The Department of Conservation has reversed course on its decision to reject a “business critical permit” made by the country’s largest gold mine owner.
Macraes gold mine in the central Otago region, owned by Canadian corporation OceanaGold, recently applied for a permit under the Wildlife Act to clear grass and vegetation to expand operations on its current site.
It was declined last month by DOC, which cited insufficient information about how the company would manage the relocation of lizards. Yesterday, 1News reported hundreds of workers were at risk of being laid off as a result.
Today, however, Ruth Isaac, deputy director-general policy and regulatory services said “there was a miscommunication” when the department asked for more information from OceanaGold about its lizard management plan.
“We weren’t clear enough about what we were looking for and moved to decline the application too quickly without clarifying with OGL,” she said.
“We acknowledge our process wasn’t as customer focused as it could have been and we will work closely with OGL to progress their application swiftly and pragmatically, alongside the other applications in our system.”
Isaac added that the Minister of Conservation Minister Tama Potaka, has been “very clear” with his expectation DOC clears its permissions backlog.
“We have seen the number of applications awaiting decisions drop from around 1300 to now under 550.”
