27 Apr
Tourism vs Mining on the Coromandel, NZ
Kevin Blackford, editor/Publisher of the New Zealand TravelMemo has written an insightful piece on mining and tourism in the Coromandel Peninsula, NZ (April 27, 2010). While this debate is outside the general content of this website, it is reproduced here in its entirely with the authors permission because it is an important issue for New Zealand tourism. The piece focuses on the Coromandel because it’s familiar territory to the writer, who grew up in the area. The same questions over mining vs tourism may well apply to the other areas due for removal from Schedule 4. There are pre-worded and editable submission forms on the websites of Coromandel Watchdog, NZ Greenpeace and Forest and Bird. Overseas readers are also permitted to make submissions. The Ministry of Economic Development (www.med.govt.nz) submissions deadline is 5pm Tuesday 04 MAY.
With one week to go until the closing deadline for submissions, thousands of people have already made them online to the Ministry of Economic Development commenting on its plan to open up previously protected areas of the conservation estate to allow mining. While Gerry Brownlee talks of a $54 billion mineral bonanza under the Coromandel Peninsula, his ministry has yet to actually undertake a technical investigation there. The annual royalties (just $6.5m from gold last year), plus the tax take and associated job creation would amount to only a fraction of that unproven total, yet this natural playground and its tourism revenues (Coromandel’s tourism industry has an estimated annual worth of $360 million and is growing at 5% pa. For the year ended FEB10 Coromandel’s domestic guest nights were up 7.4% and its international guest nights were up 11%. FEB was the first time ever that international guest nights exceeded domestic for the month) are to be risked in the search for a goldmine.
Read on…………….
The Minister has identified a number of sites currently protected from mining under Schedule 4 of the Act that hold the prospect of riches and therefore need to be removed from protection so their value can be properly assessed. The total area of those special sites comprises around 1.5% of the peninsula’s area. Importantly, though, further investigation and analysis is being undertaken of a much larger area of less-protected public conservation land on the Coromandel Peninsula as part of the Government’s upcoming mineral investigation programme. Near Coromandel town itself, one of the Schedule 4 sites, the Kauri Block (the ministry gives it the less emotive name of Hauraki Hill), has 3400 regenerating kauris in it and its entrance is about 300 metres from the town’s main street. It has a scenic coastal walkway that hugs the harbour and extends past the fishing wharf and aquaculture beds. The Tokotea, the second area near the town, is home to a successful kiwi recovery programme and a third, Matawai, is in the town’s water catchment area.
It may well be that these sites all end up as red herrings, to be ‘sacrificed’ by a caring government when the survey turns up promising geological results elsewhere on the conservation estate. The threat to tourism, though, happens when mining goes ahead anywhere on Coromandel conservation land. The issue comes not from the mining itself so much as the ore’s transport, processing and disposal, all activities which are much more visible than the ‘surgical’ drilling and will have very real impacts on these popular touring routes and on our eco-friendly reputation. Instead of building more gold-extraction plants, Newmont Mining, which seems to talk like this is already a done deal, intends piping, pumping or more likely trucking ore from its future Coromandel underground mines to its processing plant and tailings dams in Waihi. They even talk of developing more dams there.
Given that Waihi’s two mines alone have produced an awesome 40 million cubic metres (read tonnes) of toxic spoil, Newmont must be envisaging a vast fleet of heavy trucks – perhaps even the newly-approved 53-tonne trucks – to service the new mines. That would see a stream of trucks operating day and night up and down the very scenic and narrow Pohutukawa Coast road via Thames and through the equally scenic Karangahake Gorge. The Coromandel region recorded 711,000 guest nights in the year ended FEB10 and that’s not counting hosted accommodation. German tourists in particular have long viewed Coromandel as their ‘dream’ destination. These people have among the world’s ‘greenest’ attitudes and they and others would sully our reputation massively via social media if we de-list protected lands for the unproven benefits of mining royalties. The mainstream media have already shown their willingness to highlight any hypocrisy on our part, and could be encouraged by our actions or our tourism rivals to write plenty more. The hard currency value to New Zealand of offering quality tourism experiences is virtually limitless. As the world becomes increasingly crowded and dirty, New Zealand becomes more and more desirable. Discerning travellers are prepared to pay for what we’ve got. They may not deliver the numbers of some of our new, less eco-conscious growth markets, but they deliver good yields, and they spend their money right at the ‘coalface’, so to speak.
We are, admittedly, far from being as clean and green as we’d like to think we are. But we are still streets ahead of the pack and as long as we are seen to be working to lift our game, we’ll be forgiven minor trespasses. Large scale gold mining-related activity and its toxic legacy, though, especially in picturesque areas touted internationally for decades as pristine, will demolish our hard-earned, hugely valuable 100% Pure branding and reputation in high yield markets. Tourism New Zealand and the RTOs have been muted in their comments on the potential impacts of mining to tourism, and that is understandable, given who funds them. The myriad owner/operator tourist businesses likely to be most affected by large scale mining activity in the Coromandel are small players with little political clout. Hopefully their voices will be heard.
