GUEST BLOG: Denis Tegg – It Is A Hard Slog On Conservation Issues – But….

It is a hard slog getting real environmental change. Activists like myself, Catherine Delahunty and thousands of others have been campaigning since 1980 to keep multi-national mining companies out of the Coromandel Peninsula.

Now, 35 years later with a progressive Labour/Green government, we can finally achieve that goal for all conservation land on the Coromandel as far south as the Kaimai rail tunnel.  Labour’s conservation policy released last week has made this firm commitment. The Green Party has always been staunch in its support for a mine free Coromandel, and Laila Harre has stated Internet Mana will offer support too.

It took 20 years to obtain any progress at all. There were dozens of protests and direct actions, huge efforts to get reform of the draconian old Mining Act, drafting of private members bills, intense lobbying using old fashioned letter writing, countless hearings to oppose scores of mining applications, judicial reviews, and successful Appeal Court actions on prohibited activity status under the RMA.

All of this concerted relentless community action fell on deaf ears until 1997 when a reluctant National government – fearing that it would lose the vote on Labour’s private members bill – drew a ridiculous arbitrary line across the Peninsula and put only northern conservation land in Schedule 4. The southern area which had equal if not higher landscape, biodiversity, and conservation values was excluded.

Then in 2010, Key and Brownlee tried to snatch away even these modest gains. It took 40,000 people to mobilise and march up Queen Street and a massive nation-wide campaign to just maintain the status quo on the Coromandel and in National Parks throughout New Zealand.

Make no mistake – if National is re-elected they will rush to consent to new mines on exceptionally high value conservation in the southern Coromandel and elsewhere. And if the TPPA is entered into under National, any attempt by a future progressive government to extend Schedule 4 will result in multi-national mining companies suing that government for massive “damages”.

The Left’s policies on conservation and the environment are the best chance we have had in generations to make some great gains. Policies such as protecting conservation land from mining has wide cross-party support, including from many who are soft National Party voters. Talk to any National Party contacts you have. Many thousands of them holiday on the Coromandel. You might be surprised at their positive reaction to this policy if they know about it!