Quentin Duthie says past experience shows us mines can cause terrible environmental damage
In 1997, the then Minister of Conservation proudly proclaimed New Zealand's most important landscapes "no-go areas" for mining.
National parks, marine reserves, wildlife sanctuaries and other core conservation places were enshrined in law as too precious to mine.
Nick Smith - now Minister for the Environment - heralded a
new era of protection for natural New Zealand and the birth of schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act.
"This is landmark legislation for the conservation movement in New Zealand. I welcome the bill's progress and ... look forward to not having to consider mining applications in those areas where nature should be able to rule the roost," Dr Smith trumpeted.
Conservation organisations - including Forest & Bird - praised by Dr Smith for helping push for schedule 4 protection could rest easy in the knowledge that mines and national parks would never again be mentioned in the same breath.
Likewise, the mining industry was given certainty in knowing where they could and couldn't invest in exploration and mining.
Thirteen years on, New Zealanders still believe mining should be prohibited in our most precious conservation areas. These extraordinary wild landscapes - havens for endangered native animals and plants found nowhere else in the world - haven't become less precious. Quite the opposite - continued species decline and habitat degradation make their protection even more important.
Most land that is part of our public conservation estate is wild and beautiful. But to earn schedule 4 protection, it has to be especially significant. It includes national but not conservation parks, for example.
New Zealand - like other countries - has national parks to preserve forever outstanding natural areas. They "contain scenery of such distinctive quality, ecological systems, or natural features so beautiful, unique, or scientifically important that their preservation is in the national interest", says the National Parks Act.
Many national parks have spectacular mountain scenery. Some of the newer national parks have been created because they have now rare lowland forest.
Paparoa National Park, on the West Coast, is one of these, with nikau palms on the coast, blushing-red rata trees and rimu and beech forest further inland. Great spotted kiwi snuffle through Paparoa's forests, and kaka, kakariki and kereru migrate with the seasons along its green corridors.
Paparoa deserves its place in New Zealand's national park pantheon. Unfortunately, Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee believes it should be mined.
A great crowd marched in Queen St, Auckland at the beginning of this month to tell the Government that places like Paparoa and Great Barrier Island should not be mined. A detailed poll last week confirmed most New Zealanders agree.
Forest & Bird is confident Prime Minister John Key is now hearing the pride and passion of New Zealanders for these places, and hopes he will move to protect schedule 4.
New Zealanders also realise mining has a large and very real impact on the environment. That is why it is so important mining is prohibited in schedule 4 areas, but also why it is so important to have stringent controls on mining elsewhere.
Unfortunately, some of the 82 mines on public conservation land have caused serious environmental problems. The large Pike River and OceanaGold mines on the West Coast have both received multiple fines for polluting waterways, and a mine near Te Puke is threatening endangered Hochstetter's frogs.
Claims of clean, green mining are fanciful. Most New Zealand mines are open cast, like the large Waihi gold mine. There, tonnes of rock are crushed into a paste, mixed with cyanide and other chemicals, and all but a tiny fraction is carted to lake-sized toxic tailings dams.
The potential for environmental disaster is vast. Tailings dams sometimes collapse. Land near mines is prone to erosion, subsidence and can cause flooding. Mine sediment or chemicals get into waterways, destroying natural habitats and killing native birds, fish, frogs and insects.
New Zealand has inherited a toxic legacy from past mining, and the taxpayer is left to pay to clean up the contamination and restore the environment as best we can.
The Tui mine in the Waikato is estimated to cost $17 million to clean up. However, some things are priceless. We can't re-create wild places, habitats and species.
Mining companies talk about restoring mined land. It's hard to imagine how Solid Energy could put Mt Augustus back together again after lopping the top off to get at coal at its Stockton mine.
It now seems likely the unique snails that lived there will go extinct in the wild. It is equally impossible to restore the ancient native forests that cloak Paparoa National Park.
Mr Key has given the tourism industry a $30 million helping hand to promote our beautiful scenery. It is crucial New Zealand does not undermine the places tourists come to see or the 100 per cent Pure New Zealand brand.
National parks and other schedule 4 areas are the protected heart of our land, and provide the lifeblood to our economy. Let's keep it that way.
* Quentin Duthie is Forest & Bird's conservation advocate.
