Environmentalists are appealing against a court decision to allow coal mining on public conservation land on the West Coast's Denniston Plateau.
The Royal Forest & Bird Society of New Zealand took its fight to the High Court at Christchurch today to appeal against resource consent given to Bathurst Resources Limited for a 188ha open-cast mine on the plateau above Westport.
Last week, Conservation Minister Nick Smith approved access rights to the Australian company for the project, saying it would provide a $1 billion boost to the economy and create 225 jobs.
Despite the Government's move, Forest and Bird are not going to give up.
The group says Bathurst's Escarpment Mine Project would bring significant adverse affects on the delicate and precious ecosystem.
This morning, lawyers for the environmental group claimed the Environment Court's decision was flawed.
Peter Anderson, counsel for Forest and Bird, said the effects authorised by an unimplemented coal mining licence for another mine, the Sullivan Mine, also on the Denniston Plateau, should have been taken into account.
The Environment Court judges ruled that the possible open-cast Sullivan Mine did not form part of the existing environment since the licence has not been used.
The coal mining licence, however, is "akin to a permitted activity and as such is capable of forming part of the existing environment," Forest and Bird argued.
Buller Coal Limited, the local company owned by Bathurst Resources Ltd, has rejected the "narrow" argument.
West Coast Regional Council and Buller District Council, which granted mine consents last year, also rejected the argument.
They say that further licences and material resource consents would have to be granted before the Sullivan Mine could go ahead with mining.
Buller Coal said nothing in Forest and Bird's appeal or submissions detracted from the "straightforward reasoning and conclusion" of the Environment Court ruling made earlier this year.
The High Court hearing, before Justice John Fogarty, is set down for three days.
- Kurt Bayer of APNZ
