Forest & Bird is calling on the Government to create a new scientific reserve covering the Denniston Plateau on the West Coast to save it from being mined for coal.

“Public conservation land should be for nature. Aotearoa New Zealand needs habitat for kiwi, not opencast coal mines,” says Richard Capie, General Manager for Advocacy.

At a ‘Celebrating Denniston’ event over the weekend, Forest & Bird members and supporters visited the plateau, discussed its significance and how to save it.

“There is nowhere else in the world like this. It’s a treasure trove of nature’s curiosities, from unique icicle-like mosses to the unusual yellow variant of the West Coast green gecko,” says Mr Capie.

“Coal mining will destroy this forever. Once it is mined it will never be the same again, and we could be losing cryptic species we don’t even know are there.”

The Mount Rochfort Conservation Area, which includes most of the Denniston Plateau, is one of the conservation stewardship land areas currently being considered for reclassification by Conservation Minister Tama Potaka, with decisions expected next month. The national panel convened to look at reclassifications proposed it as conservation park, and did not recommend any areas as scientific reserve which would reflect its importance and protect it from coal mining.

The Denniston area is also the site of one of the projects listed in New Zealand First’s original drafting of a fast-track law. Coal mining company Bathurst Resources is expected to put in an application soon to mine 20 million tonnes of coal over 25 years.

“We’re in the middle of a climate crisis, and the Government is trying to lock in new coal mining right up until 2050. To allow that, they've created the fast-track law to avoid public consultation and environmental safeguards.”

When resource consent commissioners granted consent for a previous mine on the Denniston Plateau, they stated they did it with “considerable reservations and anguish", adding: "From the evidence presented to us, it is abundantly clear that large scale mining is poised to invade the entire Denniston Plateau coal reserves which if unchecked, will totally destroy the ecosystems which are present."

“The Government pushing through that massive coal mining expansion is the threat we now face,” says Mr Capie. “That’s why Forest & Bird supporters and scientists gathered at Denniston this weekend, to showcase the intricacy and significance of the landscape.

“In a climate crisis New Zealand needs to protect the homes of endangered species, not destroy them for new coal mines.”

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