Seabed mining shaping up as early assault on environment laws
For more than 10 years the South Taranaki Bight has been the centre of a standoff between an international mining company and the local community over proposals to mine the seabed for ironsands.
Hapū, iwi, local community groups, environmental activists and the fishing industry have been fighting tooth and nail to resist the plans from Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR).
Its application was to mine iron, titanium and vanadium, digging up 50 million tonnes of seabed in a 66 square kilometres area for a period of 35 years.
After dredging up the seafloor, it would extract the minerals and then dump 45m tonnes of sludge back into the sea, smothering the surrounding area with a sediment plume which would spread hundreds of kilometres up and down the west coast of the North Island.
In 2022 the dispute made its way to highest court in the land, the Supreme Court, which unanimously upheld previous high court and appeal court decisions revoking TTR’s permission to mine.
In a landmark ruling, the court also agreed that the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) should have taken tikanga Māori into account in making its original consent decision, because of the important and elevated status of tikanga and Te Tiriti o Waitangi in the law of Aotearoa. In what for many at first glance would have seemed like a win for tangata whenua and environmentalists, last week TTR withdrew from appearing before the EPA’s hearing of its new application.
But it’s unlikely this latest development will bring an end to the long running saga.
TTR knew that its consent would fail to meet the legal thresholds set out by the Supreme Court, which said the company would need to prove the mining would cause “no material harm“to the marine environment.
Now the company is pinning its hopes on the Government’s controversial Fasttrack Approvals Bill, which would allow just three ministers to approve or deny development projects without having to go through any of the checks and balances set out in environmental law. The bill is currently before the environment select committee, which is calling for submissions from the public.
What assurances, if any, TTR has been given by ministers behind closed doors is unknown, and will likely never be known, but it is obvious that the application has support in the new coalition Government.
Shane Jones has been attacking hapū and iwi asserting their rights and interests in South Taranaki while loudly proclaiming the economic benefits of seabed mining, even though profits will go offshore and instead of seeing any benefit, the domestic economy will subsidise the inevitable losses that come with environmental degradation.
Jones, who will be one of three allpowerful ministers under the fast-track law, has since recused himself from consideration of TTR’s project, as he is caught between mining industry lobbying and the lobbying of the fishing industry which has consistently opposed ironsands mining on the basis that it constitutes a risk to Aotearoa’s reputation as a worldclass manager of fisheries and producer of seafood.
While the fate of seabed mining in South Taranaki remains unknown, TTR’s withdrawal from the EPA process and the legal tests put in place by the courts, highlights just how extreme the Government’s fast-track bill is.
It creates a pathway for developers and extractors to bypass ecological protections, community participation and legal challenge, effectively ripping our environmental law to shreds.
It will mean the decades of progress that has been made on the difficulty of balancing environmental protection and sustainable development will be thrown out overnight.
The coalition seems intent on making Aotearoa a wild west of environmental standards, giving industry carte blanche to use and abuse our resources and landscapes as they see fit, without any regard to what tangata whenua and the public might think.
Now more than ever, people who care about the protection and restoration of Aotearoa’s natural environment need to speak up and get organised, because the Government is trying its best to ensure our voices are no longer heard in consenting processes.
But what they are underestimating is the power that people have when they take direct action and stand up to multinational corporations who seek to profit off the exploitation of our precious ecosystems. We have seen the disruption that tangata whenua and environmentalists have caused deep-sea oil exploration in Aotearoa, such as when Petrobras was doing seismic testing in the Raukūmara Basin. If the Government does ignore the evidence and fast-tracks TTR’s seabed mining application, we may yet again see people taking to the seas.
Jack McDonald is a campaigner and political commentator who has worked for Te Pāti Māori and the Green Party.
A pupil was killed and two others were seriously injured when a 12-year-old boy armed with a handgun opened fire at a school in Finland as students arrived back from their Easter break.
Police said that the victim had died at the scene, the Viertola school in Vantaa, a suburb to the north of the capital, Helsinki. The injured pupils were taken to hospital.
The suspect fled on foot and was subsequently arrested in a nearby suburb but under Finnish law cannot be remanded in custody because he is under 15. He was to be taken into the care of social services.
Police said they had retrieved the weapon, which was licensed. The permit belonged to a relative of the suspect.
Video circulating on social media showed two police officers kneeling at the side of the suspected assailant, who was lying face down on a pavement.
Petteri Orpo, Finland’s prime minister, called the incident “deeply shocking” in a post on Twitter/X.
“My thoughts are with the victims, their loved ones and the other students and staff,” he added.
At a later press conference, Orpo vowed that such a tragedy would not be repeated. “What makes it particularly shocking is the age of the victim and the suspect,” he said. “I can assure you that this [shooting] will be carefully reviewed and conclusions will be drawn that this will not happen again.”
Flags were to be flown at half-mast across Finland as a sign of national mourning. The shooting took place shortly after 9am yesterday. About 800 pupils and 90 staff attend the school.
Armed police officers were spotted at the scene as concerned parents tried to get inside the school to reach their children. The shooting had taken place inside a classroom, according to Finnish media.
Witnesses told the public broadcaster Yle that two ambulances had left the scene. Officials later confirmed that all those involved in the incident were aged 12.
It is the latest school shooting in Finland, which has sought to control access to firearms in recent years.