The announcement by the National Government that it is preparing to go on an environmental vandalism spree in some of our most pristine national parks is nothing but reckless.

Prime Minister John Key and Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee have opened up a consultation process on removing parts of the Paparoa National Park and the Coromandel from Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act. This legislation (passed by the previous National Government) bans all mining on ecologically sensitive land. Meanwhile, other areas in Northland and on Rakiura/Stewart Island will be prospected over the next nine months to assess their potential for mining. Great Barrier Island has been singled out for its mining potential too.

These areas contain some of the most environmentally important land in New Zealand. Native flora and fauna and animal life in these protected areas would be severely impacted upon if mining activity were permitted. Tourism to these areas could be affected as well as who wants to see an entry to an underground mine shaft while tramping on one of our many tracks? I certainly don't and nor would any foreign visitors.

Already the Schedule Four review has attracted some surprising opponents. These include Auckland Mayor (and former National cabinet minister) John Banks who has today called on Aucklanders to rightfully oppose any mining on Great Barrier Island. While I feel that Banks' conversion to the anti-mining cause is largely politically motivated (it is local body election year after all), I can sense that if someone of his stature in Tory ranks is opposed, then who else might be within the National Party? Will their so-called 'Blue Greens' environmental ginger group speak out?

Meanwhile I can't but help think that this National Government is in the pocket of big corporate mining interests. I hope that Nicky Hager might be preparing a follow up to his 2006 book The Hollow Men which exposed how National was influenced by an unholy consortium of donors which included big pharmaceutical, alcohol and tobacco interests prior to the 2005 election. I would dare say that even with Labour's more restrictive electoral finance law in place, big mining might have found a way to donate substantial sums of cash to National's 2008 campaign coffers. I hope that the parliamentary opposition and the media start asking some hard questions of the Government in regard to any donations or gifts that might have been received by the Nats from mining interests in the run up to the 2008 election. It would be interesting to see what turns up.

But this is not to say that National is the only party that has favoured the despoilation of conservation land. I recently listened to a parliamentary exchange between Gerry Brownlee and the Labour Party where he reminded them that under the fifth Labour Government, over 80 separate mining licenses were in force on DOC land. This made somewhat of a mockery of former prime minister Helen Clark's protests against National's proposals to mine conservation land.

This aside, National's proposals appear to be far more extensive in scope. They also appear to contradict the Government's stated intention to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 25 percent of their 1990 levels by 2050. It is inevitable that any mining activity will produce carbon gas emissions and particularly in areas that don't really need to be exposed to them. Despite the government saying that currently unprotected land could be transferred over into the conservation estate as a trade-off, it won't make much difference to the overall picture. Any transfer of minute parcels of land in exchange for the larger chunks given over to mining will amount to nothing but a sop to environmentalists everywhere.

In the end run, this policy should be condemned for what it really is - just a big profit grab by multinational and domestic mining operations at the expense of the environment. While it might produce jobs and extra export revenue in the short to medium-term, in the longer term, it will desecrate our natural heritage and raise our already high per capita carbon emissions rates even further - and that won't be good for the planet.

That's why the Nats have to be sent a very clear message - hands off our conservation estate! Otherwise, this National Government will go down as the most environmentally unfriendly government in our recent history.