Santana Minerals chairman Paul Miles has written to select locals and community bodies inviting them to join its proposed "community liaison group". Santana plans to seek permission through the new fast-track rules for huge open-cast gold mines in the flanks of the Dunstan Mountains that have conservation status and sit above the Lindis and Clutha river catchments.
Mr Miles said his group was being set up to "help ensure local perspectives are heard and considered as the project progresses".
However, one recipient of the invitation, local group Sustainable Tarras, has declined an offer to join up and its deputy chairman Rob van der Mark urged other invited people to "carefully consider their position".
The Santana group was a "cynical attempt to subjugate the local community towards a predetermined outcome", Mr van der Mark said.
The Otago Daily Times has seen Santana documents about its proposed group, including a "charter of understanding" for it.
The charter explains that its purpose includes supporting the mine’s "project success" and its objectives include promotion of Santana-led activities.
The charter requires secrecy around "sensitive information" and retains "full discretion on selection of members".
It also imposes two of its own staff in the roles of chair and secretary of the group; an unnamed manager and communications and government relations senior adviser Polly Clague, who previously worked for National Party MPs Joseph Mooney and Miles Anderson.
Sustainable Tarras’ Mr van der Mark said the charter was "wholly inappropriate".
The firm was trying to "control information flows, muzzle anyone who joins the group and shut out everyone else".
Sustainable Tarras has replied to Santana saying it will only join a group that required, among other things, independent leadership, minutes to be cross-checked by members and an open flow of information.
The fact that Santana had failed to answer 55 questions posed by Sustainable Tarras, on matters including water pollution risk, indicated Santana was "not particularly interested in initiating meaningful community dialogue", Mr van der Mark said.
"They have been paying us lip service with superficial and selective engagement and then telling the media, shareholders and authorities that they have great community engagement.
"It doesn’t come anywhere near what any reasonable person would consider adequate for a [proposed] project of this size."
Central Otago’s Forest & Bird branch committee member Anne Steven said the local community was evidently not in favour of a mine and should be "wary of any attempt to manipulate or control non-governmental organisations".
If a group was to be set up to discuss having a mine in such a special area it would have to be "truly honest, transparent and upfront and not just ticking boxes. There would need to be a high level of integrity," she said.
Santana was invited to comment and did not respond.
