Snails face relocation for mine development

Snails face relocation for mine development

12th April 2006

A colony of snails that has been holding up a controversial coal mine development in New Zealand will be removed by hand to allow the project to go ahead.

Conservationists and coal miners have been at loggerheads over the mine's environmental impact.

New Zealand's state-owned coal miner Solid Energy has been keen to develop a deposit near Westport on the South Island, but they have been stymied by a small colony of rare powelliphanta snails and their supporters.

Conservation Minister Chris Carter has now agreed to a controversial plan to relocate the snails - all 250 of them - by hand, despite claims by the Royal Forest and Bird Society that the move could kill them.

Civic leaders and businesses say the local economy would have been hard hit if the $A330 million project was stopped because of the snails.