labellementeuse | (no subject)

~~So someone on Radio NZ, I'm guessing a National MP but I didn't hear him introduced~~ OK, he just got talked off, it was Gerry Brownlee, has just repeated a phrase a couple of times: The mining the Gvt wants to do in NZ's national parks is equivalent to 'a postcard on Eden Park.'* OK. That's a really cute little analogy and I see why he hit it hard. But the thing is, Eden Park has this vast expanse that is just... grass. And even then, they wouldn't let you dig a hole in it because someone could put out an ankle, but I'm not sure I can make that stick as a metaphor.

What I can point out, though, is that New Zealand is very small and unusually biodiverse and geologically very different from conservancy to conservancy. We have a very high level of species found nowhere else, and a lot of them are naturally uncommon or range-restricted - there are only a few of them, or they exist on a patch of land that, forget a postcard on Eden Park, is more like a pinprick on Eden Park. Perhaps the Government would like to suggest by this metaphor that they will only mine places that are just like everywhere else in New Zealand, but there are two problems with that: first, that will be really damn difficult. But secondly, that's not how they're going to choose where to mine at all - they don't really have any control over that: They can only mine where minerals are. If they find gold under the unique sub-alpine locations in the South Island where the Hutton's Shearwater tītī** nests, well... bye bye Hutton's Shearwater (who are already considered endangered, kids.)

Someone on the radio next, whose name I really didn't catch, said that the Māori Party hadn't yet expressed their opinion and added that he wasn't sure Treaty issues were involved. Let's be clear here: Treaty issues are involved. Māori are the kaitiaki of the land in their rōhe, only so much damage has been done to so much of New Zealand that really the last places that can be expressed is in national parks. I really hope the Māori Party come out strongly against this issue.

*A rugby stadium
**There are around three birds referred to as tītī in te reo Māori or I wouldn't use the Pākehā name, but you really need to or it's confusing.

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Hmm. Even if I believed that any mining could be carried out (a) with the consent of Maori, (b) in an environmentally sensitive and sustainable way, and (c) without adversely affecting New Zealand's long-term economic and socio-political interests... even then—

I still don't know, and don't know whether it's been made clear, who is to mine these lands, where the money is going to come from and where it is going to go, who is going to do the hard labour, and who is going to profit. And the thought that our conservation lands could be ripped up to create needed national infrastructure development is one thing... the thought that all it will do is profit investors and entrepreneurs and big business is quite another.