The multinational mining company Rio Tinto's recent air surveying of the west coast of Te Ika a Maui, the northern island of Aotearoa comes less than three years after the government confiscated the foreshore and seabed from Tangata Whenua.

According to an article in the NZ Herald, a survey plane was flying over prospective mining areas off the west coast on Wednesday. The plane was paid for Rio Tinto, a multinational mining empire infamous in the pacific for environmental destruction and the suppression of indigenous people in the vicinity of its operations, such as the Panguna copper mine on the island of Bougainville.

Rio Tinto also owns Comalco, which runs the Tiwai Point aluminion smelter near Bluff, at the bottom of Te Wai Pounamu, the south island. This smelter is the single largest user of electricity in the country, much like their Bay Bell smelter in Tasmania which uses around 40% of the state's electricity.