The Government today announced a proposal to open 7058 hectares of protected conservation land for mining -- a figure leaked last week by Forest and Bird.
The conservation society was also correct in assuming the Government also planned to give a further 12,000 ha protected schedule four status as mitigation.
The Government last year carried out a stocktake of minerals in the conservation estate and signalled -- amid storms of controversy -- that it planned taking "significant" areas out of schedule four in the Crown Minerals Act, paving the way for access to valuable minerals.
Information released by the Government to media this afternoon said the areas proposed to be removed from schedule four included parts of the Coromandel Peninsula, Great Barrier Island, and parts of Paparoa National Park on the West Coast.
Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee said about $4 million would be invested over the next nine months to gather information on "highly prospective non-schedule four areas" such as Northland, parts of Coromandel, Paparoa National Park and parts of Stewart Island.
The amount it intended to add to schedule four totalled 12,400 ha.
The Forest and Bird Society said today that figure only referred to areas that had been already waiting for official protection since the last review in 2008.
"They should not be seen as trade-offs for high value conservation land being removed from schedule four, because none of the (12,400ha) has significant mining potential," said the society's advocacy manager Kevin Hackwell.
Mr Brownlee said the area intended to be opened for mining totalled 0.2 percent of the Crown's conservation estate.
Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson said any mining on conservation land was subject to strict environmental tests.
"It has been made clear that any future mining applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis and conservation and environmental management remain a key consideration," she said.
There was plenty of room for the public to debate the conservation values and economic potential of the areas in question, Ms Wilkinson said.
Mr Brownlee said the Government was meeting a challenge to increase New Zealand's exports with rare metals which were in great demand internationally, and would be for many years.
"We can muddle along as we are, or we can set our sights higher," he said at a press conference.
"Developing a tiny portion of New Zealand's mineral wealth will have a huge impact.
Mr Brownlee said 7058ha represented 0.024 percent of total land, and the proposals amounted to land the size of a postcard on Eden Park.
He said it was estimated that minerals which could be taken out of the land proposed to be removed from schedule four was about $60 billion, but that depended on how much actual mining interest there was in extracting it.
Ms Wilkinson said the Government also proposed creating a conservation fund based on a portion of future royalties from mining in public conservation areas.
"The budget for the fund would be 50 percent of royalty revenue from minerals (other than petroleum) from public conservation areas, with a minimum of $2 million per annum for the first four years and a maximum of $10 million per annum."
Final recommendations would go to Cabinet before decisions were made in the middle of the year.
Submissions on the proposals close at 5pm on May 4.
