Wednesday, March 17, 2021



Labour should have fixed this long ago

Back in 2017 the government promised that there would be no new mines on conservation land. They then did nothing for three years, supposedly because of opposition from NZ First, but they still haven't done anything about it despite having won an absolute majority. Meanwhile, a mining company wants to dig up a World Heritage Area:

Kokiri Lime Company Limited have applied for 40-year consents to quarry approximately 30ha of primarily mature native forest within Te Wāhipounamu South West New Zealand World Heritage Area. The planned quarry includes 15ha of conservation land, 1ha of which been quarried before.
World Heritage Sites are meant to be legally protected from desecration. But ours aren't. Back in 2017 Labour put up a member's bill to add them to Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act (basicly forbidding all mining), but the then-National government voted it down. Sadly, Labour didn't take the opportunity to pass such a ban last term, and haven't made any noises about doing it now they have a majority. And so we have greedy corporations still trying to dig them up.

The government should have fixed this long ago. Their failure to do so is now looking like a deliberate refusal, almost as if they don't really care about conservation at all...