should we mine the coromandel? by Melissa Low First John Key doesn’t want to defend the whales, and now he’s supporting the proposal to dig up and mine our conservation land? What a big fat piece of irony our country (and our Tourism Minister) is turning out to be while we’re still promoting a 100 per cent pure New Zealand image. If you don’t know the name Gerry Brownlee, you’ll be getting familiar with it. He’s the Energy and Resources Minister, and the force behind proposal to open 7058 hectares of our protected conservation land to mining. According to him, we can’t ignore “the $194 billion worth of minerals on conservation land” so we should mine it to bring in the big bucks and boost our economy and we’ll all live happier ever after in our rich little country. Obviously Gerry doesn’t seem to get outside enough. Mining will help our economy? Maybe. Destroy our environment? Definitely. Gerry Brownlee’s proposal is like sending Mother Nature into prostitution. There’s a reason why these areas have been labelled “conservation land”; so it can be protected, preserved and be kept at its best. Not to fall into a state of devastation at the hands of destructive, money hungry bottom feeders. Once a land is mined, it can never return to the same state. It becomes damaged; thus threatening the life of vegetation and the habitat of native animals, some of which are already so close to extinction. Environments can also become polluted from toxic tailings, contaminating the clean waterways. It could turn into one big mess, and cleaning up won’t be easy; in fact they can be incredibly painful on the taxpayer’s wallet (because we weren’t already paying enough to fix Government screw ups). Gerry Brownlee however tries to sweeten the deal for the “Greenies”, saying the 7058 hectares that will be removed from Schedule Four (the act that protects lands from mining) will be replaced by protecting another 12,400 hectares into protection. This will be another 5342 hectares more than what is currently been protected under Schedule Four. As tempting as the numbers may seem, it’s not going to be of the same worth. The 12,400 hectares were already waiting to be officially protected under conservation laws in the next review, and these areas just happen to be the ones without mining potential, thus safe from any interest of Gerry Brownlee. So this trade would be like saying to someone, “Instead of having two plane tickets to London, we’re going to exchange that by giving you 40 tickets to Gore.” Not so satisfying now, is it? Mining is just not a sustainable source; once it is gone, it’s gone. To start losing the gorgeous lands of the country is to lose a reputation, one that tourism relies on for their big bucks. While mining is said to be a $2 billion dollar industry in New Zealand, the country’s tourism in comparison earns almost $22 billion dollars per year. That’s eleven times more from a source of income that is long term and sustainable. Proposed mining sites, such as Great Barrier Island for example, need tourism. An island that consists of only 850 people; half of them are over the age of 50. I don’t see a very high possibility of new miners being employed that are over 50 years old. How would mining provide any boost to their already fragile economy? Great Barrier Island relies on its environment to promote tourism, and if mining creates damage to the land, Great Barrier Island is losing its big money maker. The conservation land of our country needs to be kept as pure as possible, and stay that way. Yes, we do need minerals, but do we need to compromise our national standards to gain it? A gorgeous and pure environment would always be of way more worth in the long run than a dirty, empty mine. So sorry Gerry, you’re not selling out our country for your so-called quick rich money scheme. (And on a side note, I can give the Government plenty of tips where it can start saving money. For example, permanently get rid of TV2’s tragedy, The Singing Bee, and we’ll save ourselves paying $10,000 to someone who sings crappy karaoke. I’m sure the environment would be grateful for that too.) p
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by Jared Van Huenen During the holidays, the Government announced that it was proposing a discussion into removing more than 7000 hectares of Schedule Four conservation land on the Coromandel and West Coast, for the purpose of mining. Cue massive backlash. It seems these days that New Zealanders will whinge about pretty much anything. Well, some New Zealanders anyway. About a month ago, the Green Party released a statement saying that the idea is a sham, a breach of our democratic rights and, I paraphrase, a big “fuck you” to the people of New Zealand. Co-leader Metiria Turei says, without consulting the public herself, that opening this land up to private mining companies is against the will of the taxpayer, and that it opens the whole country up for potential mining. A typical crusade from a party that, over the last few years, has become increasingly out of touch with the New Zealand people. Ending her press release with “Love it, don’t mine it”, Turei expresses just how ineffective the Green Party mantra has become. Let’s be clear, the Government is not mining anything. There is an allotment of land, around 3.5 million hectares (excluding marine areas), that is considered “Schedule Four”, which in basic terms means it is conservation land and nobody can touch it. The National Party is proposing that around 7000 hectares of this land (considerably less than half a per cent) should be opened up for potential exploration and (mainly) gold mining. Creating literally thousands of jobs and bringing up to $60 billion into our economy, the mining projects would be a massive boost to our debt-laden, limping economy. But why talk about that when we can whinge about how our country is “clean and green” and we shouldn’t ruin that? Newsflash, New Zealand is green by default and it’s hardly clean. We’re a nation that expects first world amenities without making any sacrifices. This brings us rather neatly to another group of New Zealanders who love a good whinge with very little understanding of, to be honest, anything. Students. Historically, students as a people have been the face of revolution, the pure voice of naivety wanting to right the wrongs of bureaucracy and fat cats. Now we just whinge. It’s not even intelligent whinging either, it’s whinging based on nothing but conjecture and blind idealism. I don’t know who’s sadder; the New Zealanders who don’t know who John Key is, or those who hate him because they want to stick it to the man and smoke weed all day. Mining conservation land is certainly not preferable. If we could open up another dozen oil rigs off the coast and make our money that way, we would all be a bit happier. The reality is that we can’t. The reality is that our economy is not a position where we get to do whatever we want. What do people think is going to pay for fibre-optic broadband in every New Zealand home? It’s sure as shit isn’t magic pixie dust and smiles. Tell that to any Greenie and you’ll get “There are some sacrifices we just can’t make”. What sacrifices can we make? More importantly, where are the people providing solutions? And that takes us back to where we started. The worst part about us is that we whinge and whinge and whinge, and nobody’s prepared to come up with anything else. Some woman on a stuff.co.nz forum sums it up better than I ever could with “C’mon John, get the money somewhere else”. Billions of dollars. Somewhere else? I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I guess the worst part of it is that people aren’t even open to suggestion about ways that can help our country out the proverbial shithole we’ve fallen into. Without even looking at the details of the proposal, thousands of people began kicking up stinks all over the country. “You can’t put an open cast mine on Great Barrier Island! You’ll destroy our tourism industry!” The only mining on Great Barrier would be underground, and we’re talking about remote areas with very little tourist appeal. Not only that, but is mining a reason for people not to visit New Zealand? They mine in the Mediterranean, they mine in the Caribbean, but I don’t hear people saying “Oh no I can’t go to the Greek Isles for the summer, I heard they might be mining there!” Which brings us back to where we started. New Zealand needs money and mines make it - with relatively little environmental collateral. It’s a logical decision, but apparently we’d rather whinge than make any of those.