People might wonder why a 53-year-old grandmother would choose to climb into a 80 metre high stinky coal bucket on the rainy West Coast and settle in for the long haul. The truth is, I had no hesitation in taking this action, because we have just so much to lose. Everything that we love and treasure is on the line now. Continued denial about how dire the climate situation is, and continued delay from governments and corporations on taking decisive and bold action to reduce climate-heating greenhouse gas emissions have us on an ecocidal highway to hell.
I was up on the Denniston Plateau with 70 other climate protectors over Easter weekend this year. It’s hard to come away from an environment like that unmoved by its stark beauty. It’s impossible not to be awed by the tenacity of life forms that have adapted to thrive in such harsh conditions. But they have – life is abundant there. Unique, rare and beautiful. The Denniston Plateau is a 40 million-year-old landscape that Bathurst Resources and the New Zealand government are willing to destroy. And once it’s destroyed no amount of “rehabilitation” can bring it back.
With the help of new “fast-track” legislation, Bathurst hopes to export 20 million tonnes of coking coal from one of the most ecologically unique landscapes in Aotearoa. The size of the proposed mine is difficult to comprehend; roughly the size of Nelson city. It will emit 53 million tonnes of carbon pollution, equivalent to New Zealand’s entire annual emissions. According to a Nature journal article on the mortality cost of carbon, that amount of pollution is likely to cause over 10,000 excess deaths globally [1].
I know many of you reading this are thinking – what’s the point of stopping one mine when the whole system seems broken? I’ve felt that paralysis too, scrolling through climate news feeling smaller and more helpless with each headline. But here’s what I’ve learned from being up here: this isn’t just about one mine.
Denniston is a critical test case. It’s about whether we can build the power to stop any of them. Every victory creates precedent, builds networks, and proves it’s possible. When people said “why save Manapouri when there are dams everywhere?” they didn’t know they were starting a movement that would transform how we think about rivers. When anti-nuclear activists focused on single reactors, they didn’t know they were building the power to shut down entire programs.
Bathurst Resources and other companies who are in the process of making applications through the fast track process should know that they will face opposition like they haven’t seen before. We can’t continue on this murderous, extractivist pathway if we want to leave a habitable planet for our grandchildren and their grandchildren. Short term growth is quite literally killing us and everything else along with us.
The area they want to mine at Denniston isn’t a wasteland. It’s teeming with life that we’re only just beginning to understand. Great spotted kiwi, giant snails, green geckos, and delicate lichens cling to sandstone boulders millions of years old. If this mine goes ahead, all of that – plants, birds, reptiles, and the quiet stories they carry – will be bulldozed, blasted, and buried. In their place: a new road for mining trucks, a coal washing plant, and the kind of devastation we already see at nearby Stockton, where even freshwater insects can no longer survive [2].
And for what? Less than 1% of Bathurst’s revenue goes back to the region. Fewer than 10% of its profits stay in Aotearoa [3]. In exchange, locals get a few insecure jobs, toxic runoff, and housing shortages as contractors are squeezed into prefab dorms [4]. The rest of us inherit the emissions. The floods. The fires.
This isn’t a fair trade. It’s a theft of land, of our future, and of any honest claim that we’re addressing the climate crisis. We’ve known for decades that coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel, contributing more to global heating than any other energy source. Burning it releases sulphur, mercury, and fine particulate matter – airborne toxins linked to thousands of premature deaths in Aotearoa each year. And yet we continue to mine, to export, and even to subsidise it [5].
The companies are counting on us feeling hopeless and isolated. They want us scrolling through climate doom at home instead of linking arms with neighbors. But I’ve seen what happens when people who care finally meet each other – the energy is electric. The relief of discovering you’re not alone in this fight is overwhelming.
So here I am, in this cold, wet coal bucket and I’ll stay for as long as I can. Not because I want to, but because when my beautiful grandchildren are old enough to understand and they ask me “Nana Rach, how did people stand by and watch all this loss and destruction happen?” I’ll be able to hold their gaze and tell them that I took a stand and I did everything I possibly could to reduce the harmful greed of capitalism.
The coal bucket is cold and uncomfortable, but the community keeping me here is warm. And that community is growing every day.
If you’re reading this thinking “she’s right, but what can I do?” – here’s how to start:
Today: Join Climate Liberation Aotearoa or another group that speaks to you to connect with others in your area who are ready to act.
Next week: Attend protests outside ANZ branches on August 8th to call on the bank to stop enabling Bathurst Resources to build this new mine and to connect with others in your area who are ready to act.
This year: Commit to one form of sustained action – whether that’s regular donations, monthly actions, or your own creative disruption.
The choice is ours: we can stay home feeling overwhelmed by the scale of the crisis, or we can start building the power to actually stop it. Your turn.
References
[1] From this article in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24487-w
[2] A recent public sample of Rapid Creek – below nearby Bathurst’s Stockton Mine – recorded not a single species of freshwater insect, an absence that freshwater ecologist Dr Mike Joy said was “pretty strong evidence of a massive impact, of something going on”.
Commissioners appointed by the West Coast Regional Council and Buller District Council to consider the Escarpment Mine proposal on the Denniston Plateau wrote that “From the evidence presented to us, it is abundantly clear that large-scale mining is poised to invade the entire Denniston Plateau coal reserves, which, if unchecked, will totally destroy the ecosystems which are present.” Para 531, ‘decision of commissioners appointed by West Coast Regional Council and Buller District Council’. 26 August 2011.
[3] In the past five years: Bathurst has invested 0.2% (2024), 0.18% (2023) and 0.05% (2022), 0.17 (2021), and 0.27% (2020) of its revenue in community initiatives. Bathurst has invested 14.8% (2024), 12.1% (2023) and 9% (2022), 4.3 (2021), and 5.7% (2020) of its revenue in tax 14.8%, 12.1%, 9%, 4.27%, 5.7%
This data is company-wide; Bathurst refuses to provide West Coast-specific data.
[4] Between 2010 and 2014, Bathurst tried to mine the Denniston Plateau. Falling coal prices caused the mine to be canned and approximately 29 staff members already-hired immediately lost their jobs, and the promised recruitment of up to 100 staff was cancelled.
12 12 Australian Mining. 2014. Retrieved from Australian Mining Website.
[5] Newsroom: All of Govts 2024 Coal Earnings spent treating damages at a single mine.