The Environmental Protection Agency hearing into seabed mining for phosphate on the Chatham Rise is exposing questions about uncertainty - many big unknowns, including whether the applicant has done its job. If environment groups win this battle, what does it mean for the wider war?
Read MoreExclusive Economic Zone
The devil and the deep blue sea
What the Ministerial amendments proposed to the EEZ Bill tell us about RMA reform plans - or, how a few lines on a page could change New Zealand's natural world
Read MoreExclusively Economic Zone bad for industry, says Forest & Bird
The Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill, currently passing through its remaining stages in Parliament, helps Big Oil less than you might think
Read MoreThe Exclusive Economic Zone: for sale
In which the government invites anyone who can pay enough into our offshore marine environment. The Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill does not "protect and preserve" the environment. It states its price
Read MoreDeepwater protection - too little, too late
Environment Minister Nick Smith has finally confirmed that
Brownlee’s bucket list
Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee, and his colleagues, have work to do, according to an offshore petroleum environmental assessment, showing big gaps and serious risks in our regulatory practice
Read MoreDeepwater oil on Nature’s Coast
Two offshore spills in less than a month – but
BP slick exposes NZ safety gulf
The US government can barrel oil giant BP into stumping up $28 billion to clean up the mess created by its disastrous deep water oil drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico – but could you see that happening here?
Drill, baby, drill - The NZ Way
As the United States shuts down deepwater oil drilling to get it back under control, New Zealand opens the door. Gerry Brownlee may not get much more mining on the conservation estate, but he can get it off-shore. How good is that?
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