The Government has rejected a claim by Forest and Bird that there are plans to open more conservation land for mining.
The conservation organisation said today it had discovered the plans on the Crown Minerals website.
Spokesman Quentin Duthie said the maps included areas that were supposed to have been ruled out for mining, including Mt Aspiring National Park, parts of the South West New Zealand World Heritage area, Mt Richmond Forest Park south of Nelson and areas of kauri forest in Northland.
A spokesman for Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee said there was no such intention.
"The degree to which any of those areas appears in the blocks identified in maps on the Crown Minerals website,..in now way indicate of intention to consider them for mining at some future date," the spokesman said.
"The statement on the Crown Minerals website was intended to let the mining sector know that due to the potential re-classification of small areas of schedule four land, it was considered prudent to halt applications to large areas of the country for a period of time."
The Government last month released a discussion document proposing removing some conservation areas from schedule four, which protects them from mining.
Those areas include parts of Great Barrier Island, the Coromandel and Paparoa National Park.
