No Mining our National Parks Protest - Auckland 1st May 2010
A crowd of more than 40,000 people turned out to protest the National Government's proposals to remove National Park land from Schedule 4 protection and make it available for mining. (Police estimate 40-50,000 people !)
The placards tell the story of people's opposition to the mining and prospecting proposals. The Government intends to remove seven areas from Schedule 4 protection this year (in the Paparoa National Park, the Coromandel Peninsula, Great Barrier Island), and to also subsidise mining companies to the tune of $4 million to investigate mining at Rakiura National Park on Stewart Island and places such as the pristine mountainsides and beech forests of the Mt Aspiring National Park.
The huge support for this protest was a fantastic response from the wider Auckland and Waikato communities and environment groups who are opposed to mining on our high bio-diversity conservation land.
They delivered a strong message to the Government that National Parks should be left out of any plans for mining and that mining made no sense, ecologically and or economically.
Children, families, individuals and groups were all represented in big numbers including people representing Greenpeace, Forest and Bird, Coromandel Watchdog, Great Barrier Island, iwi interests and South Island with special mention given to protecting Paparoa National Park.
