Middle Earth, as my colleague quipped: it’s like that’s what we’re aiming for, one massive hole in the ground. Our legal landscape is changing, with mining in view. It’s not just the EEZ, or the RMA, or the Crown Minerals Act - it’s all of them. The ground is shifting under resource management.
Read MoreSchedule 4
Another coal hole, another snail fail
Are national parks the things we have when we can’t find anything else to do with them? The Denniston mining proposal is like the Schedule 4 mining proposal, with bonus snails
Read MoreThe land that time forgot, and govt economics 101
Forest & Bird delivers a lesson in economical resource use — simplifying and streamlining, if you will — that doesn’t involve balancing the environment and the economy; and a reminder of the conservation job, put on ice for a quarter century
Read MoreConservation land mining and the green genie
Mr Brownlee may have dug a big hole for the mining industry, by eyeing up Schedule 4. Conservationists' price: a better Schedule, and a higher test for mining access rights
Read MoreSchedule 4: So what do the Nats stand for now?
The government says it's backdown on mining is evidence that it listens. But the question left is whether there's any policy Key and Co. will fight to the death for? And where's that step change coming from now?
Read MoreDrill, 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?
Read MoreMining Our Natural Potential: not specious, just stupid
An open letter to Gerry Brownlee, surgically exploring his cranium, and finding some fossils inside
Read MoreWhy are National and Labour trying so hard to LOSE Auckland?
Labour's candidate selection for the Auckland electorates seemed odd, but National's willingess to risk the city for a bit o' gold and silver in the Coromandel is one hell of a punt
Read MoreHistory in the making - healthcare wins and mining losses
As Barack Obama enjoys the thrill of history, John Key should take a look at his own party's history on mining before commiting too heavily to some big holes in the ground
Read MoreJohn Key’s broken promise, on National’s parks
Key promised no state assets would be sold or partly sold in the first term of his government. But that’s in effect what’s happening, to our biggest state asset of them all
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