After occupying an old-growth beech tree, and blocking the expansion of the Cypress Mine for five days, Climate Liberation Aotearoa activist, Hamish Edwards has been arrested by Granity police.

Edwards has been arrested and charged with trespass today, after ending his five day occupation on Thursday afternoon. He says he stands by his actions.

Edwards says, “I am comfortable with the consequences of my actions, because the consequences of not taking action, and letting extractivist, corporate greed go unchecked are so much worse."

“We are in a climate crisis and Bathurst Resources is literally tearing up native forests and trying to dig up more climate-burning coal. This is reckless behaviour with real consequences, people all over the world, and here in Aotearoa are losing their lives and livelihoods to catastrophic weather events.”

Edwards had set up camp 10 meters high in a beech tree, where old-growth forest meets the edge of Bathurst Resources Cypress Mine expansion. His occupation blocked trucks and machinery from using the road and put a halt to the expansion for 5 days.

In the last year, Bathurst Resources has felled approximately 10 hectares of native forest in the area, to make way for its coal mine expansion.

Edwards was protesting the expansion and Bathurst Resources' fast-track proposal for New Zealand’s largest coal mining project, which would expand the current mine into the Denniston Plateau. Edwards continues, “Bathurst is trying to use the fast-track to turn the Denniston Plateau into an open-cast coal mine, extracting 20 million tonnes of coal that would create more climate-heating emissions than the entire country produces in a whole year.

“No one wants to see these irreplaceable ecosystems destroyed, so that Bathurst shareholders can make a quick buck on dirty coal. Bathurst can expect more resistance to its unwanted, antiquated coal mines.”

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