Lustre of gold not worth the cost

Thursday, 16 May 2019

A gold crown from a burial dating to the late 4th - early 3rd century BC found in Greece. The days when gold's value underpinned currencies and economic systems has gone and the need to mine is not so pressing.

If we have trouble weaning ourselves off coal, which still has significant value as a source of energy, what chance do we have of weaning ourselves off gold, which has at best, a significant but purely artificial value?

The world has had the technical knowledge to replace most of our reliance on coal as an energy source for more than seventy years. If nuclear technology had not been used to develop the most destructive weapons of war our reliance on fossil fuels could have been replaced long ago. Sadly that marvellous invention is forever tainted with the worst of mankind's stupidity and has become almost untouchable for anything else.

However we also have wind, solar and wave energy technologies which have yet to be fully developed. Some development has occurred in recent times in spite of mining companies and traditional mining communities slowing the process. For them the change will come at a cost they are understandably reluctant to meet. Although though the combustion of coal has been identified as one of the major causes of climate change they are still prepared to rip open great swathes of countryside and dig deep and dangerous tunnels under mountains when safer, cleaner energy sources could be made available.

What then of gold? Like coal mines huge tracts of native forest have been destroyed to make way for massive open cast mines and lethal tunnels have been burrowed to extract a bright yellow but almost useless metal which is then smelted into ingots and buried again in vast concrete vaults. The landscape is left ugly behind them and old mine shafts have collapsed under houses. Not all tailings dams are benign duck ponds as the extraction process also leaves significant amounts of toxic chemicals in the sludge.

* Time is right to say no to Waihi mining

* Mayor says jobs will suffer after Minister Eugenie Sage cans mining company's land buy**

Previous generations of gold miners at least had some justification for their activities in that most of the world's currencies were linked to the Gold Standard. This was established in the 1800s to standardise values in the growing international world trade markets. The principle was that paper money could be redeemed by any government for its value in gold.

That all changed after the Great Depression of the 1930s and today no country in the world uses the Gold Standard and it has replaced by 'fiat money', which is currency based on the goods and services and which a government declares to be legal tender but is not backed by a physical commodity. We no longer need to destroy the landscape for gold. We already have more than we could ever use for jewellery, computer board printing and a few other practical applications.

The United States for example has a massive 8000 tonnes of the stuff buried in bank vaults, almost as much as the next three countries combined. No one sees it, no one uses it and it is not required to underwrite the US economy. By comparison the New Zealand Reserve Bank holds no gold bullion at all, even though about a thousand tonnes is extracted here every year with about a third coming from the Coromandel area.

Our changing attitude to mining was reflected in last week's refusal by the Government to allow mining company OceanaGold to buy 178 hectares near Thames in the Coromandel for another tailings dam. Minister for Land Information Eugenie Sage said that converting productive farmland to a tailings dam and reservoir to store hazardous mining waste long term would not provide a substantial and identifiable benefit for New Zealand in the context of a sustainable economy.

Over 30 years the company had applied for 80 property purchases and this was the first time an application has been declined. OceanaGold has also applied for a mining permit in the Coromandel Forest Park so it can better assess the area's potential for an underground mine but that has raised the ire of an environmental protection group Coromandel Watchdog of Hauraki, who want all conservation land protected from mining.

Hauraki District Mayor John Tregidga said the decision to decline the application showed disregard for the livelihoods of more than 360 local workers who are employed by the company. His comments are an understandable and proper reflection of his community which has relied on mining for a very long time. Providing jobs is not the only criteria by which we should judge an industry. We could say the same about a cigarette factory or a pokie machine parlour. Both are legal and provide jobs and profits but do we want them and the harm they cause? And do we want to inflict more irreparable harm on an already battered natural environment?

Like the days sailing ships and steam trains, the need for destructive mining for minerals we no longer need has gone.