Upcoming Happy Valley Occupation! (New Zealand/Aotearoa)

From Sat­ur­day 28th of Jan­u­ary 2006 the Save Hap­py Val­ley Coali­tion will be indef­i­nite­ly occu­py­ing the site of Sol­id Ener­gy’s planned open cast coal mine in Hap­py Val­ley on the West Coast and we are invit­ing as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to join us.

Why? Because the mine will:

  • Destroy the habi­tat of a num­ber of endem­ic native species that are already threat­ened with extinc­tion includ­ing great spot­ted kiwi (roa) and the snail Pow­elliphan­ta “patrick­en­sis”.
  • Pol­lute local water­ways by acid mine drainage
  • Con­tribute up to 12 mil­lion tonnes of cli­mate chang­ing car­bon diox­ide to the atmos­phere when the coal is burnt for steel man­u­fac­ture
  • Dev­as­tate a beau­ti­ful pris­tine ecosys­tem that is too valu­able to lose.

Sol­id Ener­gy have recent­ly cleared the last remain­ing legal hur­dle and plan to start devel­op­ing the mine site in 2006. (The High Court ruled against For­est and Bird’s Hap­py Val­ley appeal on Wednes­day 21st Decem­ber). The only thing that will stop them is a con­tin­u­a­tion of our grass­roots cam­paign­ing, so we need as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to join us in Hap­py Val­ley, espe­cial­ly dur­ing the first week­end of the occu­pa­tion. Peo­ple com­ing lat­er in the weeks after the ini­tial week­end will also be much appre­ci­at­ed. You can stay for as short or as long an amount of time as you like! This is your chance to see why Hap­py Val­ley should be saved and con­tribute to a cre­ative envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign.

The route is marked, though there is no prop­er track. The walk takes less than half a day and you will be walk­ing with oth­ers who have a good knowl­edge of the area. You need to come as a self con­tained tramper/camper and be pre­pared for unpre­dictable weath­er.

Hap­py Val­ley is locat­ed in the Upper Waiman­garoa Val­ley, approx­i­mate­ly 25km north-east of West­port. We access it by tramp­ing from Cedar Creek Road, beyond Bur­netts Face (near Waiman­garoa). We will, how­ev­er, all be meet­ing up in or near West­port before­hand.

We will update with more details clos­er to the date, but in the mean­time if you want to know more about the occu­pa­tion, to learn more about the tramp­ing gear required, and to coor­di­nate with oth­ers head­ing over, get in con­tact with the Save Hap­py Val­ley Christchurch group. Their details are:

Save Hap­py Val­ley Christchurch
Phone: (03) 388 0978 (ask for Dan Rae or Fran­cie Moun­tier) or Fran­cie on 021 1757 484
Email: save­hap­py­val­ley (at) yahoo.com

Hope to see you there!
Save Hap­py Val­ley Coali­tion

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