\u201cI don\u2019t think it should be catastrophised, you\u2019re always going to get an element that imagine the worst, but it\u2019s good that we recover that part of our our societal DNA which is digging things up,\u201d he told the Herald.<\/p>\n
A young ruru sunning itself at Zealandia. Photo \/ Michael Szabo<\/p>\n
Jones said he was not aware of the applicant\u2019s plans for the site, but suggested it could be as low impact as \u201csome bloke wandering around with a square mouth shovel and a and a pan\u201d.<\/p>\n
The majority of the permits have been applied for by members of the Watson family who own the land.<\/p>\n
They would not comment when asked about their plans by the Herald.<\/p>\n
Jones said the impacts of prospecting are equal to merely digging holes for tree planting or installing posts.<\/p>\n
It is important to note that the permits are not for mining, but rather a range of other activities permitted under prospecting.<\/p>\n
\u201cProspecting is the very first step in exploring for mineral deposits and typically involves activities of minimal impact\u201d, MBIE said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese can include literature searches, geological mapping, hand sampling and\/or aerial surveys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked if he would support higher impact works if the prospecting were successful in turning up precious minerals, Jones said people should not be surprised that he is pro-mining, \u201cbut any mining has to be within guard rails\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe environmental impacts will only be dealt with once a big application is pursued, but if people are low impact fossicking around, I\u2019d say to the nervous nellies in Wellington, don\u2019t fret.\u201d <\/p>\n
One permit has already been approved, with a company named Quicksand LTD given the green light for mineral prospecting last month.<\/p>\n
Other applications are still under consideration, including one for an operation named \u201cGolden Hills 2.0\u201d which was submitted at the end of June.<\/p>\n
It totals more than 8sq km of land potentially up for searching for gold and other minerals.<\/p>\n
Shane Jones<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one has started mining the Basin Reserve, we\u2019re talking about private property in most cases and it\u2019s miles from Lambton Quay\u201d. <\/p>\n
As for the proximity to Zealandia, Jones said it would be a \u201cmajor consideration should anyone ever want to get serious about mining\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one should imagine that the mining industry is going to start burrowing under Zealandia, this is the sort of woke hyperventilation that the Matua doesn\u2019t like\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Jones said he does not have regular oversight of the permit applications and wants MBIE to \u201ceither give an early no or just get on with it and say yes\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ethan Manera is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI don\u2019t think it should be catastrophised, you\u2019re always going to get an element that imagine the worst,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8172,1040,2562,1359,2354,4241,6101,185,2176,23472,6722,3180,111,43,139,1536,69,23471,8279,312,7228,4468,15900,6923,13032,23473,23470],"class_list":["post-22624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-backlash","tag-bid","tag-claims","tag-described","tag-exploration","tag-gold","tag-good","tag-is","tag-jones","tag-minerals","tag-minister","tag-near","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-next","tag-nz","tag-proposals","tag-resources","tag-says","tag-shane","tag-thing","tag-wellingtons","tag-what","tag-woke","tag-worldfamous","tag-zealandia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}