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NZ Herald
2 days ago
- Politics
- NZ Herald
Waitangi Tribunal pushes pause on seabed mining claim off Pātea, Taranaki
The Crown argued a panel has not even been appointed – and that iwi will contribute to that selection and get a say once the decision-making panel is working. The Waitangi Tribunal grants urgent hearings in exceptional circumstances: applicants must be suffering – or likely to suffer – significant and irreversible prejudice from current or pending Crown actions. Judge Reeves: 'I do not agree that the risk of significant and irreversible prejudice has crystallised, and the application is premature. 'The application does not yet meet the high threshold required to divert the resources and disrupt the tribunal's inquiry programme that would result by granting an urgent inquiry,' she ruled. 'However, leave is reserved for the applicants to renew their application if circumstances change.' Claimants said they had already suffered prejudice from their decade-long fight against TTR's mining application, through to defeating the company in the Supreme Court. Mana whenua said Government bias made the fast-track process unjust. Judge Reeves said the claimants believed 'the Crown's vocal support of the [seabed mining] project and the FTAA appears to make meaningful engagement with the applicants or delay of the project to pursue alternative remedies 'highly unlikely''. On Friday in New Plymouth Shane Jones – the Minister of Oceans and Fisheries, and of Resources – called opponents a 'belligerent, well-organised, rowdy bunch of activists'. He had previously dismissed mana whenua objectors as 'pixie-like hapūs' – which many felt was an insult that still rankles in South Taranaki. Taranaki mana whenua claimants to the tribunal are Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Ruanui and associated Ruanui hapū, hapū of Ngāruahine iwi, Te Korowai o Ngāruahine and Parihaka Papakainga Trust. Other parties include Climate Justice Taranaki, Ngāruahine's school Te Kura o Ngāruahinerangi and, from outside the region, Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Porou ki Hauraki, which also faces an FTAA application. For the fast-track bid to be rejected, the mine's negative impacts must significantly outweigh national and regional benefits – meaning environmental and cultural damage must be deemed greater than the money the mine makes for Taranaki and New Zealand. Last Thursday, the organisers of the fast-track decision process ordered TTR to show where it had updated its evidence since losing in the courts. 'Almost all of the technical appendices are dated 2015 and were obviously prepared to support the 2016 application. Only a handful of those reports were updated in 2023 or 2024,' panel convener Jennifer Caldwell noted. 'The Cultural Values Assessment report, prepared by an independent consultant in 2017, was not updated despite what must have been new information as to the Māori concerns.' A month earlier, panel conveners ordered the Environmental Protection Authority to dig into the proposed seabed mine's environmental and economic impacts. Every day of operation for at least 20 years, the mining ship would discharge 180,000 tonnes of unwanted seabed sediment, a recognised pollutant, into the abundant waters of the Pātea Shoals. TTR claims regional benefits of: 305 jobs directly with the miner. 1125 Taranaki-based jobs indirectly. $250 million annual Taranaki operational spend. Port upgrades at New Plymouth and Whanganui. A TTR charitable grants trust. A report for the miners predicted annual national gains of $55 million in royalties, $136m in corporate tax and $855m in foreign exchange earnings. LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
Scoop
08-07-2025
- General
- Scoop
Wanganui-Manawatu Sea Fishing Club Leader Raises Alarm Over Seabed Mining Project
The commodore of the Wanganui-Manawatu Sea Fishing Club is raising the alarm over a seabed mining project he never believed would happen. "With it being turned down by the Supreme Court and there being a court-ordered environmental hearing, I never, ever thought it would get to this point," Jamie Newell told Local Democracy Reporting. The Whanganui diver, fisherman and business owner said large areas of one of New Zealand's most important fisheries could be wiped out by an Australian miner's desire to mine minerals off the South Taranaki coast. Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) wants to extract up to 50 million tonnes a year of seabed material a year. It would recover an estimated 5 million tonnes of vanadium-rich titanomagnetite concentrate and then dump unwanted sediment back into the sea. TTR withdrew from an environmental hearing to apply for marine consents via the coalition government's new fast-track approvals regime. Newell, who manages family-run fishing and outdoors business Marine Services Whanganui, said low reefs in the South Taranaki Bight would be smothered by the dumping of 45 million tonnes a year of "dredge tailings" for 20 years. Recreational fishers and local businesses could be left reeling for decades, he said. "That's extremely concerning. I'm extremely worried for what that sediment would do to our marine environment and how dramatically it could change recreational fishing off there." Newell said he feared the impact of silt pollution on precious reef life. "I was brought up diving the coastline and my father dived it as well. I've done a lot of exploratory diving out to 45m. I've seen personally how clear it is out there - and I'm worried. "We have some very diverse ecosystems off this coastline - some of the most scenic you could ever hope to see. The reef life is some of the best in the world. "It's a very unreal place, one of the only places we have like this in the whole of the North Island. "You can be out there with 60 to 100 kingis swimming around you, being inquisitive. No movie could ever replicate that." Over the past six or seven years, Newell has mapped many of the reefs he's dived using new marine electronics. "The detail we can see now is far beyond what we've been able to see before. You can know every rock and gully and face on those reefs." Pumping 90% of the extracted materials back into the ocean would result in a huge volume of displaced sediment, he said. "Niwa and TTR have done research around and inland of that area, but I've yet to see any research on the reefs downcurrent of there - the ones that will be affected. "Most of the tailings will follow the east to west currents and flow back to Whanganui. "TTR knows there will be problems in those areas, so they've left that research undone." TTR proposes mining from waters 20m to 50m deep, between 22km and 36km offshore. While inner reefs were quite tall, with faces 5m to 15m high, and would not be as affected by the dredging, some deeper reefs were low and flat, lying only about a metre and a half high. "It won't take much at all to cover them." Ocean contours dropped off into a hole about 30-40m lower than the dredging zone, he said. "That's one of our main reef structure areas. The silt's going to settle on that area between the mining zone and the back of Graham Bank, and it will hit all the reefs there." Newell said from a depth of around 30m, wave action did not disturb the seabed. "Pumping silt back onto it will silt up reefs that don't naturally get silt on them." Niwa had reported that tailings dumped into water 35-70m deep would move up to 20km from the mining site and Newell feared the sediment would cover a swathe of low-lying reef structure. "Reef life will lose its habitat. The tailings are going to wipe out a large part of our reef fisheries, the likes of our blue cod, terakihi and hāpuka. It's where 90 percent of our terakihi get caught. "Our numbers of snapper and crayfish and kingis are recovering and growing faster than ever. We have an exceptional recreational crayfishery here. What's this going to do to them?" Newell has been with the sea fishing club in Whanganui for more than 10 years. "At no point has TTR engaged with us. We have more than 250 members, all fishing in that area. We would be the largest recreational user of the fishing grounds east of the seabed mining zone. "They've never talked to us. As part of a consent process, I would have thought that would have been part of what you'd need to do." Newell said smothering reef fisheries would affect his and other businesses. "If people can't go out to catch a feed of fish as easily, they're going to stop trying. We'll lose customers if the habitats are no longer there, and there will be flow-on effects for other businesses. "We've been a family business for 34 years. We employ 22 staff - that's 22 families that rely on our business." Newell has raised his concerns with Whanganui MP Carl Bates. He called a fishing club meeting on Thursday to discuss the issue and spoke with Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop during the Minister's visit to Whanganui on Friday. Bishop is one of the ministers overseeing the Fast-track Approvals regime.
Medscape
02-07-2025
- Health
- Medscape
Fast Five Quiz: Transthyretin Amyloid Cardiomyopathy Management
Transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM) is a type of systemic amyloidosis that causes restrictive cardiomyopathy and can affect the peripheral and autonomic nervous systems. After diagnosis, patients should be referred to consultation with cardiologists as well as other specialists to develop a treatment plan based on their symptoms. Because this condition can affect several different organ systems, disease management requires a multidisciplinary approach. Are you up to date on your understanding of ATTR-CM management ? Test your knowledge with this quick quiz. ATTRwt, the more common type of ATTR-CM, usually occurs as a function of age, whereas hATTR usually occurs as a result of TTR mutations. Several siRNA agents and ASOs are available to treat polyneuropathy associated with either type. Liver transplantation, which removes mutant TTR from the blood, has been used to treat hATTR, but the development of newer medications has reduced the need for transplant. Patients with ATTR-CM should be treated with interventions that address all their symptoms, including heart failure, arrhythmias, conduction system disorders, and extracardiac manifestations. Learn more about treatment considerations for hATTR and ATTR-CM. Volume management is an essential element of cardiac amyloidosis treatment, especially if heart failure symptoms are present. In patients with ATTR-CM and heart failure symptoms, loop diuretics are used to maintain euvolemia. Because diuretics can reduce preload, blood pressure should be carefully monitored to prevent adverse effects on renal perfusion and cardiac output. Renin-angiotensin system inhibitors can exert vasodilative effects and have been shown to cause hypertension in this setting. Beta-adrenoceptor blockers have been shown to exert negative chronotropic effects and can worsen symptoms of heart failure Cardiac glycosides, such as digoxin, are usually not recommended in patients with ATTR-CM. Learn more about treating cardiac involvement in ATTR-CM. Transthyretin stabilizers, including tafamidis, vutrisiran, and acoramidis, are approved to treat cardiomyopathy in both hATTR and ATTR-CM in adults. They work to reduce cardiovascular mortality and cardiovascular-related hospitalization. However, they have not been shown to reverse existing damage. Clinical trials have demonstrated that this medication class significantly reduced all-cause mortality and lowered hospitalization rates in addition to slowing disease progression. This medication class was also generally well tolerated in most patients with minor side effects, including urinary tract infection. Clinical data also showed that starting this medication class earlier in the disease course might provide improved long-term outcomes. Learn more about transthyretin stabilizers for ATTR-CM. OH is defined as a reduction of ≥ 20 mm Hg in systolic blood pressure or 10 mm Hg in diastolic blood pressure within 3 minutes of standing or upright tilt; further, it is a common complication of ATTR-CM. Nonpharmacologic management of OH can include compression stockings (which can produce ≥ 15-20 mm Hg of pressure) and elastic abdominal binders. Reduced fluid intake has been shown to worsen OH but specifics regarding intake amount in the setting of ATTR-CM can be individualized according to the patient. Though magnesium supplementation has been shown to help manage blood pressure in certain cases, there is limited evidence regarding its role in the treatment of OH associated with ATTR-CM. Evidence regarding vitamin D supplementation in this setting is also limited. Learn more about managing different conditions associated with ATTR-CM. siRNAs and ASOs, considered to be TTR ' silencers,'work in similar ways to 'knock down' the production of TTR in the liver. Their mechanism of action involves targeting TTR mRNA for degradation. This prevents it from being translated, reducing the amount of TTR protein in circulation and disables retinol (vitamin A) transport. TTR stabilizers bind thyroxine 4 into one of two transthoracic echocardiography interdimeric binding pockets. This prevents dissociation into amyloidogenic TTR monomers and oligomers, thereby increasing the stability of the tetramer. Learn more about how different medications treat ATTR-CM. Editor's Note: This article was created using several editorial tools, including generative AI models, as part of the process. Human review and editing of this content were performed prior to publication.
Scoop
26-06-2025
- General
- Scoop
Climate Justice Taranaki Joins Urgent Waitangi Tribunal Hearing On Seabed Mining
The community group Climate Justice Taranaki is joining hapū and iwi from across the motu as an interested party to Waitangi Tribunal urgent hearing regarding the proposed seabed mining of the Taranaki coast by Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR) under the Fast-Track legislation. 'TTR does not have a social licence to operate in Taranaki. All of Taranaki is opposed to seabed mining. Every iwi and hapū have resisted it, community groups have taken a stand against this project for years, the South Taranaki District Council and Whanganui District Council have come out against it, and this week, the New Plymouth District Council has confirmed its opposition to seabed mining.' 'While the Fast-Track application is in motion, we are more determined than ever to stop this project from ever going ahead and are calling for large-scale civil action against seabed mining if this ever gets approved.' 'In our letter to the Waitangi Tribunal, we noted that Taranaki is home to important taonga species. The South Taranaki Bight is an important hotspot for marine mammal diversity within Aotearoa, including as a feeding and breeding location. There are a number of nationally vulnerable and nationally threatened and endangered species that reside within the moana, including a local population of Pygmy Blue Whales which are located within the South Taranaki Bight year-round.' 'Surveys by NIWA in South Taranaki Bight also reported new species of bryozoans, sponges, annelids, and algae, as well as new records for many groups for the region. A subsequent 2021 NIWA survey of Pātea Bank reefs, found that a deeper reef held high densities of juvenile blue cod, consistent with it providing important nursery habitat. Several other smaller nursery habitat areas were discovered on the edges of some reefs.' 'Considering the fast-changing ocean conditions, notably extended marine heatwaves and changing ocean chemistry undermining ocean food webs, the plight of Aotearoa's threatened and endangered marine species is dire, even without additional manmade impacts from seabed mining.'
NZ Herald
24-06-2025
- Business
- NZ Herald
Taranaki Regional Council to clarify seabed mine stance
Taranaki Regional Council is going public against accusations it has sold out to would-be seabed miners Trans-Tasman Resources. The Australian company has a permit to mine the seabed off Pātea for an initial 20 years, seeking to extract iron, titanium and vanadium. But Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR) cannot begin mining until
