Mining plans don’t pass first hurdle – Environment Commissioner

The government has not made a case for opening certain Schedule 4 land to mining says the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Jan Wright, in her submission which was released this afternoon.

Her submission on the Government’s discussion document addresses issues including the lack of information available about the conservation value of the land, the benefit to New Zealanders of mining it, as well as significant problems raised by the question of joint access approval.

“These areas have been set aside as some of our most precious conservation land and before we can even begin to discuss mining it in any rational manner we need a lot of good information which simply hasn’t been made available.

“There are also significant issues around having the powers of the Minister of Conservation watered down by granting shared access with the Minister of Energy.

“Such a move would unfairly privilege mining and compromises the role of the Conservation Minister who holds the conservation estate in trust for the public.

“I expect to be issuing a full report on mining on conservation land mid-year that will cover many of the issues raised by this discussion paper and hope that it stimulates further discussion before any significant decision is made on the matter.”

Recommendations of the submission are:

The Minister for Energy and Resources and the Minister of Conservation do not remove any of the specified areas from Schedule 4 as the provided information falls well short of establishing that the value of the minerals to New Zealand justifies the risk to the conservation value of the land.

The Minister for Energy and Resource and the Minister of Conservation resolve the ambiguity in the Crown Minerals Act that prevents eligible land from being automatically entered into Schedule 4.

Cabinet ensures the proposed conservation fund:
- should be administered under the sole direction of the Minister of Conservation
- should be administered by DOC to avoid wasting resources by setting up an independent panel
- should not be used to pay for mitigating the environmental impacts of mining
- should not be capped

Cabinet does not agree to a joint approval process for access to conservation land. This should remain the sole domain of the Minister of Conservation.

A full copy of the submission is available at http://www.pce.parliament.nz/reports_by_subject/briefing/submission_on_the_schedule_4_stocktake_discussion_document

ENDS

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