Coromandel Watchdog straining at the leash

By RENEE KIRIONA

The environmentalists who stopped goldmining in the Coromandel Peninsula two decades ago are back to fight a new fight.

Last night founding members from Coromandel Watchdog sat round the same planning table that saw them put together the country's most successful anti-goldmining campaign.

"We might be 20 years older but we've still got that fighting spirit in us," said spokesman Mark Tugendhaft. "It appears that the mining industry needs to be sent another reminder that we don't want them here."

The group's revival follows an interim decision by the Environment Court in July to allow goldmining to be reclassified as a discretionary activity, meaning mining companies could apply for a resource consent to mine across the peninsula.

About 25 Watchdog members attended the meeting. Michele Fill, who in the 1970s took photographs of mining companies breaking their conditions, was among them.

"We're angry that we have to do this all over again. We thought it had been laid to rest," she said.

"We're blowing the dust off from our phone tree right now."

The telephone tree was a strategy whereby a designated 10 people would each call 20 others and so on, to alert them to drilling rigs coming up the coast.

A blockade would then be set up to prevent rigs from prospecting a site.

As a result of last night's meeting, the group will appeal to bach owners and other absentee ratepayers in Auckland and Hamilton to enrol and vote in next month's local body elections for the Thames-Coromandel District Council.

At a court hearing in May, the council reversed its long-held position of prohibiting goldmining, but in August - after a protest by about 500 residents angered by that decision - it decided to appeal against the court's decision.

Among the most significant of the group's achievements was the ban on mining on Crown land north of Kopu, and the decision released by the Environment Court in 1996 that deemed mining to be a restricted activity and prohibited in coastal areas.

The deadline to enrol as an absentee voter is this Wednesday.