Sefton Darby is frustrated. New Zealand’s coalition government has announced a minerals strategy and changes to the resource consent framework – aka the Fast-track Approvals Bill – that are driving intense debate about the country’s mining future. But he feels no one is communicating.
“Both sides are just shouting past each other without realising they’re not having the same debate,” he says.
Darby is an interesting character. Raised by conservationist parents, he has worked in the mining industry for 20 years. Moving from the World Bank investigating corruption in mining in developing countries to external relations for an opencast mine in Waihi, he eventually became the New Zealand government’s national minerals manager. He’s now based in Australia, but keeps his finger on the pulse about mining on this side of the ditch. And in his view, there are two different debates going on.
On one hand, Resources Minister Shane Jones and the sector itself say we need to be tapping into our natural resource deposits and extracting the critical minerals used to build clean energy technologies.
Demand is clearly growing for those minerals. But environmentalists, on the other hand, say this is being used to mask something more sinister – a desire to expand the industry for pure economic gain without ensuring protection of the country’s natural capital, biodiversity and conservation estate.
It’s not difficult to see how that conclusion is drawn. Jones is a brash, outspoken character who relies on impassioned rhetoric to capture attention. “Mining is coming back,” he declared to Parliament in December, adding that if an endangered frog stood in the way of a mine, “goodbye, Freddie.”
But with billions of dollars and environmental protections at stake, this is not a debate that will be settled easily. And with the two sides speaking past each other, as Darby says, it’s tough to identify a consensus – or whether a middle ground on the issue is even possible.
Sought-after minerals
Josie Vidal, chief executive of mining advocacy group Straterra, says there’s hardly a debate worth having. The world is transitioning towards renewable energy and experiencing unprecedented demand for minerals used in solar panels, wind turbines and other key technologies.
These products are resource intensive. A typical electric car requires six times the mineral inputs of a fossil-fuel powered one, while offshore wind farms need significantly more than a gas-fired plant. The International Energy Agency projects that the increase in demand means market value for items like copper, lithium and nickel will more than double by 2040.
As a nation founded on international trade, Vidal says, it’s time we asked ourselves the tough questions. “Are we global citizens or are we isolationists? Are we going to sit here on top of the minerals the world needs and say we’re too pure to mine them, but at the same time say we want the electric vehicles and other renewable energy products that they provide?”
Jones has been clear about his intentions – he wants New Zealand to take a piece of the pie. He announced a draft minerals strategy on the mining-intensive West Coast last month that would promote the extraction of minerals and double the $1 billion mining export industry by 2035.
There’s plenty to take advantage of, he says. Lithium, a key component in batteries from mobile phones to EVs, is found in Waikato and Northland. Rare earth minerals, essential for the permanent magnets used in wind turbines and electric vehicle motors, may be mined from the waters off the West Coast. And it is thought that 5% of the world’s supply of antimony, a mineral used in everything from mobile phones to solar panels and electric vehicles, lies beneath Reefton.
New Zealand should not be relying on other countries when we have these deposits here, Jones said at the strategy announcement. “Their supply can be fragile, volatile, unreliable, and sometimes without the regulatory rigour we apply to our own operators.”
This is a popular argument, and one that Vidal echoes. The minerals will be mined somewhere, so is it not better to do so here, where we can be transparent and manage the impacts of extraction?
Anti-mining campaigner Cindy Baxter says Jones’ adoption of this argument shows the level of influence the industry has over the government. She’s the founder of Taranaki-based Kiwis Against Seabed Mining (KASM), one of the groups opposing seabed mining in the South Taranaki Bight (See “Sand in the turbines”, page 21 ).
“That’s the sector’s spin – that they’re essential for the clean energy revolution,” she says. “Shane Jones has fallen for it hook, line and sinker. But what is a clean energy revolution if you have to trash the environment to get there?”
Former Green Party MP Catherine Delahunty is also among those who reject the argument. “Mining won’t keep us from polluting the Earth,” she says. “Mining is polluting the Earth – whether through greenhouse gases released in the process or toxic waste left behind.
“Rare earth and critical minerals are the great new frontier right now, but it’s like being in a bad Western. Everyone wants to ride the wave, and no one is looking at the price we will pay for it.”
Right mine, right place
According to Sefton Darby, New Zealand has been here before. “There was a similar period from 2009 to 2012, when strong pro-mining optimism coming out of the government drove intense criticism of the sector.”
He worked in external relations for Newmont Gold, which owned the huge opencast pit at Waihi before its sale to OceanaGold in 2015, and it taught him how important it is to get everyone on the same page. While he agrees that certain minerals are necessary to make the clean energy transition, he is adamant that this should not be used to shut down arguments about the practice’s environmental impacts.
“It’s legitimate for people to be worried,” he says. “Why would they trust this industry, which has contributed so heavily to climate change, to now be their saviours from the crisis?”
Darby says there are three key questions that should be the focus of this debate – a view he shares with Forest & Bird’s manager of conservation advocacy, Richard Capie.
“Our position can be summarised as right mine, right place, right protections,” Capie says.
Starting with the “right mine”, both say it’s about mining the minerals needed to decarbonise the global energy system, not coal. “I don’t see a credible future in which we are still burning coal to process milk powder in New Zealand,” says Darby. “But at the same time, if someone said they’d found a copper deposit on some farmland, that would warrant a genuine debate. Right now, those issues are being lumped together.”
But the two issues are easily conflated. Jones is an open supporter of the entire mining industry – including coal – and has promised Resource Management Act reforms to streamline consenting.
“We burn coal to keep the lights on in New Zealand. We have some of the finest coking coal in the world on the West Coast, and you can’t make steel without it,” he said last month. Richard Tacon, chief executive of Bathurst Resources, New Zealand’s largest coal company, agrees – in part. He acknowledges how emissions-intensive it is to burn coal for electricity, and he doesn’t think it should be standard practice. “The [coal-burning] Huntly power station is the last thing turned on and the first thing turned off – and that’s how it should be.”
But most of the coal mined by Bathurst is coking coal, which remains “a necessary part of the green energy transition”, he says. “Coal is essential to making steel, and all parts of life need steel. You can’t make cars, buildings, solar panel arrays, or wind turbines without it.
“To make the steel you need temperatures above 1800°C, and you still need the heat of coal for that. It’s going to take a couple of decades or more before alternatives take over and can produce the same result.”
Capie is hopeful the lifespan will be shorter. New Zealand Steel has already started investing in electrifying parts of its Glenbrook plant, and the companies that use Bathurst’s coal can hear consumers’ calls for decarbonisation, he says.
Stewardship land
About 30% of New Zealand’s land is part of the public conservation estate, managed by the Department of Conservation (DoC). A large chunk of that land falls under schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act and is afforded a high level of protection. Even Jones says that land, which includes national parks and scenic reserves, will remain protected from mining.
But Jones would like to see stewardship land freed up for development. That accounts for 30% of conservation land, or about 9% of the country’s land mass, and it is essentially a less significant category of conservation land or land awaiting classification. In 2021, the government launched a review to reclassify stewardship land. An expert panel provided recommendations, but they haven’t yet been acted on.
Capie says Forest & Bird would oppose a new mine on any public conservation land – including stewardship land. “Just because we haven’t finished the categorisation process doesn’t mean that that land suddenly doesn’t have conservation value,” he says.
Alison Paul is vice president of legal and public affairs for opencast and underground gold miner OceanaGold, which has been trying to obtain consent for a proposed underground operation at Wharekirauponga, about 20km north of Waihi. It would involve tunnelling under conservation land to extract gold and silver, and she says it can be done without damaging the protected estate.
“There would only be two to four places within the conservation park where we would come to the surface for air holes, which have a funnel structure on top. They’re double-storey, about the footprint of two Skyline garages, and I can promise, they won’t be noticeable.”
Morgan Donoghue disagrees. Born and bred on the Coromandel Peninsula, he is co-founder of anti-mining organisation Ours not Mines. He can’t believe the company wants to tunnel underneath the land. “It is a forest park of beautiful waterfalls, great places to swim and native birds – everything you would love about a forest park in New Zealand. Except there’s gold under there, and the miners want to build a 6.8km tunnel underground.”
The area is also home to the Archey’s frog, a critically endangered native species. Deaf to external noises, these frogs would be particularly sensitive to any vibrations from the mine.
Paul says OceanaGold has used a team of ecologists since 2017 to study the potential impact on them. Though it’s hard to gauge, the mine’s vibrations would be comparable to a forestry truck driving past and would happen only three to four times a day, she says. To date, passing trucks haven’t had any noticeable impact on the species.
“This is not a war on nature, this is a win-win. We have no sense of entitlement that we can impact Archey’s frogs and that should be okay with everyone.”
But according to Donoghue, the company’s proposal would not only endanger the species and its surrounding habitat, but is also unnecessary. “There is already enough gold in the world to meet all demand, ever,” he says.
Paul says the reality is that gold is still used for jewellery and for investment. And the proposed site has 11/2 times as much silver as gold, and silver is an essential component of solar photovoltaic panels.
Speaking at an Environmental Defence Society conference in Christchurch on June 11, Conservation Minister Tama Potaka said DoC’s current portfolio was not fiscally sustainable. He would be asking it to prioritise work on high-value conservation areas and attract investment.
According to Paul, this is where OceanaGold can contribute to the viability of the conservation estate. It plans to provide predator and pest control across twice the area expected to experience vibrations from the Wharekirauponga mine, as well as fund up to 18,000ha of predator control in partnership with iwi until at least 2050. It also recently planted a million trees on the site of a former opencast mine near Reefton.
Capie says this argument is ludicrous. “Saying you’ve done environmental remediation by planting some trees when you’ve had an opencast mine – which has destroyed the biodiversity of an area, damaged the water table and caused a huge amount of harm – is greenwashing, at best.”
Enter the fast track
Sefton Darby says the debate we should be having is not whether all mining is good or all mining is bad, but rather whether the circumstances and consent processes are adequate. “Mining is the uncomfortable reality of the energy transition. So there needs to be a clear process whereby the environmental and biodiversity values of land are considered in any decision. But people are legitimately asking whether the fast-track process will allow that to happen.”
The Fast-track Approvals Bill is currently being considered by Parliament’s environment select committee. Described by ministers as a “one-stop shop” for significant infrastructure approvals, the proposed law streamlines consenting requirements.
In its current form, the ministers of infrastructure, regional development and transport will be able to refer projects considered regionally or nationally significant to an expert panel for streamlined assessment. Scientists, other expert witnesses and the general public would have limited opportunity for input and final decisions would lie with the ministers. This has garnered intense criticism – including from politically neutral offices like the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and the Auditor-General – who have warned of potential executive overreach.
According to the government and companies seeking to make use of the process, the bill is simply a matter of reducing red tape and allowing development to happen. Any environmental protections that were required under the standard resource management process would not be removed from an application for a fast-track consent, OceanaGold’s Alison Paul says.
But Richard Capie says the government’s true intention is clear from the bill’s stated purpose: “to facilitate the delivery of national or regionally significant infrastructure and development projects”. Criteria for qualifying projects include economic development and supporting primary industries and the development of natural resources, including minerals and petroleum. “That clearly gives precedent to financial returns over environmental protection.”
Projects that have previously been rejected by the courts for a lack of credible environmental protections will now have a pathway to consent, he adds.
One of these is Trans-Tasman Resources’ proposed seabed mining operation off Taranaki. After rejection in the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of its plan to mine thousands of tonnes a year of ironsands rich in valuable minerals and metals, TTR launched a fresh bid for marine discharge consents at the Environmental Protection Authority in March. But after the announcement of the fast-track bill, it abruptly withdrew from the hearing, declaring its intention to seek a fast-track consent instead.
“We were due to have more hearings in the coming months, but they just dropped it like a hot potato,” says KASM’s Baxter. “It’s unbelievable that this law could provide an opening when the Supreme Court has said no to the project already.”
The bill is not targeted towards mining but its timing and content mean it inextricably forms part of the mining debate, Darby says. “The fact that the government’s minerals strategy came out while the fast-track bill is such a hot topic means the two things are being discussed in the same space. When talking about the projects that could be fast-tracked, people are reasonably pointing to mining – coal, as well as so-called green minerals.”
With the debate centred around minerals used to build clean energy technologies, the waters get even murkier. Even among environmentalists, very few say there’s no space for extracting those in any circumstances.
As Capie says, Forest & Bird would not oppose a mine if it was the right type, in the right place, with the right protections.
Baxter agrees. “I’m not opposed to all mining. But mining – on land and on the seabed – can cause huge environmental problems. And if that’s the case, it shouldn’t go ahead.”
Clean tech & recycling
There are alternatives out there, but they are still in development. Clean tech company Geo40 has pioneered a method of direct lithium extraction, relying on geothermal aquifers in Waikato.
Chief executive John Worth says the company was founded by miners who wanted to solve some of the industry’s toughest problems. One of those challenges is extracting the target mineral in liquid form.
“The logic behind Geo40 is that nature is doing this itself. Fluid is being pulled out of the ground, heat is being extracted from it and it’s being re-injected into the same aquifer in this beautiful, sustainable closed loop. And they thought, if only we could selectively pull out some of the minerals that are in that fluid.”
The company started by extracting silica, a mineral used in everything from concrete and paint to engine blocks in cars.
In 2019, it started applying the method to extract lithium. “You pull the fluid out of the ground, selectively pull out the lithium, then re-inject the fluid back into the ground so lithium can dissolve back into it.”
With several pilot programmes out of the way, Geo40 is aiming to commercialise this process for lithium.
Worth says it isn’t a means to replace mining – at least not yet. “We don’t have anything bad to say about conventional mining,” he says. “But we need all of the possible sources of lithium to power the green transport revolution. It’s our job to find a way to scale up our technology as fast as we can.”
Colum Rice tends to agree. He is head of strategy at Mint Innovation, another New Zealand-born clean tech company. Mint has developed technology that recovers critical and precious metals from electronic waste – particularly from phone and laptop circuit boards and blade servers used in data centres.
“There is incumbent technology for recovering metals from circuit boards, which is smelting,” Rice says. “But that means putting the boards in a copper smelter and using heat to concentrate and tap off the metals. It takes a lot of energy. Whereas our technology uses smart chemistry and biomass as the concentrating agent.”
The most abundant metal in a circuit board is copper – an essential component in the clean energy transition. Demand is growing faster than copper mines can be consented, he says, which is where recycling can come in.
But it is important that we use mines and new technologies, he reiterates. “We need to get on with decarbonisation in the short term; we don’t have the luxury of time to wait for new technologies to be deployed at scale.”
Mint’s 4000sq m production facility in Sydney has an annual capacity of 3000 tonnes of circuit boards – a mere drop in the ocean compared to what is needed.
The speed that is required demonstrates how important it is that we all get on the same page of the debate, says Sefton Darby. The need for these minerals won’t go away, and New Zealand could choose to sit out – but we would be an outlier.
“There is a legitimate argument that if we don’t produce them, someone else is going to produce them potentially at a lower environmental standard,” he says.
But as ever, he acknowledges the issue isn’t straightforward. “That argument does get harder to maintain when you’re stripping away resource management regulations and environmental standards.”
‘Green extracts’
Resources identified in the government’s draft mineral mining strategy:
- Heavy mineral sands in the waters off the Bay of Plenty and West Coast
- Antimony and gold in Reefton
- Rare earth elements in the waters off the West Coast
- Lithium in Northland and Waikato
- Hydrogen in Waikato, Tasman and Southland
- Vanadium and titanium in the waters off Taranaki
- Potash in Canterbury and Otago
- Rare earth and phosphate mining in the Chatham Rise