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Minister says no to access over DOC land for quarry expansion
12 March 2004

Conservation Minister Chris Carter has decided against allowing a mining company access to further conservation land in Golden Bay.

Mr Carter said approving the access application would have been like "agreeing to the destruction of up to seven of the last 100 kakapo".

Omya (NZ) Ltd runs a dolomite and rock quarry, covering 128.7 hectares of Mount Burnett on the fringes of Kahurangi National Park, and had applied for access rights over a further four hectares of conservation land so it could expand its quarry.

It wants the four hectares for a road so it can access and quarry dolomite further up the mountain and go deeper into its current mine benches.

Mr Carter said today that after considering the criteria laid down in the Crown Minerals Act, he had declined the application "because the cost to New Zealand's biodiversity is simply too high".

The distinctive geological and topographical features of the Mt Burnett area had resulted in a very rare and highly unusual forest that was home to at least six species of shrub and sedge found nowhere else in the world, he said.

"The piece of land sought by Omya is a habitat for three of these species. Two of them are classified as nationally critical and the other, nationally endangered."

One of the nationally critical plants, the sedge carex dolomitica, was so rare that every individual plant counted and any losses were of concern. The plants were scattered within an area of less than a hectare.

Mr Carter said the land also contained a significant population of the nationally endangered giant land snail powelliphanta.

A subspecies of the snail was located within a two kilometre radius of Mt Burnett and nowhere else.

Mr Carter said the company had offered a compensation package in which 14 hectares of land under its current mining licence, also containing rare plants, would have been set aside from any mining in return for the area applied for.

It also offered to pay 20 cents per tonne of dolomite towards the Department of Conservation's pest control on the mountain.

"While I appreciate Omya's efforts, I cannot accept this arrangement because the advice to me is the company is not actually planning to mine the proffered 14 ha until after its existing mining licence for the area expires in 2006.

"Consequently, I believe it makes good sense to wait and explore the whole issue of dolomite quarrying on Mt Burnett again in 2006."

The company had assured him it had sufficient supplies of raw materials to keep it working until 2006.

Dolomite is a form of limestone infused with magnesium which is used by farmers for pasture growth and animal health. The Mt Burnett quarry is the only commercial dolomite mine in New Zealand.