Coal News No. 15
Our campaign to save Happy Valley just got a lot harder with the government's decision to give Solid Energy (SE) every last tonne of coal on the Mt Augustus Ridgeline. This means the likely extinction of the critically endangered land snail Powelliphanta "Augustus".
We can no longer have any illusions on where the government stands. Its 100% for coal mining and it couldn't care less about protecting biodiversity.
Conservation minister Chris Carter's decision follows a recent statement by PM Helen Clark in favour of a coal fired power station in Southland, the site of NZ's largest coal reserves.
The govt's signature on Kyoto means nothing. Its signature on the global Convention on Biological Diversity means nothing either.
Over the years we've seen the Department Of Conservation (DOC) consistently back down in the face of SE's demands. But this time DOC stood up for the snail. In his media release Carter acknowledged that DOCs final advice was that the snail will likely become extinct.
SE whipped up quite a campaign in its quest to get the coal, and it all hung on a BIG LIE. That is, the snail colony was denying access to $400m worth of coal. Not mining this coal threatened 130 jobs and the future of coal mining at Stockton, said SE.
In fact SE has already mined most of the snail habitat, so that only 3-4 ha remains. There cannot possibly be $400m worth of coal beneath the snail. It may be a tenth of that, probably less.
But the media accepted the $400m figure. So did the West Coast mayors, the mine workforce and most of the Buller community.
So much so that in Westport we had an atmosphere close to panic as decision-day loomed.
Local greenies came under intense pressure. In our family's case we had abusive phone calls, lemons thrown at our house, snail shells placed in our letterbox and letters to the newspapers accusing me of being an extremist and a terrorist.
Finally - and this was after my resignation as spokesperson for two local green NGOs groups - our letterbox was blown up with a pipe bomb.
On a positive note, the occupation of Happy Valley is almost into its third month. Over Easter there were around 45 people up there. Probably upwards of 200 people have camped in the valley to date.
Save Happy Valley Coalition's main focus has always been global warming/climate change and hardly a day goes by that its not in the media. History is on our side, not Solid Energy's.
Pete Lusk
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