Coal mine stand should be lauded

‘‘Everything old is new again’’ the adage goes, and there will be a bit of evidence of this in tomorrow’s Weekend Standard.

We’re making a few nips and tucks to our Saturday edition to ensure readers continue to receive the local content they enjoy most and a strong mix of magazine feature content.

Tina White’s beloved weekly Memory Lane is moving from the magazine section back to page 2, where it ran on Saturdays for many years.

I hope this popular feature being just one page-turn away will be welcomed by readers. However, it will bring to an end the weekly series of historic photo captions, The Way We Were, while the Five-minute quiz will move to the Opinion page.

Also, from next week two of our weekly columns, Malcolm Anderson’s Paws and Claws and Malcolm Hopwood’s Tunnel Vision, will move to weekday publication; Paws and Claws on Thursday, and Tunnel Vision on Friday. The above changes will mean we can more readily tap into our group’s quality magazine content, such as National Portrait, Technology, Flashback

and Leisure.

I hope readers are enjoying the paper. I’m still receiving kind words about its convenience and the mix of content. Please keep the feedback coming.

Matthew Dallas, Editor

matthew.dallas@stuff.co.nz

Environmental charity Forest & Bird has been doing the Lord’s work on the West Coast in its ongoing legal tussle with mining company Rangitira Developments. In October, the Court of Appeal ruled that the Buller District Council was wrong to give the company access to 104 hectares of council reserve land within the 116ha it planned to mine. Rangitira now says it will take its fight all the way to the Supreme Court.

To recap, Rangitira sought consents to mine on reserve land near Westport administered by the Buller District Council. The council granted consents but Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage and Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods both declined permission to allow mining on 12ha of conservation land that is Crown-owned. Rangitira has said it will also appeal that decision.

Buller Mayor Garry Howard has been a vocal fan of the Mt Te Kuha mining proposal, which he calls a ‘‘boutique’’ mine, while acknowledging that the coast is generally ‘‘trying to diversify from mining’’. Local jobs are at the heart of it. The mine would offer 58 fulltime equivalent jobs on site and in Westport. Over its estimated 16-year life, the mine would produce around 4 million tonnes of coal.

But? There is always a but. Forest & Bird has pointed out that the reserve has unique ecological values. As the Court of Appeal judgment explains, it has ‘‘extensive areas of intact low forest in which pink and yellow silver pine are important components’’. There are 23 species of native birds in the contested area, including two that are threatened – the great spotted kiwi and the New Zealand falcon. There are at-risk lizard species and land snails.

Forest & Bird has also said the reserve is ‘‘home to the largest known population of the rare forest ringlet butterfly and other threatened invertebrates, including what appears to be a previously unknown species of tiger beetle’’.

The question on the minds of most will be whether 58 jobs for only 16 years could ever be worth the threat to rare native species. In a larger sense, it boils down to a clash between long-term conservation values and short-term economic benefits.

Even if this is a ‘‘boutique’’ form of coal mining, it is clear the age of coal is behind us in New Zealand. To approve even this development would be short-sighted.

When Sage and Woods declined the application to mine on conservation land in June, they said the mine’s potential economic benefits were not large enough to ‘‘outweigh the irreparable damage to an area with very high, unique and nationally significant conservation values’’. Sage said the scenic values and topography would also be affected.

Conservation land and reserves have different governance systems, which is why Forest & Bird has found itself challenging a local council. When the Court of Appeal found in Forest & Bird’s favour, it ruled that the council could not prioritise economic gains over environmental protections.

While we should applaud Forest & Bird’s dogged campaign, we must also ask whether it should be left to a small organisation with no government funding to be at the front line of protecting a unique and precarious landscape and the native species it contains. It was therefore good to see the Department of Conservation (DOC) take a stand this week and join Forest & Bird in its fight to save the Kaimaumau wetland in Northland.

‘‘... it boils down to a clash between long-term conservation values and short-term economic benefits.’’