Strip-mining opposed in Fiordland

Press, 27 February 1980, Page 22

Strip-mining opposed in Fiordland

“Exploitation of the Transit Beach sand deposits would involve largescale strip-mining of one of the Fiordland National Park’s most valuable and sensitive areas, for the sake of recovering relatively unimportant minerals."

That assertion by the Native Forest Action Council’s president (Miss Gwenny Davis) was made in a letter co the Minister of Lands (Mr V. S. Young), objecting to the National Parks Authority’s decision to grant a prospecting licence to the Consolidated Silver Mining Company. The licence would virtually be an approval in principle of strip-mining, she said.

The au-thority had overruled earlier objections from the Fiordland National Parks Board and had given the company a licence 'to prospect in the alluvial and beach sands at Transit Beach on the west coast of Fiordland National Park.

Miss Davis said that Consolidated Silver had explored -the mining potential of Fiordland’s west coast sands during the last 10 years, and was confident that the resource was worth mining.

The company applied for a mining licence in 1978 to mine sand at Transit Beach, as well as at Poison Bay and John O’Groats River. “Significally, his application was declined,” she said.

Before the Mining Amendment Act, 1978, all prospecting licence applications were also refused. Under the Mining Act, 1971, a mining licence was automatically exchangeable for a mining licence.

“After the legislative change that removed this automatic exchange right in' national parks, the authority evidently believes the Transit Beach resource is mineable,” Miss Davis said. “The authority must therefore assume that the present application is only a step on the way to a strip-mining application,” she said. The Transit Beach/Poison Bay area was unique; it had the only extensive unmodified dunes left on the main islands of New Zealand. “If it is considered to be in the national interest to dredge Transit Beach, an industrial complex will be needed for primary extraction of minerals, with barging and harbour facilities, probably at Milford Sound,” Miss Davis said.

“Inevitably it will be argued that the national interest would best be served by fully using this opportunity to mine all the explored mineral deposits in the area,” she said. The most important mineral present, rutile, was a relatively common industrial raw material

widely used In making paint.

Consolidated Silver had also “demonstrated its complete insensitivity” to Fiordland’s natural values. Its plans to mine Mount George in 1971 included the construction of roads, a tunnel, a pipeline, and harbour facilities which would have caused “colossal damage to national park values,” she said.

The Fiordland National Park Board had protested that this company’s compliance with conditions imposed on past exploration in the Poison Bay and Mount George area, "was generally less than desirable," said Miss Davis.