Instead, Coal Action Murihiku will be focusing on organising a networking event in Southland early in 2022, and developing further ideas at that.

Many thanks to everyone who put time and effort into Summerfest 2022 – watch out for more news on CANA local and regional events in 2022!

The post CANA Summerfest Postponed appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Kia Ora Koutou

Welcome to the Coal Action Network Aotearoa’s first newsletter for 2013!

As you are all very much aware, Solid Energy has gone into freefall.  Not only has CEO Don Elder resigned, but the company is now reporting a $389m debt.
But there’s a lot more going on with coal around the country, not least a new proposal by Fonterra to open a mine in the upper North Island at Mangatawhiri.

What’s in this newsletter? 

1.  Upcoming events
2.  Solid Energy’s lost CEO – and its massive debt
3.  Fonterra’s new coal mine
4.  Denniston ruling imminent
5. The Wise Response Appeal on climate change
6.  Keep the Coal in the Hole Summer Festival
7.  What about our drought? Has it got anything to do with climate change?
8 The world hasn’t warmed?
9  International
– Australia’s “Angry Summer”
– Renewable Energy setting records everywhere
– China’s carbon tax

1. Upcoming events:

There don’t appear to be too many events listed here: if you have any coming up for the next newsletter please let us know at coalactionnetwork@gmail.com.

7 March: Meeting at Mangatawhiri for locals who want to oppose Fonterra’s proposed coal mine there (see story below). Speaker on health effects of coal mining, Jim Salinger on effects of climate change on farming; how to make a submission opposing the new coal mine. Organised by local people with support from Auckland Coal Action.

7 March: Wellington “Keep the Coal in the Hole” group meeting, 6pm, CBD Meeting Room 2, ground floor (near stairs), Wellington Central Library. All welcome.

8 March:  Dunedin launch of a new appeal called Wise Response, an initiative calling for Government to investigate the real threats to our way of life and economy.   1.15pm, Otago Museum Reserve, Dunedin/Hutton Theatre opposite if wet.  Public meeting in the evening at 7.30 pm, Castle One Lecture Theatre, Otago University.

2.  Solid Energy’s massive debt

So much has happened since the last newsletter, including the resignation of CEO Don Elder and the news last week that the company is $389 million in the red.

But it was only when board chair Mark Ford was asked on Radio New Zealand about the lignite projects that we discovered he didn’t see the Mataura lignite projects as a “core activity” for the company.

We have been cheering – it does seem, for now, that lignite is dead.  These 3.1 billion tonnes of coal under fertile Southland farmland that Solid Energy has permits for, we hope, will stay in the hole.  (There’s 6.8 billion tonnes in total).

But the future of the briquetting plant is still unclear. There are questions to be answered.  Will GTL, Solid’s partner in briquetting, take it further?  If so, how?  It has to be commissioned first!

What we do know is that the company lost an awful lot of money betting on a coal price that was far too high, and in hopeless coal projects such as the Mataura lignite project, the Huntly Coal Seam Gas project, Spring Creek and Huntly East.  Together, these projects totalled a whopping $116million of write down, whereas the renewable energy projects racked up just $36million in write down.

The spin has been quite something: from Westport Mayor Tony Kokshorn, to Bill English to Campbell Live, they’ve all blamed Solid’s renewables investments.

Solid Energy’s renewable investments were made under the Labour government that placed a biofuel obligation on all motor fuel sales. This was then replaced by National’s subsidy, which National then cancelled.

The 2008 ETS would have made coal and gas more expensive (as it is supposed to), but the Government watered it down.   There would also have been a better market for wood pellets. The company also made the mistake of going for the export market for the pellets, failing to recognise there was a good market here in New Zealand.

We also know that Solid Energy never gave a business plan to Treasury (who didn’t ask for it).

There’s a lot more to say about Solid Energy, and Rosemary has said it very well over on our blog, posted yesterday.

Indeed, sign up to be alerted whenever we post a new blog (this is especially important for those of you who are not on facebook).  It won’t be like spam, as we don’t post too many of them.

3.  Fonterra’s new coalmine at Mangatawhiri 

“Would you like to taste some of Fonterra’s fine products? Here you are – it comes with coal!”

This was the opening line from milkmaids stationed outside Fonterra’s HQ yesterday, offering various dairy products to passers by – dairy products that come with a lump of coal.

Full download of the action, with photos, here at Auckland Coal Action’s website.

Glencoal, wholly owned by Fonterra, has applied for consents for an open cast mine on farmland at Mangatawhiri on SH2.  Planned to produce 120,000 tonnes a year, it would take over from the Kopako 3 mine that currently supplies the dairy factories at Waitoa, Hautapu and Te Awamutu.

With the Kopako coal running out in 2014, it’s a good time to start the phase out of coal in favour of the locally-available waste wood.

A public meeting will be held at Mangatawhiri tomorrow (Thursday).

See Auckland Coal Action’s site for details on submissions and how to make one. Deadline: 28 March.

4.  Legal update:   Denniston  and the Supreme Court. 

The Environment Court’s ruling on Bathurst’s Denniston mine is expected any day now.  Keep an eye on the blog, facebook pages and network emails.

For those of you in Wellington,  Tuesday and if needed Wednesday (12 and 13 March) will see the Supreme Court hearing appeal against the High Court decision that the law prohibits anybody from arguing climate change under the RMA in consent hearings.  This is the tiny West Coast Environment Network up against the might of Bathurst and (well, perhaps a lesser might today) Solid Energy.  The court is in Lambton Quay up near Parliament and starts at 10 am on Monday.

5.  The Wise Response Appeal on climate change
 
A new appeal is being launched this week, calling on the NZ Parliament to act on climate change.  Wise Response is supported by 100 celebrated New Zealanders.  It underlines and stresses the urgency of the issue, the need for economic and energy security, and business continuity.

“The issue: The links between global climate change, fossil fuel extraction and combustion, and a stable economy are deeply concerning.  Climate change (including extreme weather ‘bombs’) and other resource constraints threaten our ability to meet our environmental and social obligations for the next generation.

Today, most scientists believe critical “thresholds” are upon us, that the consequences are likely to be disastrous and irreversible if we do not make urgent fundamental changes. So far, successive NZ governments have failed to truly face up to such unprecedented threats to our collective security. We therefore call on the NZ  Parliament to dispassionately assess the risks in five priority areas and from those recommendations, design cross-party policies to avert any threats confirmed.”

If you’re in Dunedin on Friday head down to the launch at 1.15, or go to the public meeting at 7.30 pm at Otago University’s Castle One lecture theatre.

6.  Keep the Coal in the Hole Summer Festival 

A great team gathered in Southland at the end of January to take part in this year’s summer festival.  This time it was hosted by Coal Action Murihiku, so it’s only fitting that they report back – See this link to their latest newsletter.  For those of us not from the region, we were impressed with the strength of local support gathered by CAM since last year’s festival. Here’s our Press Release from the meeting’s open day on the Sunday. And here is Gareth Renowden’s very useful briefing on the latest in climate science.

7.  What about our drought? Has it got anything to do with climate change? 

What we’re seeing now we can expect to be the “new normal” toward the end of this century, scientists say.  But unfortunately the New Zealand media doesn’t appear to be linking the record drought to this issue, except for a piece by climate denier Chris de Freitas in the NZ Herald last week. Climate scientist Jim Salinger commented on the drought last week in The Herald. 

“Climate scientist Jim Salinger said conditions were following the same pattern as four years ago.

“It’s all over the North Island, apart from Horowhenua to Wellington, which is exactly as it was in 2007-08. 
 He said the North Island could expect hot, dry summers like this to become the norm because of climate change.”

8 The world hasn’t warmed? 

Some of you may have been reading the increasing bleating by climate deniers that the world hasn’t warmed in [16,18,23] years.  This is not borne out by the facts, as explained by this article. You may find it useful when being confronted by this so-called “fact”.  Also, just recently posted in US magazine Mother Jones, is a very helpful guide on how to talk with a sceptic.

9  International 

Angry summer: Australia’s hottest summer on record

Australia’s Bureau of meteorology has now confirmed that they have just suffered the hottest summer on record.  This brought a terrible combination of both heatwaves and floods.  The Bureau’s climate scientists Blair Trwein Karl Braganza explained the links with climate change in this great piece on The Conversation. Some excerpts:

 “the most significant thing about all of these extremes is they fit with a well established trend in Australia — it’s getting hotter, and record heat is happening more often.

“Six of Australia’s ten hottest summers on record have come in the last 11 years, meaning that very hot summers have been occurring at about five times the rate you would expect without a warming trend.”

And

“By the end of the 21st century, the record summer of 2013 will likely sit at the very cooler end of normal.”

The Australian Climate Commission has released its report, “Angry Summer” that sets out the record heat – and rain – in the country.

And while we’re on climate, this story in The Guardian was important in the ongoing battle to reveal the funding behind the climate denial industry. We have our own set of climate deniers here in NZ and they are well-linked to this international network.  Here’s a little map of our lot.

Renewable Energy setting records everywhere 

In January, every single megawatt of new generating capacity added to the US grid was renewable.
Germany set a record in solar installations in 2012.
In Spain, 25% of electricity in January came from wind.

China announces it’ll set up a carbon tax; coal exports to drop

China has indicated that it will include a price on carbon in a new round of environmental taxes to tackle pollution.  And on the back of that, Deutsche Bank is predicting an 18% drop in global exports of thermal coal.

The post Newsletter Feb/March 2013 appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

So it seems appropriate to highlight a couple of reports of the Festival from Southland sources:

Dave Kennedy of CAM reports on the Friday and Sunday of the Festival in his report on the Festival, Shaping Southland’s Future Without Lignite.

Coal Action Murihiku’s February newsletter is entirely given over to reports, thoughts and photos on the Festival. As Bell Murphy says in her Festival report:

The fact that this year’s event was primarily organised by Coal Action Murihiku (CAM) was really exciting. It’s a tribute to the staunch, creative, loving and ingenious folk in Southland.

You can find all the CAM newsletters on the CANA website.

The Summerfest packdown crew still had time to remember the purpose of the Festival!

The post Summerfest 2013: The View From Southland appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Rob McCreath from Friends of Felton at the Coal Action Summerfest gathering on Saturday.

The idea of digging up fertile farmland for lignite coal was “100% stupidity,” an Australian farmer told a Southland meeting today.

Rob McCreath was addressing the “Keep the Coal in the Hole” summer festival in Gore. The Queenslander told the 150-strong gathering how his community group, Friends of Felton, stopped a large coalmine and petrochemical plant from going ahead on prime agricultural farmland on the Darling Downs.

He has been in Dunedin and Southland for the last few days and was struck by the beauty of the farmland in the area.

“It’s hard to imagine a more productive farming area as I’ve seen in Southland. In Australia we are peppered with New Zealand’s 100% Pure adverts. It’s disgraceful that you have a government-owned company and they’re allowing it to dig up this beautiful farmland. That’s 100% stupidity,” said McCreath.

Five years ago, coal company Ambre Energy was set on digging a 2000ha opencast mine that would produce 8 million tonnes of coal a year from the Felton Valley and building a petrochemical (coal to liquids) plant there.

Friends of Felton occupied the state premier’s office, marched to parliament, erected giant billboards along roadsides, and established a local food festival as part of their successful five-year battle against the coal miners.

Just last week Ambre Energy admitted it would no longer be pursuing its mining plans in the Felton valley.

This year’s Keep the Coal in the Hole festival was organised by the Southland Coal Action Murihiku group, and had a more local focus, with many people from the local area coming to the three-day gathering.

“We face the very same threat here with the Southland lignite proposals still in Solid Energy’s sights,” said Tim Jones of Coal Action Network Aotearoa. “We can learn from our Aussie neighbours how to work together to safeguard our food producing farmland.”

The meeting also heard the latest on climate change from science writer Gareth Renowden, who told the members of the audience that anybody under 36 years old had not experienced a year below global average temperatures. The real impacts of climate change were yet to come.

“We’re hitting the climate bell with a very big hammer and it hasn’t really begun to ring yet.”

He warned that, in a climate-changed future, coal could be deemed a liability in the future, rather than the “asset” it is seen as today.

This year’s festival has been celebrating the success of the coal action movement over the last year, where a number of new groups have sprung up around the country, with a big boost in membership.

The post Southland lignite proposals “100% stupidity” Aussie farmer tells meeting appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

When activists gathered a year ago near Mataura in Southland for the first “Keep the Coal in the Hole” Summer Festival, New Zealand was facing what looked like a massive, four-part, assault on the climate by Solid Energy.

The basis of that assault was Solid’s plans to exploit vast quantities of lignite, a low-grade brown coal that lies beneath prime Southland farmland – plans that, if carried out, would emit billions of tonnes of additional greenhouse gas emissions.

Solid was building its experimental pilot lignite briquetting plant, with a view to a full-scale briquetting plant being built later on.  A lignite-to-urea plant in partnership with fertiliser company Ravensdown was to follow, and then the biggest project of all, a plant to make synthetic diesel from lignite. The New Vale mine would be expanded and another larger mine dug to fuel all these projects.

Solid Energy claimed that 2300 jobs would come to Southland as a result of all these projects. However, as the 2013’s Summer Festival approaches this weekend in Gore, the gathering faces quite a different situation.

The pilot briquetting plant has been built but the confident statements by Solid Energy in April that it would be open “middle of this year” and July’s predictions of “Production this month” have come to nothing.

“The plant is there, but we’re not sure what it’s doing.  We know that several people have walked away from one of the six local jobs it has created so far, citing safety fears, and there’s no official opening in sight,” said co-organiser of this week’s festival, Jenny Campbell, of the local Coal Action Murihiku group.

Also on the back burner are plans for the lignite-to-fertiliser project after Ravensdown walked away from the partnership. And expansion of the mine has stalled due to local consent difficulties.

“One year on, Solid Energy is in a financial hole.  There have been massive redundancies across the country, from Solid’s HQ in Christchurch to Spring Creek and Huntly.  Solid appears to be staking its future on lignite, but the situation in Mataura is far from the rosy picture the company paints,” Mrs Campbell said.

The national group opposed to new and expanded coal mines, Coal Action Network Aotearoa, called on the new Solid Energy Board Chair, Mark Ford, to sack CEO Don Elder.

“Don is paid more than $1 million per year, but he has done nothing to earn it,” said spokesperson Tim Jones.  “He has entirely mismanaged this company and should step aside.”

“The last time exploiting Southland lignite was considered was during Think Big. Economics put paid to that idea.   The price of coal has put paid to Spring Creek and Solid’s other coalmining efforts.  Is lignite really economic, or is it just Don’s personal fantasy?” Mr Jones asked.

Solid Energy is now so far from the Asset Sales process it’s laughable.

Meanwhile, an economic report commissioned by WWF-NZ and produced by BERL shows that Southland has enormous potential to develop a low carbon economy, if more investments were made into forestry, horticulture, manufacturing and engineering, and education and training sectors.  Investment in, for example, wood and forest products could produce 1800 jobs and boost the economy by $190 billion over the next 15 years.

This year’s Summer Festival will be held in Gore, with an open day for the public at the James Cumming Wing, Ardwick St,  Gore, from 10 a.m. on Sunday.  Gore Mayor Tracy Hicks will open the event. Keynote speaker, a farmer defending land and the environment, Rob McCreath from Friends of Felton Australia will talk of how his group’s “Lock the Gate” campaign helped to stop a mining project and petrochemical plant in their beautiful Queensland valley.

The full programme for Sunday is here

The post One year on: Solid’s coal remains mostly in the hole appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

As an incentive, check out this downloadable version of the programme for the Festival’s Community Day on Sunday 20 January:

summerfest_sunday_programme

The post Summer Festival Registration Deadline Extended appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Rob McCreath, our main guest speaker at the 2013 Keep the Coal in the Hole Summer Festival, has kindly agreed to speak in Dunedin on his way south – Wed 16 January 7pm at English Language Matters, Level 2 Evan Parry House, 43 Princes St. 

We’re looking forward to hearing how Rob and Friends of Felton stopped the coal mine and chemical plant in their area. And we’re hoping we can apply what he has learned to our own situation – how best to continue supporting our Southland neighbours, as well as protecting our own coastline and Otago region from more mining.

Tea, coffee and nibbles available. Hope you can make it. Here’s the Facebook invite: http://www.facebook.com/events/445175345537470/

The post Our Land, Our Water, Our Future – Worth Fighting For appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Find out all about the Festival here: http://nocoalsummerfest.org.nz/

Register here (see the yellow Registration button near the bottom of the page): http://nocoalsummerfest.org.nz/information

Find out what we did at the last festival – and the tremendous progress that’s resulted from decisions made and steps taken at the Festival – in this summary which looks at what happened at the Festival and what the situation is one year on: Summerfest_2012_notes_and_progress

Check out the amazing poster for this year’s Summer Festival …

… and take a look at this group photo from the 2012 Festival:

The post Summerfest 2013 – And What We’ve Achieved Since Summerfest 2012 appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Are the lignite projects dead, or just dormant? Why have so many directors left the Solid Energy Board? Who are the keynote speakers at Summerfest? And what went on at the Doha climate talks, where our intrepid Cindy had the real inside story?

This is the last newsletter for the year, compiled by Jeanette, and combines November and December, with the next one planned for after Summerfest, around the start of February. Tim is taking a well-earned break from the newsletter edit while he catches up with other work.

Contents

1. Summerfest
2. Rob McCreath in Dunedin
3. What’s up internationally?
4. What up with Solid Energy?
5. What’s up with Bathurst?
6. In brief….
PCE on fracking
Powershift

1.  Summerfest returns: book now! 

Of course, the best way to update during this period is to come to Summerfest! Registrations are now open.

The link to the registration form is at the bottom of the registration page:
The programme is here.
The festival will be held in Gore, Southland, 18-21 January 2013. This year it’s called “Shaping our Future: we have options”

Key overseas guest will be Rob McCreath, chair of Friends of Felton, who this year succeeded in stopping a giant open cast coal mine and associated Di-Methyl-Ether chemical plant in the headwaters of the Murray-Darling river system, on good quality agricultural land. Come and hear how they did it!

Other great speakers include science writer Gareth Renowden on what has happened to the climate over the last year; ECO’s Cath Wallace on landowners’ rights; Peter Hardstaff from WWF on the BERL report they commissioned into alternative economic development paths for Southland, without the lignite. Workshops, great food, music, networking, strategising and action- based campaigning.

2. Rob McCreath in Dunedin

Dunedin folk are pleased to announce that Rob McCreath, founding president of Friends of Felton will be speaking in Dunedin on his way to Gore – Wednesday 16 January, 7pm at English Language Matters, Level 2, Evan Parry House, 43 Princes St (just south of the Octagon).

3.  International update

Update from Cindy:

I’ve just returned from Doha, from the last round of climate talks.  We didn’t expect to get much this year, and this was confirmed at the end of a long and difficult two weeks.   I was blogging for Hot-Topic – some links below.

The NZ Government proved to be at its most embarrassing yet – and won the dubious “colossal fossil” award for the first time – shared with Canada. My blog on it here.  Our Government backed away from Kyoto’s second commitment period, and tried (but failed) to get new rules that would allow us to trade emissions under the new regime.  Instead, we are now locked out of Kyoto’s trading rules after the end of 2015 and the future of our (already very weak) ETS is in doubt.  Let’s see what happens, but it means that we might actually have to start cutting emissions one day.

The talks also
·      severely curtailed the use of “hot air” in Kyoto’s second phase.
·      Agreed to only “continue talking” about climate finance, where developed countries have promised, by 2020, to provide $100 billion a year for developing countries to adapt to climate change and shift to renewable energy. This was a massive disappointment to the developing world, who have been waiting since these promises were made in 2009.
·      Agreed to keep discussions of “loss and damage” on the table – this was a major win for the developing world. Kit Vaughan at WWF explains.

Meanwhile scientists warned that we still have the ability to keep global warming below two degrees C, but that this window is closing. Waiting until 2020 for this new global agreement that our Minister Tim Groser seems to be trying to stake his reputation on would mean we have few choices left as a society.

4.  Solid Energy update

There is still no sign of the opening of the Mataura briquetting plant – still the same “hoping by the end of the year” statements. There is still no fertiliser partner for the urea plant which remains at the stage of a “feasibility study” (read: papers on a desktop). They are selling some of the 4,000 ha of farmland they purchased over recent years for lignite mining. There is still no prospect of any capital for their Think Big projects as the company is in no state to be privatised.

The chair of the Board, John Palmer, has been replaced by Mark Ford, and three directors have left the Board, before the end of their terms. Neville Snedden, a mining engineer from Australia, is the only replacement so far. Rumour has it that those to go were proponents of the lignite projects and that the shareholding ministers who appoint them may not be hugely supportive of these flights of fancy.

However Solid Energy has, finally and rather late, produced their Annual Report – too late for it to be reviewed this year by Parliament’s select committee, which will now have them in for questioning in February. Read it here.

It contains no major news we didn’t know about, but an interesting view of their priorities: all their 2012 targets for underground coal gasification, a dirty and poorly proven technology, were met, but none of their targets for their wood pellet operation, which they are closing down. So much for their commitment to sustainability.

The report also confirms that they have not achieved their 2012 targets for lignite-to-fertiliser, nor to liquid fuels; and that they have shifted their Coal Seam Gas project from Huntly to Taranaki where there is a much larger deep coal resource, but can’t progress this until they can access more capital. Shows how vital it is to stop the sale of the company – though their current financial woes are helping a lot with that.

It seems employment relations are at an all-time low, with the massive layoffs at Spring Creek and Huntly, and now the Westport News reporting workers have been told if they don’t accept the new work shifts then shortly they will have no choice.

Not likely to help Solid Energy achieve their objective to “continually attract, retain and develop highly competent, motivated and committed staff who ….see us as an exceptional employer.” (Annual Report p20)

5.  Bathurst at Denniston

Bathurst’s plan to open cast mine the stunning ecology of the Denniston plateau is still on hold pending two legal cases. The Environment Court appeal against the resource consent is virtually finished, though there probably won’t be a decision till the New Year.

Quentin Davies, barrister for West Coast Environment Network, succeeded in casting major doubt on the claims of financial benefit, drawing on economics work by Peter Clough of NZIER. The original consent was based largely on the huge financial benefit trumping the ecological disaster; now it turns out a lot of the “benefit” would not go to the Coast at all, but to Bathurst’s overseas shareholders.

Forest & Bird brought a strong case on the ecological values of the plateau that would be destroyed to gain this disputed economic “benefit”. We wait with interest to see how the court will deal with this.

The legal dispute over whether climate change is a valid consideration under the RMA continues. West Coast ENT has gained consent to take the case straight to the Supreme Court, by-passing the Court of Appeal, because of the public importance of the issue. That is likely to occur in March.

Then finally there will be consent for Bathurst to access the mine over conservation land from the Minister of Conservation, acting for the first time jointly with the Minister of Energy and Resources. This is based on the new criteria of the Crown Minerals Amendment Act that, if passed in its current form, will apply retrospectively to applications already under consideration. The Denniston clause, as it is being called.

6.  In brief…

The PCE on Fracking

Where fracking is for oil and gas it is not strictly part of CANA’s field of work, but where it is to obtain gas from underground coal we do take an interest as it opens up yet more fossil fuels to add their carbon to the atmosphere. Many people were disappointed the report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment did not support a ban on the technology, but the strict safety conditions she recommended would be enough to stop it in its tracks for some time if they were adhered to. This is not the right industry to be self-regulating!

Powershift

Some 700 young people, mostly 16-30, gathered at Auckland University to get active on climate change. It was organised jointly by Generation Zero and 350.org and the logistics and organisation were a real credit to those involved.

It’s impossible to give more than one person’s experience as there were many simultaneous workshops and panels and hard choices to make every day. But the buzz of enthusiasm and determination were palpable. CANA and Auckland Coal Action joined forces to run an information stall at lunchtime in the quad each day and we think the message about stopping new coal mines was well received.

Campaign Resources

You can find lots of campaign resources in one place on the Resources page of our blog

How to donate to CANA

We rely on your generous donations to keep the campaign going. Here are the account details if you want to donate:

Coal Action Network
Kiwibank
38 9011 0484435 00

The post Coal Action Network Aotearoa Newsletter November/December 2012 appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

And now CAM, with assistance from CANA, has organised the 2013 Summerfest, with the overall theme “Shaping Our Future – We Have Options!”. See the website:

http://nocoalsummerfest.org.nz/

The 2012 Summerfest was held on Mike Dumbar’s farm near Mataura. The 2013 Summerfest will be held from Friday 18 January to Monday 21 January 2013 at Dolamore Park, a beautiful camping ground surrounded by bush about 10 minutes by car from Gore, very near the north-western corner of Solid Energy’s landholdings in the Mataura Valley.

You can register online for Summerfest. To do so, please read the Festival Kaupapa and then the Festival Information page, which is also where you can get started on the registration process.

On the website, you can also find information about the Festival programme and speakers – keep checking back for updates to these. We already have one international speaker confirmed: Rob McCreath from Friends of Felton in Queensland – where they stopped mining in their valley and prevented the installation of a chemical plant. He’s definitely worth hearing.

Help with posters: Coal Action Murihiku have produced 500 coloured, eye-catching posters to advertise Summerfest, for distribution around the country. If you can help put them up where you live, please email Jenny Campbell, jennycam (at) xtra.co.nz, with your name, mailing address, contact phone number, and contact email address, plus the number of posters you need.

See you in Southland!

The post Summerfest 2013: The Keep The Coal In The Hole Summer Festival is on again appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.