Newsletter / Blog
2011-09-21 Forest & Bird appeals Denniston mine consent - New Zealand.
Independent
conservation organisation Forest & Bird (BirdLife Partner in New Zealand)
today lodged an appeal against a 140-hectare open-cast coal mine on
Denniston Plateau conservation land.
“An open-cast
coal mine will wipe out the ecology of the Denniston Plateau,” Forest &
Bird President Andrew Cutler said. “This one of a kind environment is home to
some extraordinary plants and animals, and is already conservation land. We
will vigorously argue that it should remain protected.”
Mr Cutler said
the plateau should be protected for all New Zealanders to experience and enjoy.
“If the open-cast mine goes ahead, all New Zealanders will lose access to a
beautiful and historic area, and its outstanding natural values will be
obliterated.”
Forest & Bird
is appealing against the resource consent granted on 26 August to Australian
mining company Bathurst Resources. Forest & Bird wants to protect the
plateau’s rare landscape and nationally endangered animals, such as the great
spotted kiwi, the fernbird and the carnivorous giant land snail, Powelliphanta
patrickensis.
“This is an
incredibly diverse natural plateau with bonsai gardens of rātā amid expansive
sandstone pavements and wetlands. Pygmy pine forests dominate in moss-covered
gorges, and rare tussocklands stretch across this mountain moonscape,” Forest
& Bird Top of the South Field Officer Debs Martin said.
“The
commissioners said they granted the consent with ‘considerable reservations and
anguish’. They agreed the plateau and its inhabitants were ‘remarkable’, and
the mine and processing plant would destroy 200 hectares – yet they believed
the economic benefits outweighed this destruction. With such undisputed
importance, we believe the commissioners erred in their final weighting,” Debs
Martin said.
Forest & Bird
has proposed a new 5900-hectare reserve on the Denniston and Stockton plateaux
to protect the last remaining habitat of several endangered species. The
reserve would be included in Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act to stop it
being mined in the future. It would cover publicly owned land on the Denniston
Plateau, the upper Waimangaroa Gorge, the southern Stockton Plateau, and the Mt
William Range.
“Open-cast mines
on the nearby Stockton Plateau have already wiped out rare ecosystems, and we
want to protect what’s left on the Denniston Plateau,” Debs Martin said.
|