Metiria Turei's Bill to
make it harder to mine land in Schedule 4 just got pulled from the ballot!
http://www.greens.org.nz/press-releases/ultimate-earth-day-present
Forest & Bird » Other
HANDS OFF Schedule 4 !!
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Posted 2 years ago #
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The gulf between the Minister of Energy’s public statements and his actions continues to widen, further damaging the Government’s credibility on mining,
Minister Brownlee was emphatic last year when he said “I make it very clear that no one is talking about mining our national parks”. Despite this public assurance, the Minister went on to propose the removal of parts of Kahurangi, Mount Aspiring, Rakiura and Paparoa National Parks from Schedule 4, in order to allow mining. After three attempts, Cabinet released a discussion document proposing only the removal of part of Paparoa National Park for mining says Metiria Turei, Green Party Co-leader.
“The Cabinet committee process exposed over the weekend was a shambles, and clearly shows that Cabinet lost patience and faith in the Minister’s ability to manage his portfolio,” Mrs Turei said.
“Brownlee’s two failed attempts at writing the discussion document and a policy flip-flop were required before Cabinet gave the task to an independent sub-committee to complete.
“The public continues to be misled. The Minister has placed a reservation over Mount Aspiring National Park, ‘for the purposes of considering those areas of land for allocation of permits by competitive tender’.
“The Minister is already spending $4 million in survey money in areas he earlier declared were off–limits, including Mount Aspiring National Park. This is the same money he has asked for public feedback on within the discussion document.
“Will the Minister pay back the money if the public feedback doesn’t approve of it?
“How can the public have confidence in the Minister, when Cabinet clearly does not?
“We now have a situation where the Minister claims that official maps on the Crown Minerals website don’t mean what they say. Who should we believe?
“We are well past the time when the Minister should be held accountable for the mess he has made of his portfolio,” Mrs Turei said.
The released Schedule 4 Cabinet papers:
http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/Page____43174.aspx
The Minister’s notice of land closure for survey prior to permitting:
http://www.crownminerals.govt.nz/cms/news/2010/Notice-of-Land-Closure%20/
Posted 2 years ago # -
Even the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has slammed the proposals!
will they listen though?
who's all coming to the rally on Saturday?
Posted 2 years ago # -
The only two things that will make this Government listen is voting power and money.
We are not an industry that can promise to bring wealth to the country (even a false promise of riches like the mining industry's will do), so that leaves voting power.
And it looks like a significant percentage of the electorate is strongly opposed to shifting areas out of National Parks to investigate for mining.
Each time Brownlee or Key put their foot in their mouth and reveal that they are not listening to the electorate, they lose a few more votes.
Roll on Saturday 1st May ! and then election day !
Posted 2 years ago # -
As part of 2Precious2Mine, Greenpeace is asking for people about ideas for placards for the march, and is also offering free pizza to people willing to volunteer as callers to remind people about the march. Email is from Lucy Lawless (check out the video she and Robin Malcolm have done too)... http://mail.greenpeace.org.nz/iem/display.php?M=444507&C=4d2f8905f43a57862f071e5690c4a1f1&S=353&L=5&N=278
Hope to see a good contingent from F&B - apparently a couple of bird costumes are looking for members to wear them...8-)Posted 2 years ago # -
IUCN has criticised the proposals too http://www.odt.co.nz/your-town/wanaka/103750/world-nature-group-attacks-mining-proposals
How many more big interests need to voice concern before Brownlee and Key start pretending at least to listen?
Posted 2 years ago # -
Here's a bit of coverage and 38 photos from today's fantastic No Mining Protest in Queens St today. A crowd of 40-50,000 people !! Great people, great atmosphere, great message to the Government !
Just click on the blog link below and scroll down the page for easy online viewing.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Is the extended deadline for submissions just to give pro-mining lobby some more time to convince people to support them and write pro-mining submissions? Even more need for us to convince people to send in anti-mining Schedule 4 subs.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Last night on TV3 Energy Minister Brownlee made a host of outrageous claims about the Paparoa National Park areas that are being recommended exclusion from Schedule 4 of the Conservation Act so that they can be open to mining exploration and mining (probably open cast coal mining). Essentially he claimed that they weren't actually part of the "real " Paparoa National Park and implied that DOC was party to these areas being recommended for exclusion from Schedule 4 protection because "DOC has never thought that these areas are suitable for National Park".
Did anyone else see the John Campbell interview with Brownlee and Lucy Lawless?
Brownlee shows his total ignorance of the National Parks Act and of how these Eastern Paparoa areas became National Park.
First they have probably been subject to a higher degree of scrutiny than most of the rest of Paparoa National Park. These areas were the subject of a review by the Government's Expert Panel on Timberlands West Coast forests study in 2001. I was part of that study and we subjected all the former Timberlands native forest and natural lands to a detailed study of their ecological values as required by the Government of the day. We visited the areas and assembled all the information known about the ecological values of every area. This work was all published in 2001 as a detailed report and it covered every piece of Timberlands managed natural forest apart from those areas allocated to Ngai Tahu because they were enclosed by pine plantations.
The Eastern Paparoa Ecological Areas met the National Parks criteria contained within the National Parks Act and General Policy to qualify as National Park land and the "Expert Panel" as it was called recommended accordingly to the Government as they had requested that we do.
Secondly those recommendations of the Timberlands Review Panel were considered in detail by the Government. The recommendations were also considered by the NZ Conservation Authority who has the statutory power to determine if areas meet National Parks requirements (under Section 7 of the Act). Both the Government and the NZCA were satisfied that the Eastern Paparoa areas were suitable for National Park. Following a recommendation from the NZCA, the areas were gazetted as National Park.
Minister Brownlee is wrong in his claim that therse areas are not suitable as National Park. His claims also show his poor understanding of the process whereby areas become National Park. It is not DOC's decision what areas are added or removed from National Park. It is the responsibility of the NZCA.
But why bother with the statutory process if like Mr Brownlee you can just ride roughshod over democratic process and public participation. It is far easier to just make autocratic decisions.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Yes, that got my hackles up too !
For anyone who didn't see the Lawless vs Brownlee interview on TV3, here is the link to a replay of that segment of Campbell Live ...
Personally I would much rather have seen Gerry Brownlee vs Gerry McSweeney on this than the light-weight Lucy. Respect to her for putting herself forward for the anti-mining protest, and the work done by Robyn Malcolm too, to help highlight the issue ... BUT
It's an indictment on our communities, that we are seen to need celebrities to highlight an issue like this and an indictment on the media, that they prefer to go for a celeb vs politician interview rather than finding someone who knows the issue in depth to represent the opposition side of the NO mining argument from the Govt. propaganda that Brownlee was able to get away with last night !
Posted 2 years ago # -
Submissions are now due 5.00pm Wed 23rd May.
If your submission is done and dusted already, you can help out further by printing out some of F&B's pre-formatted letters and get other people to make a submission,
Just look under the 'take action' section on this page here -
Posted 2 years ago # -
5.00pm Wed 26th May is the new deadline.
Posted 2 years ago # -
The papers today have revealed that Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson and Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee had originally planned to open up hundreds of thousands of hectares of National Park and Schedule 4 protected Conservation Land to mining exploration. However they scaled this back to a much smaller area in the face of likely public opposition and opposition from some of their cabinet colleagues. Included in the land they wanted to open up was nearly half of Kahurangi National Park.
I understand that Nelson MP Nick Smith, was outraged by the proposals to open up Kahurangi and recognised that this would be electoral suicide for him in his Nelson seat. He led the charge to scale back the mining proposals.
Let's hope pragmatists like Nick Smith MP can kick some sense into their cabinet colleagues so that they abandon their crazy plan to open up the Schedule 4 areas to mining.
Unfortunately for those of us operating in the nature tourism industry, the damage to NZ's reputation and environmental credentials has already been severe. These short sighted Ministers like Mr Brownlee and Tourism Minister/PM John Key have no idea how bad it is to have the Guardian and the Economist media slamming our green credentials.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Is that in addition to the things that F&B had talked about a wee while ago? http://www.forestandbird.org.nz/what-we-do/publications/media-releases/forest-bird-finds-more-mining-plans-on-government-website
They mention Mt Aspiring and Mt Richmond and some of the kauri forested areas which would've gone into a Kauri National Park in that.Posted 2 years ago # -
So good to see that geologists are speaking out on the issue. Here's a really good article in today's Dom Post -
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/3657416/Conservation-mining-no-quick-fix-geologist
The herald quotes the same geologist, but the article isn't quite as hard-hitting -
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10642591
Posted 2 years ago # -
Here's some piccies of people gathering submissions.
Lynda Kitchingham hit up people at Earth day in Kaikoura, and Christine Heatherbell-Brown from Wellington has managed to get over 700 submissions by asking people on the street.If you're interested in doing this, please contact our Wellington office - office@forestandbird.org.nz, and we'll flick some submission forms your way.
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Posted 2 years ago # -
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That can't be Wellington, they're in summer clothes, the sun's out, there's no rain, and the papers aren't being blown all over the place.......
Awesome work though.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Look at this people!!
http://www.tv3.co.nz/60-Minutes---Shock-and-Ore-Mining/tabid/905/articleID/63556/Default.aspxPosted 2 years ago # -
Dennis Tegg made his case against Coromandel mining in a measured, rational way on 60 Minutes. A great spokesperson.
Posted 2 years ago # -
...don't let the Brownlee media machine rumours lull you into the false sense of security that mining in national parks is off the agenda !
... we need to keep on gathering submissions and signatures til the govt has announced that this is definitely the case !
Posted 2 years ago # -
If you get the chance have a look at this column that ran in the Press by political lecturer Brownwyn Hayward -
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/perspective/3662874/Parks-key-to-Kiwi-wellbeing
She makes some really good points and as the leader of a study on NZder's life-satisfaction, she's well placed to talk about the value we place on the outdoors.
Needless to say, her study showed that NZders enviable happiness/life satisfaction ratings are overwhelmingly grounded in the fact that we get outdoors frequently and that we really enjoy our outdoorsy lifestyle....
Mining national parks will ultimately undermine our happiness.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Yep, how many people (particularly wealthy ones - go figure!?) have you heard saying that having money doesn't necessarily make you happy? And that health is way more important than money.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Good to see Brownlee got an appropriate reception from protesters in Thames yesterday.
Go to;
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3688149/Minister-bypasses-80-anti-mining-protesters
Posted 2 years ago # -
Also more detail and photos on Brownlee's reception with the local iwi too, at this link;
Posted 2 years ago # -
If you get a chance grab this week's listener - there's a really good piece about the legislative framework that other countries operate under. I didn't know this, but in Australia, US and Canada it is essentially illegal for a native species to become extinct, so biodiversity trumps industry every time.
If we had these kind of laws then our archey's and hochstetter's frogs would be safe from mining!
Posted 2 years ago # -
At the risk of stating the obvious, here's the latest group to tell the Govt what they should have had the wit and wisdom to discern all along
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3728861/Global-body-protests-conservation-mining
Posted 1 year ago # -
Forest & Bird and others will be delivering the final few thousand anti-mining submissions to the Ministry of Economic Development tomorrow - Tuesday, 25 May at 12.30pm.
Meet on the steps of the MED building, 33 Bowen St, Wellington at 12.30 to express your love of our national parks and our native plants and animals.
See you there - rain or shine.
Posted 1 year ago # -
"Give them an inch and they'll take a mile"
Pyke River Coal Chief Executive Gordon Ward announces that his company is certainly not content with its special consent to mine under the Paparoa National Park. He wants to explore and mine Schedule 4 protected land everywhere. He now also claims to be a tourism expert. In the article he is reported to be telling New Zealand that exploration and mining of National Parks won't affect our tourism image or the number of tourists coming here!
Perhaps Mr Ward should stick to mining and leave politics, conservation and tourism planning to others more qualified. His company has repeatedly defaulted on its mining promises. It keeps asking its shareholders and lenders for more money as it announces delay after delay in its mining promises.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/3729454/Miner-wants-right-to-explore
Posted 1 year ago # -
Good to see that frog expert, Phil Bishop is getting the word out there both in the national and international media.....Nice one Phil! There's even been a piece in today's NZ Herald...
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10647234
http://hamaraphotos.com/news/general/worlds-most-ancient-frogs-face-extinction-2.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100520102917.htm
Posted 1 year ago # -
Today we delivered around 4,000 submissions to the Ministry of Economic development. This represents just a small fraction of the 30,000 submissions that have been received by the government.....Still one more day to go, if you haven't sent a submission go here -
http://www.forestandbird.org.nz/mining
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- Mining_submission_delivery.jpg (459.6 KB, 0 downloads) 1 year old
- Mining_submission_deliver_Quentin.jpg (227 KB, 0 downloads) 1 year old
- Mining_submission_deliver_with_pukeko.jpg (197.1 KB, 0 downloads) 1 year old
Posted 1 year ago # -
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