The fight for iron sands: the bitter battle to protect New Zealand’s sea-floor riches

A plan to mine the seabed off the coast of south Taranaki, New Zealand, has drawn opposition from locals who live and work along the water. Photograph: Eva Corlett/The Guardian

Three fishers sit around a bare table in Pātea Boating Club, a few hundred metres back from New Zealand’s south Taranaki coastline. Pigeons have left droppings on the floorboards, and through the salt-dusted windows the ocean pounds against the black sand.

“This is one of the best fishing areas in the country,” the club’s commodore, Steve Corrigan, says of the South Taranaki bight, which sweeps along the vast west coast of the North Island. “And it’s at risk of being ruined.”