New Zealand's main coal exporter said yesterday it has lost millions of dollars in profits due to lengthy delays at one of its mines -- thanks to 5,300 rare giant land snails.
State-owned miner Solid Energy said that conservation rules mean it has been forced to mine at a snail's pace, costing the company about NZ$35 million (US$26 million) in the current financial year.
It blamed 19 months of delays in accessing high quality coking coal on the west coast of New Zealand's South Island on the conservation requirement that rare giant Powelliphanta Augustus snails in the area be found, collected and moved to a new habitat before mining could proceed.
Conservationists say the giant land snails in the area are a rare sub-species.
The cost figure includes NZ$25 million in lost profit this financial year because of delayed export coal shipments, and NZ$10 million in costs, chief executive Don Elder said.
It has cost the company more than NZ$6,000 for each of the 5,300 native land snails found and relocated so far, he said, adding that the company was now breaking contract commitments because of delays.
It would lose up to five export shipments, totaling 300,000 tonnes of coal, to China, India, Japan and South Africa before the end of June, he added.
Solid Energy had expected that it would take only a few months to clear the Stockton mining area of the snails. But many more snails had been found than the 500 to 1,000 that conservationists predicted, including some in areas where they had never been found before.
Save Happy Valley Coalition, the group spearheading the campaign to save the snails, said Solid Energy could have saved itself and the snails by mining elsewhere.
"Obviously if they had left that core habitat, or even a portion of that core habitat [undisturbed], they would have protected that species with a guarantee that it survives," spokeswoman Francis Mountier said.
"There's still no science that says this is going to be a successful relocation," she added.
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
A Hong Kong astronaut is to join a Chinese space mission for the first time as part of a three-person crew launching today, as Beijing edges closer to its goal of landing people on the moon. The Tiangong space station — crewed by teams of three astronauts that are typically rotated every six months — is the crown jewel of China’s space program, boosted by billions in state investment in a bid to catch up with the US and Russia. The Shenzhou-23 mission is to blast off at 11:08pm from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China, carrying three astronauts to
UPGRADED ALERT: The risk inside DR Congo is now considered ‘very high,’ while neighboring countries face a ‘high’ threat as the outbreak continues, the WHO said Ebola is spreading faster than responders can track it in eastern Congo, where health workers managed to follow up with barely one in five identified contacts in a single day. Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) reported 83 confirmed infections, 746 suspected cases and 1,603 identified contacts as of Thursday, but health workers were able to follow up on only 342 contacts that day — about 21 percent of the total under monitoring — data released by the DR Congo Ministry of Public Health on Friday showed. The figures suggest the response is falling behind the outbreak itself,
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
RSS