OHAI, Southland. (August 30, 2024) — Earlier this week residents of the former coal mining town of Ohai in western Southland sent letters to their elected representatives detailing their expectations that promises and commitments made to the town by the State-owned entity Solid Energy in 2012 be kept.

The commitments made relate to the implementation of a mine rehabilitation scheme which promised the creation of new community amenity facilities such as walkways around the former mine site and alongside the rivers and lakes, vehicle accesses and car parks, public amenity areas and access to and connection with the land, streams, lakes and new native bush areas on the former mine site.

The people of Ohai say that they are profoundly unimpressed and deeply affronted by the assault on their dignity and their inherent rights as citizens of New Zealand arising from this failure by the government to live up to its promises and commitments that were made to the town in 2012.

The people of Ohai are asking the government for the full reinstatement, completion and handover to the community of the promised community amenity works that are described in the Ohai End of Mine Life Rehabilitation Plan (2010) which was presented to the community by Solid Energy New Zealand Limited (as an agent of the State) at a public meeting in 2012.

The community is awaiting the government's response.

BACKGROUND

This collapse of the Government’s commitment to the people of Ohai signals the loss of the eagerly anticipated amenities which were expected to significantly improve the pleasantness of the community environment and provide townspeople with opportunities to reestablish their emotional and spiritual connections to land water air and to all living things in the natural realm, separate from the surrounding heavily managed farmlands around the town.

A recent development on the former mine site (now owned by Greenbriar Limited) is work to establish a plantation forestry block on the land. This work clearly signals that the promised community amenity plan has been abandoned. Tree planting work on this plantation is continuing today within sight of the town.

A direct effect of this forestry proposal is that many residents of the town will lose their views of the near landscape of rolling hills, and of the distant Takitimu mountain range north of the town, and of the Fiordland mountains to the west. These views are of great economic, social, spiritual and cultural significance and value to the people of Ohai.

The Takitimu Mountains to the north and the Fiordland Mountains to the west are seen as being Outstanding Natural Landscapes and Features which are visible from Ohai, while the landscape outlook from many parts of Ohai over the local rolling green hills towards these distant features makes an important contribution to the amenity and quality of the environment within which Ohai is situated.

The Takitimu mountains and the Waiau River (of which the rivers draining Ohai and the mine land are tributary) are recognised in Statutory Acknowledgements created as part of the Treaty of Waitangi settlement between Ngāi Tahu and the Government (Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998).

The Statutory Acknowledgement notes:

‘The Takitimu maunga are visible from all points of the Murihiku landscape and are also a noted weather indicator. The mauri of Takitimu represents the essence that binds the physical and spiritual elements of all things together, generating and upholding all life.’

Thus, the people of Ohai are reeling from this double hit – the loss of the promised community amenities and the loss of their precious views.

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