West Coasters tackle climate change and the pro-mining status quo
Being a greenie on the West Coast and coming up against a vocal pro-mining, pro-development status quo can be tough. Keith Morfett has lived on 22 hectares of previously mined land near Hokitika for 30 years and has campaigned against hydro-schemes and new coal mines on the West Coast. You get black-balled if you are a greenie there's no place for you on anything, the retired teacher says. I wont go anywhere near social media, it can get very personal. We cant keep a letter box at the end of the road, weve given up and got a PO box in town. Weve concreted them in, and they just get smashed up or nicked. READ MORE: * Ructions at West Coast Conservation Board over iwi role in Punakaiki DOC centre * New climate change targets put future of West Coast coal mines in limbo * Iwi warns Forest and Bird to back off over Waitaha * By asking for evidence of climate change, a council is neglecting its duty * West Coast Regional Council wants proof of human-caused climate change before supporting Zero Carbon Bill Morfett was previously chair of the West Coast Conservation Board and says he was accused of racism for challenging what he believes is a pro-development, pro-mining Poutini Ngai Tahu, a claim the iwi rejects. Theres an awful lot of conservationists here that tend to keep their head down because the debates get so unpleasant and vociferous particularly when it gets mixed up with the racism stuff then it gets pretty toxic. Morfett says the West Coast suffers from a real failure in leadership. Many of our local and regional politicians are so wedded to business as usual... They are fearful of the change and looking for someone to kick and so-called greenies get the blame for the way the world is going. What the West Coast had was internationally significant and some Coasters were holding onto a sense of grievance over Government policy to protect it, he says. Grey mayor Tania Gibson said she riled against the idea that the West Coast should be the nations environmental conscience. While the West Coast had clean waterways and large, natural forests, it was being told to lock up private land to make up for the rest of the countrys carbon emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change put out a stark warning that global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius, and then 2C, will be exceeded within 100 years unless we drastically cut carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions to net zero. If we dont New Zealand will see more floods, drought and fires and whole communities lost to the sea. The Governments Emissions Reduction Plan includes getting rid of fossil fuels in electricity generation by 2030, and to set a target of net zero CO2 emissions by 2050. Despite its diminutive share (1.6 per cent) of the country's total emissions, the West Coast has the country's third-highest carbon footprint per capita. In 2018, 38.1 tonnes of greenhouse gas was produced on the West Coast for each person who lives there. Development West Coasts submission to the Climate Change Commission said the West Coast would ultimately bear a disproportionate amount of the costs from the climate transition due to the makeup of its economy. The West Coast has the highest rate of coal burner usage at 34.3 per cent compared to 1.2 per cent nationally. In 2019, the West Coast Regional Council refused to support the Zero Carbon Bill until the science behind human-caused climate change was proven. In a meeting on Tuesday, councillors voted in favour of acknowledging humankinds contribution to climate change and to adopt climate change mitigation policies only if they enhanced the economic, cultural and social wellbeing of West Coasters. The motion was passed with only two votes against from goldminer Brett Cummings and chairman Allan Birchfield who made comments denying carbon dioxides effect on the climate at the meeting. He told Stuff it was not possible to find a compromise with green groups like Forest & Bird. They are fanatics. You can't negotiate with them. Its like trying to negotiate with terrorists. They have been practising genocide on the Coast for the last 30 or 40 years. So many people have had to leave. What can we actually do here? They dont like farming, they dont like mining, they dont like fishing. Everything we try to do here is shut down, he says. When told about the regional council vote, Forest & Bird chief executive Kevin Hague, who lives in Greymouth, asked if they had also voted to acknowledge gravity. Allan Birchfield, Tania Gibson and [Westland mayor] Bruce Smith have all made disparaging comments towards Forest & Bird, but personal attacks on me are extremely rare. People seem to get that I have a job to do. At the supermarket, at meetings or at the gym, I have people coming up to me saying I like what you guys are doing. He supports a transition that includes compensation for Coasters, like the $92 million given to Development West Coast to offset the impact of the end of native timber milling. There should be some collective New Zealand support for the West Coast to retain and enhance what we have left in the national interest. What is on the Coast is very special and its important for all New Zealanders to keep it and enhance it. Hague says only about 400 people are still directly employed by mining companies, though Minerals West Coast says that figure is closer to 600. We need to transition from people doing coal mining to something else. Those who wanted could be paid to retrain, but its not big numbers we are talking about, they could be paid out all their wages until retirement age, Hague says. The Coasts culture and mindset has not changed has since the 1980s logging debate, he says. We have to stop burning coal. I have had conversations with coal miners who say if I became a barista I couldn't feed my family. That becomes a great question and one that Development West Coast should be exploring. He understands the argument that most of the West Coast land is protected by the Department of Conservation already and Coasters want to use the resources they have left to improve their economy. One path is to align yourself with the mining industry, another is to find ways of monetising the protection and restoration of nature and clearly if you can do that on the Coast it would carve out a future for Poutini Ngai Tahu and all of us Coasters. Tourism is one option but creating a conservation science centre is another, he says. Conservationist Inger Perkins, who was named Westlander of the Year in 2017 for her work on the environment, resigned from the West Coast Conservation Board, saying the way the board was operating prevented her from fulfilling her duties under the Conservation Act. Perkins feels her conservation values werent welcome when local commentary suggested there were too many conservationists on the conservation board. Perkins says she is happy to stick to her principles. Knowing her views will benefit future generations keeps her going in the face of vocal anti-environment sentiment. She hopes both sides can find common ground. She believes some mining could continue on previously mined areas, but not coal mining. Mining on conservation land is an oxymoron. However, if miners can act responsibly, stick to rules and conditions and to the agreed operating areas without adverse effects, then there may be room for some mining to continue where biodiversity values are very low and/or already compromised. She calls for an accreditation scheme for miners with good environmental management and a regional working group to drive the necessary and urgent transition for the region, which could appeal for government support with one voice. Patrick Phelps advocates for the mining industry as the manager for Minerals West Coast. He is not a climate change denier and has had some robust debates with both environmentalists and his mining colleagues on the topic. [Ive told the miners] its not an argument worth having, even if you are right and I dont think you are that climate change is not real. You are never going to win that argument but there are very real arguments to be made about what the hell are we going to do about our energy supply and our energy security, he says. Im 27 ... so what happens with climate change is not something Im indifferent about but, equally, if there was no mining on the Coast and we couldn't use coal to run our factories, we are just going to have to pack up and leave. Mining is in Phelps blood. His grandparents and parents mined a 100ha property for gold in Hokitika in the 1980s and 90s that had been previously mined in the 1880s. The land has now either been subdivided and sold for housing or put into pasture. A large portion has regenerated back into native bush and is protected by a QEII covenant. People will say once you destroy something it will never be the same again, you wont get it back but I've grown up here and it does grow back, mining really can be a temporary use of land. He says some DOC land should be used for mining, hydro schemes and quarrying, and peoples private property rights should be protected. If someone has invested land as an economic decision with plans to develop it and the rest of the country is going to come in and say you cant do that its only fair that there is compensation for that. It annoys me when people say the land should be left alone and looked after, thats fine, but youve got to be able to afford to do that, unless you want to sit on a bit of property and look at it and not have any income. How do you feed your family? It gets pretty difficult. Phelps enjoys the bush and wants to have his ashes scattered in the native bush on his parents land. I wouldn't want those trees cut down. People will think Im really green for saying that. One of the things about the Coast, on both sides, is that it gets really polarised you are either in this camp or that camp and its just not that simple. Kara Edwards, the pouarahi (chief executive) of Makaawhio, which with Ngati waewae makes up Poutini Ngai Tahu, says the iwi wants a balanced approach in challenging climate change. As an iwi we are finding that balance. We have been here for a long time, and we want to make sure our people, and all of the community, have a future. The region has already diversified its economy and no longer relies solely on traditional extractive industries, she says. Mining and development has a place on the Coast as long as it meets legislative requirements under the Resource Management Act or the Conservation Act. They are the rules for what can happen. You cant keep relitigating things just because you dont like them, which is what has been happening with the conservation board. As long as legislative processes have been followed, if you dont like it tough bikkies. They say we are calling them racist for disagreeing with us but I dont recall ever saying that. I think thats a cop out and completely unfair. She says some environmentalists are against everything, including the controversial Waitaha hydro-scheme rejected by the Government but supported by iwi. It's no to burning coal, its no to hydro, its no to oil and gas. You cant say no to everything. With climate change we need hydro schemes. You can't have it both ways. We all have to collaborate and play by the rules and the rules are: we all have to be prepared to give up something. For Morfett, the environment is not something he wants humans to give up on, and a few broken letter boxes is a small price to pay. Things will change. I think the conservation-minded people that see the reality of climate change and biodiversity collapse will be on the right side of history, although maybe we wont get too much pleasure out of that in the end because things are looking pretty grim.