as well as other types of urban pesticide applications and pesticide use more generally. As well, this chapter discusses how citizens can better protect themselves against future unwarranted trespass from pesticides and other chemicals.
