Business South August 2020

36 | Volume 29 | Issue 4 businesssouth RCCL ARE PROUD TO BE ASSOC I ATED WI TH BATHURST RESOURCES LTD Phone: 03 732 8716 Email: accounts@reeftoncraneandconstruction.co.nz www.reeftoncraneandconstruction.co.nz 0800 4 CARTAGE (4 2278243) slater@xtra.co.nz www.slatercartage.co.nz PO Box 37, Huntly 3240 If it is professional trucking, transport, excavation, earthworks, siteworks or farmworks you are looking for, you've come to the right place. Our efficient team at Slater are here to deliver results to your high standards. We understand the importance of meeting contract deadlines and work with your to achieve your goals. Stockton coal still in demand Bathurst Resources funds programmes on the Denniston Plateau and in the Heaphy catchment area to manage biodiversity values and threats. • from page 34 MINING - WEST COAST » Bathurst Resources Since 2005 much of the rehabilitation work has involved using the VDT technique – or Vegeta- tion Direct Transfer - which involves scooping up “squares” of the top layer - complete with top soil, vegetation and keeping the soil structure and microbiology intact. “We take it off the area we are starting to mine and move it to the area we are rehabiltating. This has proved really successful over time and it does rapidly take off again.” “Also with water quality it’s important to do the best job we can to protect water quality and we are doing that successfully.” Ian says the mining industry is highly regulated in terms of environmental outcomes. “No one is complaining about that. We are fully committed to fulfilling all of those obligations.” In accordance with the conditions of its resource consent and access arrangements, Bathurst also funds programmes on the Denniston Plateau and the Heaphy catchment area to manage biodiversity values and threats. The Denniston programme focuses on biodi- versity threat management, including pest plant management, weed control, pest control and the monitoring of native animals, birds and plant spe- cies. With the West Coast likely to take a hit from the fall off in international tourism post Covid-19, the importance to the regional economy of the mining and minerals sector is greater than ever. “Some of the wider socio-economic analysis that’s been done across the industry shows that in regional terms each mining job contributes around $220-230,000 to GDP each year, compare with $50,000 for a tourist sector job – you can’t support a community on that...and of course the tourism sector has been heavily impacted by Covid-19 so in those terms mining is more important than ever to this region.”