Greenpeace protesters who shut down work at the site of a proposed dairy farm extension in the Mackenzie Basin of South Canterbury have been arrested by police.
Around 45 protesters locked themselves this morning on to diggers and other machinery, disrupting construction on an irrigation pipeline for the new dairy farm near Aoraki, Mount Cook.
Twelve protesters had been arrested and taken to the Timaru Police Station this afternoon, a police spokeswoman said.
"Our message is clear," Greenpeace Sustainable Agriculture Campaigner Genevieve Toop said.
"For the sake of the Mackenzie and our rivers, industrial dairy expansion has to stop."