“Coromandel No More Mining” – It’s Not Over!

by Catherine Delahunty

Yesterday about 50 local Coromandel people and some Auckland supporters protested peacefully against a Newmont Gold drilling rig at Opoutere, a small coastal community on the Coromandel. The drilling rig is working in forestry land upstream of the beautiful Opoutere estuary and dotterel recovery programme area. It is interesting that Newmont has funded a salary and truck for DOC’s dotterel work at Opoutere, while searching for a gold mine upstream of their habitat. They may have bought DOC but they haven’t bought the communities.

We walked up to the drilling rig with banners to express the simple message of “No More Mining” and “Coromandel – Too Precious to Mine”. Our group includes representatives of both the local residents and ratepayers from Opoutere and Onemana (the next door community where another round of drilling is also imminent).

As we explained to TV3, the real risk is not the drill rig. It is the Newmont incursions into the southern Coromandel as they look to mine around and within the conservation land and steep coastal catchments near Whangamata. Whangamata is at risk because if Newmont establish industrial scale mining (underground or opencast) in the region they will be trucking the ore and waste rock back to Waihi to the processing plant and the tailing dump via Whangamata itself!

So the first protest of the new campaign has been held and Coromandel people are hoping for the support of everyone who loves the area. There are drill sites being cleared in rare frog habitats which are on the DOC estate between Waihi and Parikiwai Ecological Area. There’s a big drilling rig due any day at Onemana. Newmont also has a big exploration permit between the Kauaeranga Valley (home of Jeanette Fitzsimons and my family) and the Puketui recreational area.

When Gerry Brownlee came to Thames Hauraki, iwi gave him a clear message, “No more mining north of Waihi in the Hauraki rohe”. Amen to that!