Demonstration in Wellington

Show John Key Your Opposition To Coal Mining On Conservation Land!

Next Wednesday 21st March, 5 pm, 1 Willeston Street, Downtown Wellington, John Key will officially open Bathurst Resources' new New Zealand office. Bathurst Resources plan to develop New Zealand's largest open-cast coal mine on conservation land and we plan to oppose it every step of the way. 

Join Coal Action Network Aotearoa, Forest and Bird, Greenpeace, 350, Ora Taiao, Generation Zero, and other concerned groups and individuals from around the country to say 'NO Mining Pure NZ'. 

In May 2010, over 50 000 people marched up Queen Street in Auckland to protest the Government's proposal to open up National Parks and other protected areas, after which the government executed a remarkable backdown and committed not to mine in National Parks and other significant conservation areas protected under Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act.

They also stated that "significant applications to mine on public conservation land should be notified". In November 2011, Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson advised that the application for Australian-owned Bathurst Resources to have access to mine the fragile and unique Denniston Plateau will not be publicly notified.

Bathurst's proposal for a resource consent to mine coal on the Denniston Plateau on the West Coast is currently under appeal to the Environment Court. This proposal is the thin edge of Bathurst's wedge which would see a unique ecosystem destroyed and the volume of coal exported by New Zealand increase by 40% and more in the future if we don't stop this. 

So bring your placards and help give John Key and Bathurst Resources our simple message: 

"Keep the coal in the hole".