Posts Tagged ‘Unlimited’

No evidence that mines damage tourism – All mines don’t stink alike

BigCake thinks some of the opponents of mining in national parks maybe getting ahead of themselves with fear mongering over what more mining will do for our clean and green image.

And because perception is so important in this argument, the opponents may just be stoking up a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Mining is clearly not a good thing for the environment, but the extent of damage needs to be weighed up against the positives (mainly more money for a country that is running short of it).

Ummm, I’m not sure that there is actually any more than that.

Anyway, it’s a balancing act and we need to be careful not to get carried away with the negative side of the ledger (and the positive), particularly till we see the detail of what is being proposed.

But there’s no immutable law that mining (and I’ll throw oil into this pot) is bad for tourism. Check out Waihi and the Martha Hill mine.

Also it doesn’t appear to have done the tourism industry of that dirty big miner Australia any harm.

The land of Broken Hill ranks above New Zealand in the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report (9th to our 20th). In the natural environment measure, which includes quality of the natural environment, number of species and extent of protected areas, Australia ranks 4th to our 27th.

What about the home of the Alaskan oil fields and Appalachian coal mines then? The US ranks 8th in the report. (1st in natural environment).

And that acid dumping ground Canada? 12th overall and 17th in natural environment.

And like New Zealand, most tourists are coming to see the natural wonders in these countries rather than museums, art galleries etc

Yeah, this is a bit simplistic, but the above numbers show we need to careful not to overstate the downside, for tourism at least, of mining in our national parks.

The same for the impact on our food and beverage exports.

BigCake thinks any go ahead to mine the parks needs be subjected to a pretty high hurdle because our clean and green image is very precious and fragile.

We don’t have a hell of a lot of advantages over the rest of the world so we need look after this one.

But that doesn’t mean just saying ‘no’.

And as I’ve mentioned before, the whole mining bandwagon has a whiff of a get rich quick scheme. As Unlimited magazine comments on an interview with the NZ Institute’s Rick Boven, we still need to focus on the resources above the ground to improve our economic performance.