STOP TOXIC MINING PUHIPUHI

Media Release 4 July 2016

Striking evidence : Evolution Mining Ltd are drilling beneath conservation lands!

The Action Coordination Group were shocked yesterday to receive evidence confirming that Evolution Mining Ltd were drilling directly under DOC conservation land on Puhipuhi mountain, just north of Whangarei.

Some friends of the Action Coordination Group recently managed to locate Evolution’s contractor Alton Drilling’s drilling rig, by hiking through Department of Conservation administered land. The group observed that the rig was drilling right on the boundary of a DOC reserve and was aimed on a sharp angle to drill a core sample 600m deep under conservation land.

Action Coordination Group is a working coalition of Ngati Hau Anti-Mining Group, MineWatch Northland, Kaumatua Kuia Ngati Hau, and Ngati Hau Resource Management Unit – who together oppose and want to stop Evolution Mining Ltd exploring and mining on Puhipuhi mountain.

“With this powerful new evidence, it is clear that the company is drilling core samples away from their base on private land, beneath a waterway and underneath the DOC native forest,” said MineWatch Northland spokesperson Tim Howard. “This is the first substantial confirmation we have received that one of Evolution’s and the Government’s real targets for potential mining here is protected conservation land.”

Another irony of this discovery is that this DOC-administered forest is under Treaty claim by Ngati Hau, land that the Crown should be protecting to partially recompense Ngati Hau for the Crown’s own historical offences – and not creating new grievances right now.

“This is Ngati Hau land that we hope to have returned to us soon,” said Ngati Hau Resource Management Unit spokesperson Allan Halliday. “However drilling under the lands we have claimed has been authorised and even encouraged by the Government. This is not an action in good faith by Government, who are allowing further damage to the land before they return it to us. Evolution Mining should not think they can get away with drilling or mining land that rightfully belongs to the tangata whenua.”

“Many of us around here have made it clear that we do not want mining here at Puhipuhi, and many more New Zealanders have marched against the Government mining on conservation land,” said the spokesperson for Ngati Hau Anti Mining Group, Vaughan Potter. “This latest discovery rubs salt in our wounds. In a time of Treaty settlements, the government is clearly favouring an offshore mining company over the rights of the people who have lived here for hundreds of years.

“Evolution Mining have long out-stayed any welcome they might have thought they had.”

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