Aotearoa New Zealand: mining intensifies
Here in Aotearoa New Zealand our Government has been actively going to international mining event’s and ‘selling’ our country! Coromandel Watchdog of Hauraki have recently been involved in submitting an application under unprecedented law that enables mining at almost all cost, we were horrified, if not surprised, to see our Government amending the law to completely exclude indigenous and community voice – I guess we can assume that it’s because they simply couldn’t beat the arguments we put up – so they will simply disallow them!
This is terrible for the many other proposals that are on the table – open cast gold mining, seabed mining and alluvial mining. As well as the situation here in the Te Tara o Te Ika a Maui Coromandel Peninsula (a mine in significant forest that is home to the world’s most threatened frog), miners are also looking to target highlands in the South Island and an area that is the headwater of the clearest springs in the Southern Hemisphere (if not the world!) – all to enable toxic gold mining.
We remain in solidarity with you all, in your various struggles, and we acknowledge the privilege from which we are able to do the work we do – the relative safety of our nation for environmental activism and advocacy. Like many countries in the global North, these rights and securities are increasingly being eroded, now more than ever.
From Aotearoa New Zealand, kia kaha, stand strong!
We see you, we appreciate you and we walk with you.
Nga mihi nui – with much thanks and respect,
Augusta for Coromandel Watchdog of Hauraki.
Bad news on the Fast-track…. |
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As you likely know, OceanaGold want to expand into conservation land at Wharekirauponga (behind Whangamatā)… it was the first private profit application in the Fast-track process. We had just 20 days to comment on 11,000 pages – and 9 days to comment on the draft decision and conditions, and today we learned that it has been GRANTED. This is devastating, in our preparation to respond, we learned that this project is much worse than we thought. The process has been horrible – seeing the voice of iwi sidelined, watching our experts – both overseas and local experts, from lawyers and economists to ecologists including a US-based Archey’s frog expert and international tailings expert – being ignored or disregarded… Watchdog’s submission raised serious concerns about the huge uncertainties OceanaGold is gambling with, including the long-term, unaddressed costs of toxic tailings dams, the risks to the forest (which is endangered Archey’s frog habitat) from blasting and dewatering, and the overall lack of a robust cost-benefit analysis. Despite our huge effort and the strong evidence we presented the Panel has granted the application to mine in this special place.. This outcome only reinforced the concerns we had about the Fasttrack being simply to facilitate development – at the cost of iwi, community and environment. And now there is the even more draconian Fast-track Amendment Bill…. it looks like communities will have no other option than peaceful Direct Action… |