{"id":540170,"date":"2026-07-23T10:47:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T10:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/540170\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T10:47:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T10:47:19","slug":"sam-effect-donations-for-anti-mine-group-boosted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/540170\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Sam effect’: Donations for anti-mine group boosted"},"content":{"rendered":"

A community group fighting against a proposed gold mine in Central Otago has received more than $22,000 in donations since the death of Sir Sam Neill.<\/p>\n

The actor, who lived in the region,\u00a0was a prominent and vocal opponent of Australian company Santana Minerals’ fast-tracked Bendigo-Ophir gold mine near Cromwell.<\/p>\n

He died suddenly from pneumonia in Sydney on July 13, aged 78.<\/p>\n

Sir Sam lived in\u00a0Earnscleugh, an hour away from the mine site, where he established Two Paddocks winery in 1993.<\/p>\n

After his death, his family listed the group Sustainable Tarras among four causes for suggested donations in his memory.<\/p>\n

Chair Suze Keith said donations ranging from $10 to $1000 had poured in from hundreds of people around the world.<\/p>\n

“We’re absolutely overwhelmed at the generosity of people trusting us with their funds despite it being a very bittersweet situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

“It’s just been so encouraging. We are quite a small community group and when we started becoming aware of the proposed mine and what it involved two and a half years ago, we were really uncertain about what we could do about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the Sam effect, we’ve been able to really step up our effort to a level that we would have never imagined we would be able to achieve.”<\/p>\n

The group had so far raised more than $72,000 on its Givealittle page from more than 700 people.<\/p>\n

Keith said the money would be used for legal fees and sourcing experts as the fast-track process continued.<\/p>\n

The application was currently on pause, with a final decision from the fast-track panel not expected until December this year.<\/p>\n

Keith said Sustainable Tarras had already consulted 16 experts in its submission on Santana Minerals’ application.<\/p>\n

“At the start of the year, we thought right, we’ll do a really good application and that will be our effort but actually, seven months later, we’re still donkey deep in a process that’s asking more and more of our experts,” she said.<\/p>\n

Sir Sam called the proposed mine “toxic”, “horrific” and “a threat to Central Otago’s pristine landscapes”.<\/p>\n

Other local advocates\u00a0welcomed the potential boost to the Central Otago economy and the jobs the mine could deliver, saying it would be a positive move for the region and a continuation of the area’s mining legacy.<\/p>\n

In an Instagram post, Sir Sam said he had received a “shocking and disturbing” level of threats and abuse as a result of his stance.<\/p>\n

Santana Minerals has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A community group fighting against a proposed gold mine in Central Otago has received more than $22,000 in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-540170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540170","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=540170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}