Greenpeace Aotearoa says the Conservation Amendment Bill is rotten and must be scrapped entirely, as public outcry over the proposal forces the Conservation Minister to take his proposal to make it easier to sell off or exchange land back to Cabinet.
On stage at the EDS conference Minister Tama Potaka announced he will remove sections of the Bill relating to sale of land, but was immediately followed by Shane Jones who made clear those changes would have to be agreed by Cabinet, in which Jones sits.
Greenpeace Aotearoa campaigner Gen Toop says: “People across Aotearoa have spoken out in droves to defend the conservation estate and the Government are now scrambling around trying to fix their unfixable bill.”
“Let’s be very clear. The Conservation Amendment Bill is unsalvageable. From start to finish this Bill is rotten to its core. It must be thrown out immediately.
“Even if National manages to convince its coalition partners to pull the land sales parts out – this Bill would still make it easier for open cast mines, private resorts, gondolas, and shopping malls to degrade the wild places we all treasure.
“That is as good as selling it off anyway”, says Toop.
Toop says that aside from the land sale provisions in the Bill – the Bill proposes to change the entire purpose of the Conservation Act and the core mandate of DOC to enable commercial exploitation “to the greatest extent practicable.”
The announcements come after weeks of public opposition that have seen tens of thousands of submissions against the Bill and mass public outcry.
“Nobody wants to show up to our favorite conservation areas to go camping, tramping, hunting, and find that the quiet wilderness once there is gone, replaced by an open mining pit, a private hotel and a shopping mall,” says Toop.
“The snow-capped mountains, ancient forests and wild rivers of Aotearoa are part of who we are as a nation. The Coalition Government has completely misjudged how much New Zealanders, from all walks of life, love public conservation land.”
Since the Conservation Amendment Bill was announced just over a month ago, tens of thousands of New Zealanders have submitted against it, and nearly 48,,000 people have signed a Greenpeace petition calling for it to be abandoned.
Greenpeace launched an interactive online map this week exposing the overlap between known deposits of minerals the Government has deemed “critical” and public conservation land, showing which areas they say are at even greater risk now because of this egregious Bill .
The Conservation Amendment Bill is currently before the Select Committee and public submissions on the bill close on at midnight on July 2.
Public conservation land belongs to Aotearoa. Tell the Government: our conservation land is not for sale.
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