Friday 25 October 2013 - Wellington

Forest & Bird media release for immediate use
Forest & Bird concerned at DOC’s Denniston statement

Forest & Bird says the Department of Conservation’s defence today of its failure to protect the Denniston Plateau is a concern for all New Zealanders.

The department released a short, unattributed statement to the media this afternoon regards its involvement with the Denniston issue.*

“DOC’s scientists rate Denniston as one of the top-50 most ecologically valuable sites on the mainland of New Zealand,” says Forest & Bird Advocacy Manager Kevin Hackwell.

“And yet DOC has left community groups like Forest & Bird to shoulder the weight of mounting a legal defence of the plateau.

“As the land manager, the department accepted $22 million from Bathurst Resources for pest control work – that incidentally it was already doing - in exchange for giving the company the right to go onto conservation land on the plateau to mine,” Kevin Hackwell says.

“The department did not appear in the Environment Court in defence of the plateau. If it had, the outcome of yesterday’s decision – which the court has said was “finely balanced” - may well have been different.

“As we saw with DOC’s lost submission on the proposed Ruataniwha irrigation scheme in Hawke’s Bay, the department is no longer standing up to protect the best parts of New Zealand, which it has been entrusted by Parliament to do,” Kevin Hackwell says.

“It is clear that the department is operating under very different circumstances than in the past. It is seriously underfunded, and is not advocating for the environment as hard or as often as it used to.

“The consequences of this will be deeply regretted by future generations of New Zealanders,” Kevin Hackwell says.

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Forest & Bird is New Zealand's largest independent conservation organisation, with 50 branches nationwide. It protects our native plants, animals and wild places, on land and in our oceans.

*DOC’s statement reads:
• The application for the mining activity was entirely on conservation land and DOC chose to address any potential impacts on conservation values by way of the access agreement
• DOC specialist and technical staff did provide detailed advice on the application and worked to develop the access agreement with the applicant
• As this work was not part of the RMA process, the Department wasn’t required to take part in the environment court case

ENDS

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