Kathy Cumming's blog

Helping out a struggling opposition party certainly wasn’t the objective of our march against mining. But it seems to have been an unintended consequence.

We expected 20,000. We HOPED for 30,000. We got nearly double that. In the biggest protest march in living memory,  50,000 turned out on Queen Street today to march against the Government's mining plans.

The photos say it all (see below). Greenpeace ambassador Robyn Malcolm also puts it pretty good when she says: "For nearly 50,000 Kiwis to turn out and be prepared to speak with one voice, must tell the Government something. And that something is this: we, the people of NZ get it; we get the argument, we see what you’re up to and we won’t have it. Our land will always be more important to our identity than some extra dollars in the pockets of mining companies."

Just incase you thought NZ's mining plans were going down well in the outside world, check out this scathing assessment of them by the world's largest environmental conservation authority.

Just two days now until the massive anti-mining march in Auckland! Right around the North Island, placards are being painted and buses organised to transport people to the City of Sails to have their say.  Just incase what's at stake has slipped your mind, check out this video of Sign On ambassdors Lucy Lawless and Robyn Malcolm visiti

It must have looked quite a sight for people driving by. An unsuspecting corner, curving gently around a quiet part of the West coast's Buller Gorge in the early morning mist.

Greenpeace, along with a bunch of other organisations, has announced an anti-mining march for May 1st in Auckland. See www.dontunderminenz.org for more information.

There was a brilliant cartoon in the Weekend Herald just gone. It showed New Zealand’s conservation lands as a young damsel, dressed up in a pretty green frock and bonnet.

Been wondering about the veracity of climate science lately? Probably not if you’re here at the Sign On website reading this blog.

As deadlines of global significance go, it was pretty…underwhelming.

So how bad was it? And what's everyone saying about it?

In this video, Guardian Environment editor John Vidal examines the final frantic hours of Copenhagen's climate summit.