Save Happy Valley!

No mining in the valley

There is still no mining in Happy Valley but it is not saved from the jaws of the bulldozers. With the announcement by the National-led government review of the land listed in Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act it is yet more important for Happy Valley to be saved. Unmodified natural ecosystems take a long time to form and we have already lost too much of these valuable areas.

Over Easter a group of us tramped into the Valley to gather information on the recent drilling operations that Solid Energy has begun. There is no doubt that they are preparing to move forward with their mining plans in the Valley, and these drilling operations are presumably to gather more detailed and accurate measurements of the coal lying not far below the wetland ecology.

The Solid Energy leviathan looms. Let's just hope that we can gather together once more to fend it off.

See the YouTube clip below.

Kia Ora all

Walked out of the valley today to the sound of a helicopter buzzing in men and equipment to start on what can be safely assumed to be the next drill site.

The sites are up to 10square meters some a bit smaller. They flatten out the area, put up pink tape and then move in there rig. The rigs are tall obviously and noisy.

They have fenced off an area near camp (just up the stream from water collection sites) they have put water pumps and generators there. The water is for the drill, we have to put up with the sight always and the sound all day.

We saw at least four sites that have been done and there is two operational. It seems that they take roughly a week to finish a site (I guess).

Security is regular, they spend there day under a tarpaulin trying to see who is in camp with binoculars. They said if we cross the sealed of areas we will be trespassed. Typical old security games.

They are exploring for the next few months I have heard but am not totally sure, makes for sad times.

Don't know how wide this goes so will leave it at that.

To a background of tumbling coal prices and with the threat of drilling hanging over Happy Valley, dozens of committed activists walked in sweltering heat to celebrate the three years of occupation at Happy Valley. The swimming hole was a welcome reprieve from the heat, and we were pleased to see that our presence was still delaying the long-planned drilling programme in the Valley.

The love and time that has gone into building the occupation camp oozes from every worn floorboard and carefully cut notch in the knife rack. Hundreds of people have visited this camp over the last three years, to lend their voice to the calls for this beautiful and valuable place to be saved from rapacious capitalism and consumerism.

It is not that camp that people come to visit, however. It is the red tussock wetland, the gray rock pavements and the stunted green forest. It is the snails, the spiders and the kiwi. Why visit offshore islands to hear kiwi when they can be heard every night in Happy Valley?

While the wheels fall of the capitalist economy which demands that all nature must succumb to its merest whim, Happy Valley lives on in blissful ignorance.

Solid Energy claim "the occupation itself had made no material effect on the development". And yet the start of the drilling was announced as soon as the weekend was over.

I returned to the valley after an absence of more than a year and had forgotten how beautiful it is. That’s a pity, because I’d spent the day before arguing that Meridian Energy shouldn’t be able to put pylons from their proposed dam on the Mokihinui River across the upper Waimangaroa Valley.

On our walk in through richly coloured vegetation, fog and sharp grey rock, we neither saw nor heard the vast coal mine a couple of kilometres away. But power pylons, no matter how skinny, would have ruined the remote and untouched atmosphere.

The camp in Happy Valley looked like the labour of love it is, everything was dry and in order with everything from spare gumboots to binoculars. Having so much gear already on hand makes it the perfect place to lug a baby into. I wondered why we hadn’t come for a week.

I was lucky enough to be able to sneak across to the valley on the day the Walk the Walkers arrived at the destination of their epic journey. We had a lovely walk in, beautiful kai, Heather was presented with some wine (carefully/cheerfully lugged in), and some good photo shots :)

Here’s an excerpt from the Walk the Walkers Blog:

"Dear Friends,
The journey is over and reached a perfect ending in the snowshine in the happiest valley I have ever known with seven friends in a warm comfortable yert, enjoying a hot meal and cups of tea and a bottle of wine, well appreciated with the knowledge it was carried in on someone’s back, just like everything else that made us warm and comfortable in such a wet, muddy place…

Matt from Mot met us here aswell and Emily and I left at 9.30 the next morning, up the bridal path to the top of the incline and along the four wheel drive track to a little old miners hut at the beginning of the track in to the valley. There we waited for Jonah, Micky and Matt in the chip wagon from 1.15 until about 3.15. We were on the way into the valley from about 3.45 and had to hurry ourselves to get through the roughest and most dangerous bits of the walk before dark.

Luckily the walk in was dry and sunny, then it snowed the next day and melted before we had to walk out, by which time the sun had come out again to melt away the snow from the day before."

Check it out - http://walkingit.blogspot.com/

If you’d like to visit the occupation see http://www.savehappyvalley.org.nz/occupation for contacts.

Wow, my first stint ever at solo occupying and wilderness exploration. I lived like a prince in what is arguably now New Zealand’s most famous alpine wetland. The post-anniversary weather was great and I had the yurt all to myself.

Over the course of my four days in the valley I encountered a veritable plethora of bizarre animals and plants. Several of which are perhaps new to New Zealand taxonomic science. Highlights included an abandoned golden spider hawk wasp nest, which was filled up with many brightly colored ord web spiders of species I have never before seen. These animals had been captured by the wasp, stung and paralyzed, and then injected with eggs… like living larders!

Myself and Jonah undertook a survey of some of the scree slopes surrounding the valley in search of the elusive Happy Valley Vagrant Spider (see photo in my previous entry). Though these animals were at the end of their lifecycle, we found numerous nests indicating that many hatchlings were produced in the early summer. Hopefully classification of this animal will be pending in the next few months.

I also encountered the largest parasitoid wasp I have ever seen. This beast was bright red, yellow, black and white and was perhaps 12cm long, with a 5cm long oviposter spike. Unfortunately I was unable to document this animal before it escaped.

As per usual, my return to civilization began with the discovery that my car engine was dead. Happy times ensued, alleviated by some helpful passers by… who were keen to assist the man labelled by New Zealand Herald as SHVC’s enthusistic and well-spoken science geek. Cars suck… support Walk the Walk!

6 cars squished into 3 at Burnetts Face and off we bumped to glory, the roadend and more rain. Before the walk we split the donated grub - the occupation now has 10kg! of pasta. Then off we trudged ... into ... the rain. When we got here we cruised up to Stockton for photo ops with good old “Stop Solid Energy! Save Happy Valley!”

Heather and Mick are being staunch supports of the Happy Valley Campaign. Check out their Walking the Walk blog. Send them a support message. They will be on the road for a while. YAY!!

Happy Valley in the heat of a dry spell was a landscape unlike any I have ever witnessed.

The dense swampy grasslands were firm underfoot and the wind-blasted rock ridges and plateaux were hot and exposed to the Summer sun. This unusual weather for the diverse sub-alpine topography of the Upper Waimangaroa Valley caused spectacular responses in the ecology of the area.

As we explored, we encountered a riot of colour as the hardy Denniston vegetation made the most of the strong sun to put forth flowers. We also encountered several specimens of a large and unusual Tunnel-web Spider in the Zen Garden behind the Occupation Camp. This animal displayed fierce territorial behaviour when we attempted to photograph it. Peter Jackson based the giant spider Shellob on a similar native species in his movie Return of the King. Despite this, Tunnel-webs are not dangerous to humans.

Happy Valley was identified by the Department of Conservation in 1998 as an area of high invertebrate biodiversity. The area has never undergone stringent study by taxonomists so mostly this biodiversity is still unclassified by science. This spider is one of several local lifeforms in Happy Valley that may warrant further scrutiny.

If you encounter any unusual animals or plants in Happy Valley, please attempt to photograph them and record the area in which you found them. Any incoming data can be forwarded to savehappyvalley@yahoo.com