Press Release 21-7-2010
For Immediate Release
Save Happy Valley Coalition Calls for National Park Status for Alpine Wetland
The Save Happy Valley Coalition offers support for the National Government's decision to scrap plans to mine NZ national
parks under schedule 4, though continues to urge policy makers not to mine valuable biodiversity hotspots that lack
state protection as National Parks, such as Happy Valley, near Westport in the South Island.
The planned Cypress Mine imposes severe threats to this irreplaceable New Zealand alpine wetland habitat, and National's
recent change of policy will not save places like this. Happy Valley is a very rare alpine red-tussock grassland home
to thirteen threatened species, including a breeding population of Great-spotted Kiwi and the core population of the
endangered landsnail Powelliphanta patrickensis.
Spokesperson Graham Jury says "New Zealanders have successfully stood up together for the protection of iconic places of
natural beauty such as Great Barrier Island and the Corromandel Peninsula. Despite this, our natural heritage is not
sufficiently protected under our current national parks, and the changes to schedule 4. Moreover, the new joint-decision
making powers over such areas granted to The Minister of Energy and Resources puts them at even greater risk."
"While Cyprus remains on the cards, endemic species are in grave danger. So lets see Happy Valley preserved as a valued
national treasure too. This precious area needs national park status before it is reduced to coal slag and weeds."
Jury states "all biodiversity rich areas deserve our protection from unsustainable industrial development, especially
remote ones that are made vulnerable due to being out of the public eye".
ENDS