More bad news for the Government’s mining plans. The submission from the Committee of New Zealand Members of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (NZIUCN) has was released over the weekend and says:
Proposals to allow mining in specially protected areas are contrary to the philosophy and intent of protected areas legislation, and the ethic of New Zealanders, says the New Zealand Committee of IUCN. The proposals are justified by grossly overstated economic assumptions and in conflict with a number of significant global considerations and practices.
Committee chairperson Diana Shand said the submission pointed out that estimate of value needed to take into account both the environmental and the economic costs of mining including the costs of extraction, environmental damage costs, and the losses of market and non-market benefits.
‘NZIUCN does not accept the Government’s stated position that ‘it is possible to balance the different values of areas, and that modern mining need not be at the expense of conservation or other values’.’
The IUCN is the largest professional global conservation network with more than 1,000 member organizations in 140 countries including 200+ government and 800+ non-government organizations and almost 11,000 voluntary scientists and experts.
This is hot on the heels of a survey by Shape NZ (commissioned by the Business Council for Sustainable Development), picked up by the Greens, who highlighted that New Zealanders generally oppose exploration or mining on schedule 4 conservation land by 53% to 29%. Some 31% strongly oppose and 8% strongly support removal. Some 12% are neutral and 6% don’t know (The ShapeNZ mining issues report Part 1: http://www.nzbcsd.org.nz/_attachments)
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