Monday, May 2: 30 activists have stopped operations at the Takitimu coal mine in Nightcaps, Southland. Their message is simple: Keep Calm and Quit Coal. Bathurst Resources, which owns the coal mine, is planning an expansion into a nearby forestry block owned by Southland District Council. The biggest customer of the Takitimu mine is Fonterra.

“We have peacefully shut down this mine because the government and local councils don’t have the courage to put an end to coal mining in Aotearoa. We are being betrayed by Fonterra and Bathurst, who are determined to nudge us deeper into the climate crisis no matter the cost,” says Extinction Rebellion (XR) spokesperson Erik Kennedy.

Fonterra uses the vast majority of coal mined at Takitimu to dehydrate milk for export at their Clandeboye factory. The coal mined at Takitimu during the last (financial) year was equivalent to the emissions of driving a new car the length of Aotearoa 1.5 million times. (209,000 Tonnes of sub-bituminous coal would emit 383,000 T of CO2 when burnt.) Bathurst Resources are also poised to mine the ecologically fragile Denniston and Buller Plateaus on the West Coast.

“The government declared a climate emergency in 2020 - when are they going to step in to close coal mines? When will the government promise coal workers the option of good clean jobs instead?”

Members of Extinction Rebellion are involved in the occupation. Activists are sitting on top of wooden towers to block the entrance to the mine, others have climbed a coal sorting conveyor belt. There are theatrical elements with large puppets and activists dressed as pirates on inflatable boats in the mine’s lake.

The group set up strings of flags painted with the silhouettes of native birds, and banners that read ‘Keep Nature, Quit Coal’.

“We need to urgently halt this colonial exploitation of the whenua and instead be kaitiaki and upholders of the dignity of Papatūānuku.”

Gemma Marnane, whose family has lived in Nightcaps for generations, says “I know what it is like to grow up with coal as a big part of our culture. I come from a mining family and it’s hard to let go of the past. But we can appreciate coal as a part of our history, not of our future.”

“We are all scared of something, we all have things in common as a community: we are afraid for the future and uncertain what it looks like, but we can build a new, positive vision together. My future and the future of young people everywhere depend on it,” says Marnane.

Southland district council is facing a judicial review for not considering climate change in their approval of the expansion, according to Forest & Bird.

Kennedy says the groups have provisions to last a couple of days.

“We aren’t here to disrespect this community’s history, we’re here because we need a change of direction. We need Fonterra, Bathurst and our government to keep calm, and quit coal.”

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