Press release
For immediate release
June 4th 2008
Protesters "freeze butts off" to save Happy Valley
Time and Date: 12 noon, Thursday, June the 5th.
Venue: front of Rutherford House, near Wellington Bus Exchange.
To protest the hypocrisy of the NZ government’s continued plan to mine Happy Valley on the South Island’s West Coast for
coal while portraying to the world that we are ‘clean and green’, members and supporters of the Save Happy Valley
Coalition will “freeze our butts off rather than burn coal” outside the government’s World Environment Day activities
tomorrow.
On Thursday June 5th Wellington hosts the UN World Environment Day activities. David Parker the minister responsible for
climate change will be part of a panel discussion alongside the executive Director of the UNEP and the chairman of the
UNIPCC. The discussion topic is ‘How do we de-carbonise the world?’
“We'll hear a lot of green-tinged rhetoric on World Environment Day, but in reality the government is happy to take the
money and let the environment go to hell. At Happy Valley near Westport, the state-owned enterprise Solid Energy plans
to destroy a pristine wetland and kiwi habitat in order to flog climate-changing coal overseas,” says Wellington Save
Happy Valley group spokesperson Emily Bailey.
“The government is hoping that if they just keep saying ‘sustainability’ and ‘environment’, people will think climate
change is being addressed rather than quietly sidelined.”
ENDS