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The Green Party says the government’s decision to grant a prospecting permit on heritage land is unacceptable.
It comes after a permit was approved within Te Wāhipounamu, one of the country’s three UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
The permit covers 157 square kilometres, and allows prospecting for all minerals except uranium.
Green Party list MP and resources spokesperson Steve Abel said heritage sites had long been ruled out for mining, and should remain that way.
“This is among our most precious ecology and magnificent landscapes that are recognised globally, hence it’s a world heritage area, this is exactly the space that should be out of bounds to mining, to prospecting and to exploration,” he said.
“It’s utterly unacceptable this government in its fervor for the boom and bust industry of mining has issued a permit within a world heritage area.”
Abel noted that former prime minister John Key had ruled out mining in Te Wāhipounamu in 2012.
“This government is zealous in its advocacy for mining, it’s lost the recognition that the true treasures of our country are the magnificent, unique ecology and landscapes. Those are irreplaceable,” Abel said.
“The boom and bust short-term dollars that can be made from mining, and the short-term jobs, are not worth sacrificing something as spectacular as a heritage area.”
Resource Minister Shane Jones said the circumstances had changed since 2012.
“I realise that Mr John Key made a historical decision, but we are no longer in those circumstances. We’re grappling with inordinate debt after Covid, we are challenged by geopolitical uncertainty, and, look, I’m sorry Green creatures, we’re going to have to do trade-off politics,” he said.
“Look, for the last 20 or 30 years, New Zealand’s been able to maintain luxury beliefs such as not mining the DOC estate. We don’t have the money, we don’t have the circumstances nowadays to cuddle up to luxury beliefs.
“We’re going to have to open up areas of the DOC estate for development, if we can have the correct guardrails and mitigation initiatives.”
Jones described the permit as “innocuous”.
“It pertains to hydrogen which is sorely needed when one considers the negative effects of our dependence on oil to fuel our transport fleet,” Jones said.
“The guy that’s trying to do the work here is only wanting a limited area. I’m told he wants to cover off a relatively small area, he is not introducing any physical interventions, it’s more of a gathering information exercise.”
Abel said regardless of the methods, any mining activity in the area would cause damage.
“It invariably involves disturbance and destruction of the landscape, and it often involves the use of toxic chemicals for extraction that leave an intergenerational legacy of tailings dams laden with cyanide that have to be managed decades after the mines have closed,” he said.
“There’s acid mine drainage which is already a problem we have on the west coast from historic mining and contemporary mining, so the legacy of mining in these areas is forever. The few dollars that are made are short term.”
Jones rejected the idea that the benefits of mining were short term.
“The Macraes gold mine has been going for decades and decades, Waihi mining has been going for decades and decades, these are not short term sugar hits, that’s just shallow hyperbole,” he said.
Nā Felix Walton nō RNZ.