A plan to mine millions of tonnes of iron sand off the coast of South Taranaki has been quashed by the country's highest court.
Trans-Tasman Resources was given approval to extract up to 50 million tonnes of seabed from the South Taranaki Bight each year by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2017.
The decision was then overturned in the High Court.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court agreed iwi rights and the environment were not given enough weight in the original approval.
"This grassroots, very small Taranaki iwi that took this huge debate on and this huge court case on, it's actually set precedence for every other case that comes to the court," Māori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said.
Trans-Tasman Resources said it will reapply to the EPA for the mining consents.
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