Save Manapouri campaign

Origins

In 1955 Harry Evans, a New Zealand geologist with Consolidated Zinc Proprietary Ltd, identified a 2.5 billion tonne deposit of bauxite in Australia on the west coast of Cape York Peninsula, near Weipa. It was largest deposit of bauxite that had ever been discovered. In 1956 The Commonwealth Aluminium Corporation Pty Ltd, later known as Comalco (now Rio Tinto), was formed to develop the bauxite deposits. The company started investigating sources of large quantities of cheap electricity needed to reduce the alumina recovered from the bauxite into aluminium. Comalco settled on Manapōuri as that source of power and Bluff as the site of the smelter. The plan was to refine the bauxite to alumina in Queensland, ship the alumina to New Zealand for smelting into metal, then ship it away to market. Without public consultation, the Second Labour Government under Walter Nash signed a deal in January 1960 that would allow Comalco to build the dam, to construct a tunnel through the Southern Alps to Doubtful Sound where it could be harnessed to produce electricity. The deal included rights to the water for 99-years.

Also in 1960, entomologist Dr. John Salmon at Victoria University wrote Heritage Destroyed, advocating to an end to hydropower projects that sacrificed the environmental values of the land they submerged. In the book, he stated "Today, without so much as an apology, we see these world-famous places filched from the people of New Zealand in acts of State-sponsored vandalism such as have never been witnessed before." His book helped to inspire the Save Manapouri Campaign, on the national committee of which he belonged.

For much of the rest of the decade, the lake was advocated for at a small scale by the Royal Forest and Bird Society and New Zealand Scenery Preservation Society. This included two petitions, in 1960 and 1963, which gained 25,000 and 1,127 signatures respectively, were largely ignored by the Second National Government under Keith Holyoake.

The Campaign

The Save Manapouri Campaign was launched at a public meeting at Invercargill in October 1969. It later came to manifest the international awareness of the environment that came with the prosperity of the 1960s.

:"At its simplest, the issue was about whether Lake Manapouri should be raised by as much as 30 metres. But there was much more at stake than that. There were strong economic and engineering arguments opposing lake raising, and there were also legal and democratic issues underlying the whole debate. What captured the public's imagination across the country was the prospect that a lake as beautiful as Manapouri could be interfered with, despoiled and debased", wrote Neville Peat.

In 1970, 264,907 New Zealanders, almost 10% of the population, signed the Save Manapouri petition.{{cite encyclopedia

Impacts

In the 1972 general election, Manapouri was a significant issue, and the Labour Government of Norman Kirk was elected on a platform that included a strong endorsement of the Save Manapouri ideals.

In 1973, Kirk honoured his party's election pledge. He created an independent body, the Guardians of Lake Manapouri, Monowai, and Te Anau to oversee management of the lake levels, which they do to this day. The original six Guardians were Alan Mark, Ronald McLean, Wilson Campbell, Les Hutchins, John Moore, and Jim McFarlane, and they were all prominent leaders of the Save Manapouri Campaign.

The single Damn the Dam recorded and released in 1973 by John Hanlon has retrospectively become associated with the Save Manapouri Campaign. Hanlon's song was originally an energy conservation jingle to advertise home insulation, with the proceeds from its release going to charities. However, since the release of this song followed on from the successful conclusion of the Save Manapouri Campaign, 'Damn the Dam' is now popularly recognised as an anthem in tribute to one of New Zealand's longest and hardest-fought environmental campaigns.

In 1991, the Save Manapouri Campaign was revived with many of the same leaders and renamed Power For Our Future. The campaign opposed selling off the power station, to ensure that Comalco did not revive its plans to raise Lake Manapouri's waters. The campaign was successful: the government announced that Manapouri would not be sold to Comalco.

References

References

1. "Research Portal".
2. "Manapouri Damning the dam".
3. Salmon, J. T.. (1960). "Heritage destroyed : The crisis in scenery preservation in New Zealand".
4. "The Save Manapouri Campaign". NZ History.
5. [[Neville Peat. Peat, Neville]], ''Manapouri saved!'', (1994) {{ISBN. 0-9583405-0-1
6. [http://www.doc.govt.nz/about-doc/news/media-releases/2008/appointment-of-guardians-of-lakes/ Department of Conservation] – Appointment of Guardians of Lakes
7. (28 September 2019). "Powerful exploits of engineering". [[Otago Daily Times]].
8. (October 2008). "Damn the Dam". New Zealand Folk Song.