He initially cancelled the visit following the publication of an opinion piece by the Australian mining company that Sir Ian claimed contained ‘‘critical misinformation’’.
Sir Ian told the Otago Daily Times yesterday he had already visited the site at the invitation of Sustainable Tarras, who he said shared with him expert advice ‘‘which raised a number of questions’’.
‘‘I thought that the only way to get to the bottom of it was to take up the offer and see what explanations I got from Santana.’’
If he was only listening to one side of the argument, he could not properly comment, Sir Ian said.
‘‘I will be going this time with a lot more questions than I would have had if I'd taken up the original offer.’’
On Tuesday, Santana Minerals chief executive Damian Spring penned an opinion piece claiming Sir Ian and Sir Sam Neill — whom he described as ‘‘two highly vocal knights of the realm’’ — had both been invited to visit the site.
‘‘One has quietly ignored us (or our email is in his spam folder), while the other is yet to confirm dates,’’ Mr Spring wrote.
But Sir Ian said he had accepted the invitation the day after receiving it and the date was confirmed the same day it was finalised by Santana.
The company said a visit date had not yet been confirmed at the time of writing and submitting the opinion piece, adding that the offer to visit remained open.
Now, Sir Sam has weighed in, levelling his own accusations of ‘‘misinformation’’ against the company.
He told the ODT the ‘‘last and only communication’’ he had from Santana was in August 2024.
‘‘I was abroad, but invited them to ‘keep in touch’,’’ Sir Sam said.
‘‘I never heard from them again.
‘‘Misinformation. They are full of it.’’
His office shared emails with the ODT showing they were contacted by Santana about ‘‘if Sam, or someone else from Two Paddocks, would be interested in meeting so that we can share some information on the project’’.
The email did not mention a site visit.
Three days later, his office replied saying Sir Sam was away filming overseas until the end of the year ‘‘but you're welcome to keep in touch’’.
Asked when their last correspondence with Sir Sam was, Santana Minerals referred the ODT to a previous statement from October last year — wherein Mr Spring said the company reached out to Sir Sam in 2024 and offered a detailed briefing on the project, which he did not accept.
Santana Minerals said yesterday it was building ‘‘one of the country’s most significant regional projects’’.
‘‘It is not our role to chase high-profile commentators for meetings they have declined.
‘‘We invited Sir Sam because his public commentary contained concerning inaccuracies untethered to the science and the technical record and Sir Sam is still getting the facts wrong.
‘‘It would be good if, like Sir Ian, he too had a change of heart [and] took us up on a site visit.’’
The company did not respond to a request for emails offering Sir Sam a site visit.
