WCC 2016 Rec 102 - Activity Report

ECO has used not only formal mechanisms but also a variety of communication and awareness raising mechanisms to allow civil society and the public and scientific community to present the case for the achieving the operative paragraphs of WCC-2016-Rec-102-EN.

ECO, Royal Forest and Bird Protection Organisation of NZ, and numerous other groups have worked together to achieve a policy announced in late 2017 and reaffirmed in 2019 by the New Zealand government of "no new mines on Conservation land". This has yet to be implemented. There is a stalemate with the Minister of Conservation wanting the policy implemented, and the Minister of Energy and Resources and her industry lobbyists opposed. Instead they want to re-classify much of the conservation land out of that status, and to allow new industrial mining on conservation land and to allow mining where the permit holders already hold exploration permits or have an expectation of renewal of permits. We have pressed for the policy to be implemented, and we have submitted against the stalling of the policy implementation and its undermining with delays, suggestions that you can mining under but not on conservation land, and other devices. We have also filed objections to coal and other mining on conservation land. On infrastructure, we are contesting policy and draft law that would exempt national infrastructure projects from rules for water and aquatic ecosystem protections. We have also objected to proposals for industrial scale recreation and tourism facilities on protected areas. In the marine realm, we have few protected areas so we press instead for the creation of these and the exclusion of incompatible activities in areas of significant biodiversity. These include industrial fishing and seabed mining.