Kevin Hackwell: Ecological gems far too precious for open-cast mines

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Little Barrier Island is a refuge for New Zealand's unique and endangered stitchbirds and tuatara. And it could be an excellent spot for an open-cast mine, if Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee has his way.

Mt Moehau at the top of the Coromandel Peninsula - with its kiwi sanctuary, unique Archey's and Hochstetter's frogs as well as the endemic Moehau stag beetle - could become the site of a large mining pit.

And the Poor Knights Islands marine reserve could be a good place to start sea-floor mineral exploration. Never mind the snapper and coralfish living among the sponge gardens.

Mr Brownlee is not talking about miners targeting areas of publicly owned wasteland. He's asked his staff to look at the mining potential of New Zealand's most precious conservation areas - our national parks, sanctuaries, nature reserves and marine reserves.

This core conservation land is where New Zealand's unique - and often endangered - wildlife and plants are protected for future generations. It's the drawcard for overseas tourists looking for a wilderness experience no longer available in their industrialised homelands. Locals love this natural space too.

Aside from the natural values of the conservation estate, its economic value is extraordinary. Tourism, New Zealand's single-biggest industry, generates more than $20 billion a year. And 1.3 million overseas tourists visited New Zealand's national parks last year the Ministry of Tourism said.

Mr Brownlee has asked staff to look at the mining potential of this core conservation land currently protected by Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act 1991. This land is 40 per cent of the conservation estate and amounts to 13 per cent of New Zealand's total land area.

Contrast the billions from tourism's ongoing income with Mr Brownlee's estimates of what miners will get out of New Zealand - $100 billion from low-grade, high-polluting lignite brown coal and $40 billion from other minerals. Only a small proportion of these minerals are in the 13 per cent protected by Schedule 4.

After 150 years of mineral exploration in New Zealand, the most valuable areas have already been worked over. Almost all the minerals Mr Brownlee says might become available - zinc, copper, lead, nickel, tungsten and tin - would be found in such tiny concentrations that landscape-scarring, open-cast mines would be needed.

Inviting international mining companies to exploit our minerals is a gamble that might not pay off, even slightly. In 2006, the mining industry made a $236 million loss before tax. That meant a tax write-off for many mining companies - paid for by ordinary New Zealanders and of very little benefit to New Zealand's economy.

Mr Brownlee is proud of his work with the Minister of Conservation over Otago's Oteake Conservation Park, which was created this year. He worked to ensure that a low-grade brown coal deposit within the original boundaries of the park was excluded, in case miners wanted to tap into this in future.

However, it would seem that Mr Brownlee's intervention was a major subsidy to the mining industry. This piece of land was bought for the conservation park on the open market. If the brown coal deposits were so important to the mining industry, why couldn't the mining companies have bought this land themselves, rather than get the Crown to buy it for their possible benefit?

Mr Brownlee also praises Solid Energy's environmental record at the West Coast Stockton Mine, from where the giant native land snails were moved before mining started. But scientists are finding the translocated snails are not doing so well. Their original mountain top has been removed and is now a bleak moonscape, drained by polluted rivers.

The Government's message appears to be that conservation land is not productive in its own right. But they are forgetting its growing value as a carbon store. About 80 per cent of all New Zealand's vegetative carbon is stored in the conservation estate's trees, shrubs and tussocklands. This will become more important in the next decade as we work to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

These areas also provide clean freshwater and are a haven for our endangered birds, fish, insects, lizards and plants found nowhere else in the world.

Our core conservation land is far too precious for open-cast mines and New Zealanders are determined to protect it.

* Kevin Hackwell is advocacy manager for independent conservation organisation Forest & Bird.