Coal News No. 13
The Battle for the Ridgeline
A mighty battle is underway on the West Coast over critically-endangered land snail Powelliphanta "Augustus". Fighting to save it from extinction are the West Coast Branch of Forest & Bird (F&B), Buller Conservation Group (BCG), and the Save Happy Valley Coalition (SHV). Fighting to extract coal from beneath its mountaintop refuge, and ensure its extinction, are Solid Energy, the miners union, Buller mayor Martin Sawyers, Labour Party MP Damien O'Connor and National Party MP Chris Auchinvole.
Caught in between is the Department of Conservation (DOC) which has some managers who are doing their darndest to help Solid Energy and others like snail expert Kath Walker who is a passionate advocate for the creature's survival.
Playing a maverick role is former F&B president Gerry McSweeney, who's lobbying to get a deal with Solid Energy that allows mining to proceed in exchange for a conservation project elsewhere. (McSweeney is acting without authority from F&B.)
Solid Energy has just achieved a victory in the Battle for the Ridgeline. A couple of weeks ago it discovered 2 snails in a mining area a kilometer from the only other known habitat. This mining area is at the southern end of the Mt Augustus summit ridge where Solid Energy is beginning its mountaintop removal.
So this snail find threw a mighty spanner in the works. The company stopped mining, and applied for a permit from the Minister of Conservation to relocate the 2 snails to the main habitat, a windswept 3.5 ha on the far slope of the mountain.
At the same time it mounted a PR blitz, vastly exaggerating the value of the coal it would lose, and claiming 130 miners would need to be laid off by July. The issue made the TV news and print media round the country.
In a little over a week, conservation minister Chris Carter had granted a permit to shift the two snails. On the surface, there appeared a certain logic to the decison - 2 snails in a tiny remnant of habitat would have little chance of survival. However there's far more to it than that.
Firstly, if 2 snails were found, there are sure to be more. Rather than take Solid Energy's word, Carter should've ordered a proper survey by conservation staff.
Secondly, any habitat is valuable habitat. This snail only lives on one mountaintop which has special characteristics. There is nowhere else for the Augustus snail to survive while retaining its unique character.
Thirdly, the Augustus ridgeline is prime habitat for great spotted kiwi. Though DOC has not surveyed the area, F&B alerted DOC to this fact in the days before Carter made his decision.
Fourthly, by giving the green light to shift the 2 snails, Carter removed a blockage to mining the kilometer-long summit ridge up to the main snail habitat. Solid Energy is already mining from the north and it may only be a year or two before the world's only population of P "Augustus" is marooned on a tiny pedestal of ridgeline. Even if it could get down, the habitat on 3 sides will be hopelessly changed.
Faced with this situation, and an even bigger PR blitz, the Minister of Conservation would likely grant Solid Energy its final wish - to remove 90% of the snails from the mountaintop and mine all the coal. This would ultimately cause the snail's extinction. (Note: this is not just the green NGOs predicting extinction, but DOC itself).
So we are faced with this country's first state-sponsored extinction, assisted by the conservation minister, and blessed by the EPMU, the mayor and the two MPs. Its a gloomy scenario, but we know that powerful forces can arise to counter such environmental vandalism.
Yes, we are that force, and I'm confident we'll have the final victory. (Something worth pondering on...these snails have an ancient lineage. They are twice as old as the coal that lies beneath them.)
