Former conservation minister calls for urgent halt to mining on protected land – our smallest frogs are at stake

Thursday, 2 December 2021

The Archey’s frog is New Zealand’s smallest native frog, but a proposed mining project threatens it’s already reduced habitat.

It’s a taonga that could fit in the palm of your hand. No more than 4 centimetres in size, and critically endangered, Archey’s frog is sitting on a gold mine. Literally.

A multi-national mining company plans to seek approval to mine for gold beneath one of only two remaining habitats for Aotearoa’s smallest native frog within the next few weeks.

With little time to spare, The Green Party has launched a campaign called No New Mines, calling on Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan and Energy Minister Megan Woods to make good on a promise by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in 2017, and put a stop to all mining on conservation land.

Green Party spokesperson for conservation, and Minister for Conservation between 2017 and 2020, Eugenie Sage, said an urgent ban was needed – prospecting, exploration and mining activities had occurred on more than 150,000 hectares of public conservation land in the last five years.

An aerial view of OceanaGold’s Macraes Operation open mining pit, 100 kilometres north of Dunedin. (File photo)

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Green MP Eugenie Sage, who spent a term as Minister for Conservation, is calling on the Government to ban mining.

“In 2017 in the Speech from the Throne, the Prime Minister promised to put a stop to this and ban mining on conversation land once and for all,” she said.

Gold mining company OceanaGold planned to lodge resource consents asking the Thames Coromandel and Waikato Regional councils to gain approval to mine underneath the frogs’ habitat, between Waihi and Whangamatā, in the coming weeks.

“This should not be happening in the midst of a biodiversity crisis, with nearly 4000 of our native plants and wildlife currently threatened with, or at risk of extinction,” Sage said.

Allan had begun the process of reclassifying stewardship land as national parks, to increase their protection, but that process would take some time.

“We need a moratorium on new applications for mining activities on conservation land until that reclassification process is completed,” Sage said.

This was an issue Sage herself fought for in her term as Conservation Minister. Progress was made difficult due to opposition from New Zealand First.

Now, with a strong mandate and a big majority, Labour was free to make good on that promise – but it needed to act now, Sage said.

These mining operations, while providing jobs and natural resources, sent most of the profits overseas. The same gains could be provided by turning our attention to waste recovery, and retrieving precious metals from things like thrown-away electronics.

By 11am on Thursday, three hours after it went live, the petition had garnered more than 1470 signatures.

Allan said the Government was working toward the reclassification of stewardship land. “In the meantime, and until any such policy becomes law, MBIE is required to administer the Crown Minerals Act as part of New Zealand’s current law.”

Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment officials were working with the Department of Conservation to ensure any new policy to protect land also worked with both the Resource Strategy, and the review of the Crown Minerals Act 1991.