PM tight-lipped over mining plans

Prime Minister John Key says the public will have to wait for a discussion paper to be released to find out which areas of conservation land may be mined and how.

Forest and Bird yesterday said the Government was planning to allow mining in 7000 hectares of high-value conservation land in the West Coast's Paparoa National Park, Great Barrier Island and the Coromandel Peninsula.

Asked on TVNZ's Breakfast programme this morning about the issue, Mr Key would not give details of which areas were to be mined and what methods would be used.

"It's the predictable scaremongering from Forest and Bird. We haven't even released the discussion document yet," Mr Key said.

Cabinet has not yet signed off which areas were to be affected.

The Government last year carried out a stocktake of minerals in the conservation estate, and intended taking parts of it out of schedule four in the Crown Minerals Act which protected the estate from mining.

The value of minerals in conservation land has been put at about $140 billion, but it could be much more than that.

Forest and Bird spokesman Kevin Hackwell yesterday said the organisation had "learnt" the Government was looking at allowing mining in:

* Te Ahumata plateau on Great Barrier Island (about 700ha);
* Otahu Ecological Area (396ha) and Parakawai Geological Reserve (70ha) near Whangamata on the Coromandel and 2500ha near Thames township;
* Eastern Paparoa National Park, near Inangahua on the West Coast (3000ha).

Mr Hackwell said also under the schedule four stocktake, nearly half a million hectares of other prime conservation areas will be surveyed for mining potential, including Kahurangi National Park, Mt Aspiring National Park, Stewart Island's Rakiura National Park and nearly all the conservation land in the Coromandel Peninsula.

Mr Hackwell said all the areas have outstanding ecological and landscape value, which was why they had been protected from mining.

"We're not talking about gorse-covered hillsides with the odd tree in these areas. We are talking about rare native Hochstetter's frogs, endangered brown teal, mature forest and pristine wilderness areas," he said.

The discussion document's release had been delayed a number of times with reports that the Government had scaled back its original plans.

Mr Key would not rule out open cast mining he said it was "very unlikely... Modern mining techniques give us lots of options. That's a surgical incision in the land".

Mr Key said there were already mining concessions on the conservation estate and no mining would be allowed if it could not be done in an environmentally friendly way.

"Ultimately before any concession would ever be granted we would have to be satisfied it meets our environmental tests.

"I am acutely aware of that balance between our environmental needs and our economic needs and I think we can marry the two together.

"I think ultimately if we can expand our mining activities in an environmentally friendly way then we've got more money to pay for the things we want...

"If we can't get that balance right, and if achieve it in an environmentally friendly way we won't do it." Green MP Catherine Delahunty was concerned that if a protected area above Thames was opened to mining the township would be put at risk of flooding and landslides.

Her colleague Kevin Hague said the reported plans to punch holes into Paparoa National Park for profit were a misguided assault on New Zealand's clean green image.

"The South Island's Paparoa National Park was set aside in 1987. The Park is visually spectacular and home to rare and endangered native birds. It is most famous for the blowholes at Punakaiki. The Prime Minister is pretending that somehow there is a net conservation benefit in mining these areas; that we have to destroy them in order to save them. This is an Orwellian nonsense," Mr Hague said.