After local students visited the Conservation Estate on the Denniston Plateau last Wednesday 14 August, the vans they’d used were discovered to have been set ablaze, destroying the vans along with students' possessions.

Meanwhile, Climate Liberation Aotearoa protesters Rach and Tāmati have been occupying Bathurst Resources’ aerial ropeway for three weeks, shutting it down, which is used to remove coal from Bathurst’s Stockton Mine in order to pressure the company to abandon their plans to mine the Denniston Plateau.

‘The arson event is both shocking and shameful, and we feel for those affected. These students camped on this beautiful landscape and got back to find their vans and possessions destroyed. Is this how we treat each other these days? It is not the New Zealand we want for our future.’ Says CLA spokesperson Rosemary Penwarden.

Green Party MP Steve Abel took to Social media on the weekend in support of the coal bucket protesters and to denounce the act of arson, intimidatory tactics, and dehumanising rhetoric employed by NZ first MP Shane Jones.

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