Forest & Bird and Forest & Bird Youth hung this banner off a bridge in Wharekirauponga, Coromandel Forest Park on 21 October to protest mining on conservation land. Photo: Supplied / Forest & Bird
Environmental groups have signed an open letter calling for the Prime Minister to fulfil her 2017 election promise of ending mining on public conservation land.
In recent weeks, environmental protesters have rallied around the country against mining on conservation land.
And now a vast collective of environmentally focused NGOs have signed an open letter by Forest and Bird calling on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to put her support behind the Green Party's Crown Minerals (Prohibition of Mining) Amendment Bill.
The bill put forth by former conservation minister and Green MP Eugenie Sage would amend the Crown Minerals Act to prohibit the minister of energy from granting permits for minerals activities on conservation lands and water.
It would also prohibit access arrangements over conservation land and water being sought from or granted by the ministers of energy and conservation.
In the letter, the organisations say "In 2017, one of your first acts as a new Prime Minister was a promise that your government would stop new mines on New Zealand's public conservation land. But today, that promise remains unfulfilled.
"New coal, gold, and other mining activities have been allowed across over 150,000 hectares of public conservation land and the door remains open for more mining to take place."
The organisations who have signed the open letter include Forest and Bird, Greenpeace Aotearoa, 350 Aotearoa, Oxfam Aotearoa, Generation Zero, Coal Action Network Aotearoa, Coromandel Watchdog, ECO, the Kea Conservation Trust, Parents for Climate Action, Climate Club NZ, and Protect our Winters.
In a statement, Forest and Bird chief executive Nicola Toki said while the Prime Minister had failed to act on her promise mining on conservation land has continued while the environment "suffers death by a thousand cuts".
"With the Green Party's Crown Minerals (Prohibition of Mining) Amendment Bill on the table, Prime Minister Ardern and her cabinet colleagues have an opportunity to show that they're serious about climate change, and to deliver on this generation's "nuclear-free moment". If they are serious, they must support this Bill," Toki said.
"Mining causes long-term and permanent damage, and as that accumulates, our environment suffers death by a thousand cuts. Conservation land is for people, and for nature. It is not for mining," she said.
In 2010, Ardern joined 40,000 protesters in marching down Auckland's Queens Street demanding that conservation land be protected from mining.
In 2017, Ardern said the Labour Party would not allow any new mining on conservation land, but would consider other new permits individually.
Since 2017, almost 80 mining access arrangements on conservation land have been granted.