Environmentalists Vow to Fight Mine
The Environment Court today announced that they were allowing Solid Energy to continue with its plans for the open-cast Happy Valley coal mine.
The minesite is about 20km Northeast of Westport on the West Coast, and is home to the Great Spotted Kiwi, rare native land snails and a host of other threatened species. The mine will completely obliterate the valley, ripping up 100m of topsoil and destroying the fragile wetland at the valley floor as well as native tussock and shrubland.
As well as having devastating local impacts, the creation of yet another coal mine will have serious global impacts, further contributing to climate change [Article].
The militant Save Happy Valley Campaign has issued a press release vowing to pursue a campaign of direct action now legal avenues have been exhausted, building on previous actions [Articles [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]]. Rising Tide and Forest and Bird have also sent out press releases condemning the mine's go-ahead.
UPDATE: The Christchurch section of The Save Happy Valley Campaign has also put out a press release.
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Related
http://happyvalley.enzyme.org.nz
Comments
Re: Environmentalists Vow to Fight Mine
not a single mention of climate change AT ALL in any of the press releases or stories about Happy Valley.
Sigh.
Re: Environmentalists Vow to Fight Mine
(I meant in the maintstream media.)
Re: Environmentalists Vow to Fight Mine
Bobo
You're going to have to do your Post Grad Diploma in Journalism and start working from the Inside! :)
Re: Environmentalists Vow to Fight Mine
kia kaha guys. don't give it up, there's so much more work to be done. i'm in the states fighting an oil refinery but i'm with you in spirit and loud obnoxiousness :0)
Re: Environmentalists Vow to Fight Mine
ohhhhh I saw on t.v they called the saver happy valley crew militant.......
haha sounds like a challange to me!
see you soon
Re: Environmentalists Vow to Fight Mine
By the looks of it a good open cast mine is just what that valley need, bring on the bulldozers
Re: Environmentalists Vow to Fight Mine
not many had any faith in the eviro court any way.
D.Ö.C should not be let off for their collabaration with SE either as they aggreed to relocate the kiwis
-time to step up the fun
Re: Environmentalists Vow to Fight Mine
This all reminds me of the time a host of journalists were taken to Waihi to hear about plans to open a new gold mine.
The issue with this mine was the displacement of Hochstetter's frogs.
The mining company had great plans to relocate the animals.
The mine went ahead and nobody seems to have wondered since what happened to the frogs.
Will the same thing happen in Happy Valley with the so-called relocation of the kiwi and snails?
Re: Environmentalists Vow to Fight Mine
the decission highlights the inadequacies of the RMA and other legislative procedures that were designed to give some form of protection to our environment. No longer can we rely on Doc or the government to do this. Its up to us!
Re: Environmentalists Vow to Fight Mine
It's always been up to us. I think most people were fairly confident that the environmental court would rule in favour of Solid Energy, despite any RMA clauses. This is, afterall, capitalism we are living under where profit is the overiding motivation and where the environment is just another form of capital to factor into the equation.
Stopping this mine will be an awesome step in the right direction, but we all know it's capitalism and the state which have got to go if we can even begin to address the devastation being done to the earth everyday.
Viva la revolution! :-)
Re: Environmentalists Vow to Fight Mine
oi, I am from the west coast and am looking for work. you bloody hippies try to stop me getting work by complaining and protestin all the time. you did this with the the logging, now with this mine. you all have jobs in auckland and christchurch - give us people who live here a chance to get the bloody work.
Re: Environmentalists Vow to Fight Mine
Perhaps you'll get a job relocating the snails and kiwi!
Re: Environmentalists Vow to Fight Mine
If you want you can take my place in Wellington and i will move to the coast, WINZ wont fuckin let me!! By the way i hear Solid Energy are shit employers anyway, low pay poor conditions....infact they are threatening to close a mine because the staff went on strike. Opps there goes your job!! Fuck that, time for revolution so we look at what work is in a different light!!
Good luck coaster you lucky bastard!! you live in one of the wildest areas left in this land and much of the world, pleas do not get a job destroying it!
Re: Environmentalists Vow to Fight Mine
Im also from the west coast , eco tourism is doing very well exept for Granity/Waimangaroa where solid energy contiues to poison off every single bit of river life , the shellfish are toxic.
Now they want to build a coal fired power station there too-great acid rain as well -fucking idiots.
I will do everything in my power to stop this mine/continuing desimation of the west coast wilderness by capitalists.
mentalists Vow to Fight yours
tell Solid Energy to give up now, that mine aint gonna happen. >heh heh heh< (whre's ma rench?)
www.earthfirst.org