Transition Invercargill submission to Schedule 4 Stocktake proposal

Attached is the submission Transition Invercargill made to the proposed Schedule 4 Stocktake.

This is one of 35,000 or so submissions received when they last counted. The submissions closed yesterday, 26 May.

The Government has a legal obligation to consider submissions received in a public consultation process. One can only imagine how many people will have to work on the 35,000 submissions to achieve this.

The Government has announced that it would release a decision before the end of this year (of course, as it is election year next year and they don't want this issue floating about) - our guess is that it will be just before Christmas when it is notoriously hard to motivate people to any action.

It is importnat to keep an ear out for this and be prepared to act. Our guess is that Paparoa National Park will get the worst outcome. Get ready now - whatever the announcement will be you bet it will be short notice and close to the holiday period.

For a bit of fun, watch Sexy Coal if you haven't yet :-)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0oqeJ7a_hE

Summary of our submission:

We believe that Schedule 4 lands are worth more to New Zealanders intact. They provide ecosystem services, tourism income, branding, lifestyle and recreation opportunities, and a sense of identity. Mining them does not make sense economically and is morally wrong.

We opposed to any removals from Schedule 4 and any further investigations to assess their mineral potential. Only the Minister of Conservation should have decision-making power of these lands, held in trust for the New Zealand public. We support addition of new lands to Schedule 4 and recommend that such additions become automatic each time new lands are gazetted into Schedule 4.

We oppose the contestable conservation fund but instead want to see DOC’s 2009 budget reinstated, as well as the Green Party’s Community Conservation fund and the Enviroschools funding restored.

Further recommendations:

1.      Add the following high-value conservation area types to Schedule 4: national reserves such as Lewis Pass; all of our World Heritage areas (Te Wahipounamu, Tongariro and the Sub-Antarctic islands), and all ecological areas.

2.      Prohibit all open-cast mining and tailings dams on public conservation land.

3.      Remediation on mined land has to be full responsibility of the mining companies.

4.      Public notification of mining applications has to be compulsory.

5.      Instead of focusing on mining the Government to undertake a thorough stocktake of the effects the imminent Peak Oil and its widespread consequences will have on New Zealand’s society and economy, and prepare and implement a firm strategy to deal with it.

6.      Invest in energy, resource and land conservation rather than further generation and extraction.

7.      Commit to, plan and implement at least a 40% reduction in GHG emissions by 2020.