EPA Seeks Clarity on Coal Mine Wildlife Plan as Forest and Bird Opposes Project

The Environmental Protection Authority has asked a mining company to explain how it plans to protect wildlife on New Zealand's Denniston Plateau, after finding significant gaps in its conservation strategy. Bathurst Resources, which holds a fast-tracked application to extract coal from the region in Buller, received the EPA's request for clarification on how it would safeguard the area's protected species—particularly lizards and insects found nowhere else on Earth.

Forest and Bird, the country's leading conservation organization, is now calling for the application to be rejected outright. The group's regional conservation manager, Scott Burnett, pointed to a stark mismatch between what Bathurst proposes and what conservation science recommends. The Department of Conservation's standard practice is to salvage more than 80 percent of lizards from a site before any development begins. Bathurst's plan, by contrast, expects to rescue fewer than one percent of the lizards present. "That's a massive scale difference," Burnett said, describing the shortfall as a fundamental failure in the company's approach.

The stakes extend beyond lizard populations. The avatar moth, which inhabits only the Denniston Plateau and was recently named New Zealand's bug of the year, has been documented at several locations that fall directly within the proposed mine footprint. Brian Patrick, the entomologist who first identified the species, has stated plainly that if mining proceeds, the moth will likely go extinct. For a species discovered so recently and found in such a confined area, the mine represents an existential threat.

Burnett acknowledged that the EPA's decision to request more information from Bathurst represents the regulatory process functioning as designed. "Outside of our overarching concerns around the failings of fast-track, this is an example of the process working as intended," he said. Yet he made clear that Forest and Bird's preference is for outright rejection of the application. He also called for robust conditions on any approval that would protect wildlife and prevent New Zealand taxpayers from bearing the cost of future environmental cleanup.

The local political picture tells a different story. Buller District Council mayor Chris Russell supports Bathurst's application and believes it should be approved. He acknowledged the need to properly assess ecological and water quality impacts, including risks from acid mine drainage and the company's long-term rehabilitation obligations. But he framed these concerns alongside what he sees as equally important: the economic and social consequences of rejecting the project. The mine would sustain at least 390 jobs, the vast majority held by people living in Westport and surrounding areas of Buller.

Burnett rejected the framing of the decision as a choice between jobs and nature. He characterized it instead as a failure of leadership—national and local alike—that leaves communities feeling their only option is to pursue short-term employment at the cost of environmental harm. "This occurring in 2026 in a climate and biodiversity crisis," he said, "where people feel like their best recourse is to double down on short term jobs that cause this environmental harm... [that] is a failure of national and local leadership."

Russell acknowledged that the final decision rests with the EPA. The authority now holds the power to shape what happens on the Denniston Plateau—whether to demand stronger protections from Bathurst, to impose conditions that might make the project unviable, or to approve it as proposed. The outcome will determine not only whether 390 jobs continue but whether a species found nowhere else survives.