Forest & Bird confirmed yesterday it will go the Environment Court and appeal the resource consents of two West Coast councils allowing a new open-pit coal mine to go ahead at Te Kuha, behind Westport township.
During two years of court battles in 2011-13, Forest & Bird was unsuccessful in overturning similar consents for coal miner Bathurst Resources, but by the time the dispute was settled, global coal prices had dropped and Bathurst had to suspend operations on the Denniston Plateau, above Westport.
Last month, the West Coast Regional Council and Buller District Council granted resource consent for the 150ha coal-mine project to Stevenson Mining Ltd, which still has to negotiate access arrangements.
Yesterday, Forest & Bird chief executive Kevin Hague said the group would lodge an Environment Court appeal, noting the mine would remove part of an intact forested mountain clearly visible from Westport.
"Everybody agrees that this area has high ecological values. The vegetation that would be dug up for the mine is rare and pristine," Mr Hague said.
Forest & Bird had maintained the Bathurst application for the Denniston Plateau was on "high-value conservation land" with a unique landscape and ecosystem.
After Bathurst suspended work on the plateau in March last year, Forest & Bird called for Bathurst to surrender the access and resource consents to mine the plateau, but it had maintained them, awaiting more favourable coal prices.
Mr Hague said yesterday the proposed Te Kahu site was home to great spotted kiwi and other species threatened with extinction, including the South Island fernbird, West Coast green gecko and the largest known population of the rare forest ringlet butterfly.
"Part of the proposed mine is also within the Buller Gorge outstanding landscape," Mr Hague said.
He said the mining industry claimed the economic benefits outweighed the environmental costs, but the benefits were overstated and costs much higher than suggested.
Last month, new Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage announced a ban on all new mining on conservation land, but the Stevenson Mining application would be decided within the existing law.
About a year ago, Bathurst went into a joint-venture arrangement to buy three former Solid Energy coal mines: Stockton, near Westport, and two mines near Huntly, in the North Island.
Stevenson Mining still requires access arrangements from the Buller District Council and the Department of Conservation. Mr Hague said about 12ha of the proposed mine’s footprint was on conservation land and the remainder was on a Buller District Council water conservation reserve.
• A decision is due shortly after Forest & Bird argued in the High Court recently the Crown Minerals Act did not override the Buller District Council’s obligations under the Reserves Act to maintain the natural features of the water conservation reserve.
