Dongxing Coal Mining Co fire

The Dongxing Coal Mining Co. fire was an incident that began on Monday, March 15, 2010, in the main pit of Dongxing Coal Mining Co, Xinmi, Zhengzhou, People's Republic of China. Twenty-five miners died during the incident which, among other things, resulted in four local officials being removed from office.
The fire began at 8:30 PM on Monday when electrical cables in the main pit caught on fire. At the time, 31 workers were in the mine and six were saved in the rescue operation that ended at around 2:00 AM the following morning. The mine was being renovated to increase its annual output to 150,000 tons from 60,000.
Shuhe Wang, Deputy Director of the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety, said that mines that are being rebuilt were strictly forbidden from producing coal, but the Dongxing Coal Mining Co had ignored the ban and resumed production without a license. Wang blamed the incident on coal safety officials' lack of supervision.
The Xinmi government acted quickly to crack down on company officials and government officials who should have prevented the disaster: Yingxi Su, a vice-mayor of Xinmi, Ruihui Fan, governor of Niudian township, Xinxian Zhu, a township official in charge of work safety, and Guoqi Pei, a deputy director of the Xinmi Coal Mine Bureau, were removed from office; three work safety inspectors who were responsible for overseeing the mine were dismissed; and Mancang Fu of Dongxing Coal Mining Co along with three directors were placed under criminal detention. The personal accounts of Fu and the three company directors were frozen as were the company's accounts.
The dead miners were identified as migrants from Henan, Anhui and Sichuan provinces.


Samuel W Hill

Samuel W Hill, (November 6, 1815 – August 28, 1889) was an American surveyor, geologist and mining developer in Michigan's Copper Country.
Early life and experience.
Samuel Worth Hill was born on November 9
, 1815 in Starksboro, Vermont to Richard and Betsey Hill. He was educated in a Friends school, and was trained as a civil engineer and a surveyor. His first assignment was to survey the town of Albion, New York. In 1840, he moved to Milwaukee, and became a school teacher in Racine. In 1841, Hill secured a position with the United States Topographical Survey, and undertook an expedition to mark the boundary line between Wisconsin and Michigan. He was then assigned to survey the western Upper Peninsula, including the Keweenaw Peninsula. In the fall of 1841, Hill returned to Racine and became a school superintendent until his appointment to survey the Upper Peninsula.
Copper Country.
Samuel W. Hill worked with Douglass Houghton in his lineal and geological survey of the Upper Peninsula. After Houghton died in 1845, Hill worked with Foster & Whitney to conduct a geological study the copper region. He discovered the value of the area's copper resources and organized the first mining companies, and later served as agent for the Quincy Mining Company. In 1859, Hill platted the village of Hancock, then in Portage Township. Hill also conceived of the idea of constructing a three-mile-long canal between Portage Lake and Lake Superior to transport freight to and from the copper mines. Hill assisted in organizing the Central and Phoenix mines and was the first president of Copper Falls. Later, Hill tried to develop the copper resources of Isle Royale around Siskiwit Bay.
What in Sam Hill?
Samuel W Hill's propensity for profanity was legendary. Whenever his friends and neighbors would retell his colorful tales, they would substitute "Sam Hill" for the cuss words. Eventually, the phrase "What in Sam Hill?" spread beyond the Keweenaw Peninsula to become part of the American language.
Legacy.
Samuel W. Hill married Susan A. Warren, July 16, 1851. Miss Warren was a pioneer school teacher in the Upper Peninsula, and established the first school in the Keweenaw region. The Hills were to make their home in Marshall, Michigan. Hill later served in the Michigan legislature, being twice elected.


Letneye mine

The Letneye mine is a large copper mine located in the south-west region of Russia in Orenburg Oblast. Letneye represents one of the largest copper reserve in not only Russia but also in the world having estimated reserves of 272 million tonnes of ore grading 2.89% copper.


Western Mining Co., Ltd.

Western Mining Co., Ltd. is a listed company in northwest China engaged in the mining, smelting, and trading of metal minerals, including copper, lead, zinc, iron, gold and silver. It is headquartered in Xining, Qinghai Province. It is currently China's second-largest producer of lead concentrate, fourth-largest producer of zinc concentrate, and seventh-biggest producer of copper concentrate with extraction rights in many metal mines overseas.
History.
Its A shares were listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange on 12 July 2007.
In 2008, the company began trial production at a smelter at its Yulong () copper mine in Tibet. 17% stake of the mine was acquired from fellow mining company Zijin Mining in 2007.
Western Mining was a former constituent of SSE 50 Index (the blue chip of Shanghai Stock Exchange). However, it was removed from the index in 2012.
Shareholders.
The largest shareholder of the listed company was Western Mining Group for 28.21% shares, which controlled the listed company by majority in the board of directors. Western Mining Group itself is a subsidiary of Qinghai Provincial People's Government for 50.37% stake.


EPS Surface Mining Kosovo

EPS Surface Mining Kosovo () is a Serbian coal surface mining company with headquarters in Obilić, Kosovo.
History.
EPS Surface Mining Kosovo was founded by Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS) on 21 December 1991.
Following the Kosovo War and NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the UNMIK administration was established in Kosovo on 1 July 1999, and Elektroprivreda Srbije lost its access to the local coal mines and power plants, including Kosovo A and Kosovo B power plants, which were under jurisdiction of EPS Surface Mining Kosovo.
Since then, government-owned Elektroprivreda Srbija by political decision continued to pay off earnings to all of Kosovo-based EPS companies, including EPS Surface Mining Kosovo employees (the other two EPS companies based on Kosovo are EPS TPP Kosovo and EPS Elektrokosmet). However, all these employees are not working in Kosovo-based power plants, and are only occasionally and indirectly employed by EPS throughout the rest of Serbia. As of May 2009, there was a total of around 7,000 such employees which were working only on paper and receive regular earnings. As of June 2017, that number was cut to 4,539 employees.


Hepburnia Coal Company

Hepburnia Coal Company is a surface mining operator in central Pennsylvania.The company was formed by Donald M. and Lula Mae Spencer of Grampian, Pennsylvania in 1955. Shortly after its incorporation Darrell G., Ray L. and Robert G. Spencer - the children of the founders - joined the firm. The firm grew into one of the largest surface mining operators in Central Pennsylvania.
The Hepburnia Coal Company has expanded by forming the Spencer Land Company (land holding division), Hepburnia Coal Sales Corp. (coal sales to utilities), Susquehanna Recreation Corp. (golf course and resort development), Beechwoods Flying Service (airline charter company for rotary and fixed wing services), Seven Seas Financial Corp. (hotel development), and the Penn-Grampian Television Cable Co. (local cable provider). In the 1990s, Hepburnia Coal Company acquired the Shale Hill Coal Company of Hepburnia, Pennsylvania.
In 1991 Hepburnia Coal Company was selected to provide the Pennsylvania Christmas Tree for the National Pageant of Peace at the White House. The tree was presented to President George H.W. Bush by company Chairman Robert G. Spencer.
As of 2006, Hepburnia Coal Company is headquartered in Grampian, Pennsylvania. The firm continues to mine and ship bituminous coal and is engaged in several other lines of business. At this date, the President and Chief Executive Officer is Darrell G. Spencer. His brother Ray L. Spencer died in 2005; Robert G. Spencer died in 2012. Shad B. Spencer serves as Vice President and Tim N. Morgan as Secretary and Treasurer of the company.


History of the Otago Region

New Zealand's Otago region is one of the more isolated outliers of the inhabited earth. Its high latitude, elevation and distance from larger foreign and domestic population centers has defined Otago at each stage of its history.
New Zealand's ecology had evolved in near isolation from the rest of the world for 85 million years. At first settlement it was almost devoid of land mammals. The fauna was very susceptible to land predators. Humans burnt the forests, ate the animals and introduced numerous predators and exotic plants to Otago. This came in two great waves around the years 1300 and 1800, although the effects of both introductions would continue for centuries. This was followed by intensive farming and alteration to the rivers and lakes of Otago for water and electricity production.
The human occupation of Otago begins around the year 1300 with the arrival of Māori soon after they settled in New Zealand. The Māori were originally from tropical Polynesia; they continually adapted to the new and changing environment over the next 500 years. At that time the first European sealers and whalers arrived, followed by the founding of the colony of Dunedin, Otago's first city in 1848.
Until the late 19th century the vast majority of permanent settlements in Otago were on the eastern coast, which was rich in resources and has a more temperate climate. During this time inland Otago was largely used seasonally and for its mineral deposits, first by the Māori digging for pounamu stone, then European settlers searching for gold. With the advent of the railway, and refrigerated trade with Britain, inland Otago became more consistently productive. Rapid urbanisation has led to the creation of main population centers on the flatter eastern coast and in the high inland plains between the mountain ranges. This has been accompanied with immense social change in Otago's population, similar but distinct to the rest of New Zealand.
The boundaries of Otago have changed over time. However, the Waitaki River, currently Otago's northern extent, has often been used as a natural border. Ngāi Tahu, the dominant Maori tribe in the region, currently has three rūnanga (sub-tribes) within Otago and their traditional extent is not limited to the region. Today Otago is divided into the Central Otago, Clutha, Queenstown-Lakes and Waitaki (partly in Canterbury) Districts, and the city of Dunedin, which has half the region's population. It excludes the Southland plains, Stewart Island and Fiordland, although the historical province of Otago and much older Murihiku region often included them.
The first settlements until the Treaty of Waitangi (1300–1840).
Initial Māori settlement (1300–1500).
The precise date at which the first inhabitants of New Zealand reached Otago and the extreme south (known to later Māori as "Murihiku") remains uncertain. Māori descend from a race of Polynesian sea-wanderers who, moved from East Asia and south-east Asia to the islands of the Pacific. Tradition tells of their further journeyings from Hawaiki to New Zealand, and some commentators have identified this homeland as Havai'i, an island in the Society Group. Overpopulation, scarcity of food and civil war forced many of them to migrate once more, and New Zealand became their new home. Māori settled New Zealand between 1280–1320. They quickly learnt to hunt the numerous species of moa and seals in New Zealand and settled across the North and South islands in less than a few decades. There is a change in the pollen record from inland Otago from 600 years ago from a forest to bracken flora. It has been inferred that this relates to fires being lit during Maori exploration.
The first parts of New Zealand settled by Polynesians were the very far north and the east coast of the South Island where population was initially concentrated. Later the contraction of food sources led to depopulation in the south while the introduction of the kumara led to an expansion in the North Island and the evolution of a different material and social culture. The greater numbers in the North Island led to migrations to the south from late in the sixteenth century.
Tradition speaks of the first inhabitants of the South Island as the Kahui Tipua, a tribe associated with many weird tales and whose members the tales generally classed as supernatural beings, the "Band of Ogres". After these fearsome people came another tribe named Te Rapuwai which has also left very few traces, perhaps because, as Waite suggests, no Māori claim descent from them. On the other hand, Anderson has suggested these are names of earlier assimilated groups whose descendants are still with us but have been re-categorised under the names "Waitaha" and "Kati Mamoe" as Kai Tahu have since claimed those groups as integral to a new one, that known now, in modern standard Māori, as "Ngāi Tahu".
But Te Rapuwai left many place names to record their presence, and heaps of shells along the beaches as more tangible evidence. The Kaitangata Lake district, in South Otago, was apparently a favourite haunt, and almost certainly there were settlements at the mouth of the Matau (Clutha).
Researchers know almost as little of the immediate successors of Te Rapuwai, the Waitaha. Hector suggested that another tribe, the Katikura, an offshoot of the Ngapuhi tribe of Tamaki Makarau, lived in Otago at some remote period before the arrival of the Waitaha. But beyond a vague tradition that they burnt off the forest and made the open grassland (E Waka-Papihi), no information survives concerning them.
According to the lore of North Island Māori, the Waitaha people arrived in the "Takitimu" canoe captained by Tamatea. The "Takitimu", legendarily associated with the discredited theory of a great fleet dated to 1350 AD, made its landfall in the Bay of Plenty and then sailed down the coast of both islands, even as far as the Waiau River in Southland, leaving settlers at suitable districts. This voyage of Tamatea became so important a landmark in post-pākehā conceptions of Māori history that the antiquity of any event, such as the great fires which destroyed the forests of Otago and Southland, have been indicated by saying, "That happened in the time of Tamatea." Stack, one of those who developed this now contested conception, portrayed the Waitaha occupation of Te Wahipounamu as covering a century, from 1477 to 1577,
a calculation based on the assumption of twenty years to a generation. His conception of what was happening is probably wrong, but his dating, taken broadly is probably about right for this later settlement phase, which may indeed be that of the historical Waitaha. The estuaries, mudflats, sandy beaches of Murihiku provided fish, seals, seabirds, mussels, pauas, pipis and cockles. The dense podocarp forest, including matai, totara, kahikatea, and rimu, teemed with wekas, tuis, pigeons, and other birds. In the coastal lakes such as Waihola, eels abounded. At some point during the first centuries of occupation they discovered pounamu. Thus the South Island also became known as Te Wahipounamu. The southern Māori moved with the seasons to exploit the rich resources of Murihiku.
Tradition attributed to the Waitaha a profound knowledge of incantations ("karakia") and of the science of navigation. They painted designs in caves and named many of the distinctive features of the Otago landscape, well illustrated in the tale of Rākaihautū, known the great digger of lakes.
The Waitaha settlement of the South Island seems to have been the latter part of a period of peace and plenty. Stack said that "they increased and multiplied so rapidly that they are described as having covered the face of the land like ants".
A more credible explanation might be that, on the arrival of the first Waitaha wave in the south, they found it an abundant land and, under such favourable conditions, their numbers greatly increased.
However this time of prosperity was not to last. Already, by the end of the fourteenth century New Zealand's environment was beginning to change. The climate became cooler, the podocarp forest retreated, and the moa population began to decline. The changing environment affected those who relied upon moas and seals for food and forced them to develop more effective techniques for catching birds and fish. The largest settlements of the early centuries lost their importance and declined. The population declined because of emigration north to regions where one could cultivate kumara (sweet potatoes).
Recent evidence, has led some to identify the Waitaha of Otago with the moa-hunters of whom so many traces remain. This is not entirely unreasonable, although on Stack's dating of Waitaha, and on modern dating of moa hunter sites, the Waitaha would be latter arrivals. In reality their name has probably been used in tradition, confusingly, to also comprehend earlier arrivals whose own names for themselves are now obscured in the etymological ghost names of Kahui Tipua and Te Rapuwai. The Waitaha of historical oral tradition may have enjoyed a good food-supply for many years and they were probably some of the later moa hunters of the archaeological record. These latter probably preserved moa-flesh in fat, wrapped up in bands of kelp, fastened with totara-bark strips and bartered it for such northern products as flax mats, huia feathers and kumara. The Waitaha must have hunted the moa with such steady persistence that its complete extermination became merely a question of time, though at what date this occurred is not known. Certain it is, however, that the moa found its last stronghold in the inland districts of Otago where the most valuable discoveries of moa remains have been made. Either the birds survived there much longer or else the remarkable preservative quality of the dry air caused the remains to resist decay. Probably both these alternatives apply though it seems more likely that, as its numbers diminished and the attacks of its foes proceeded with unabated vigour, the moa became restricted to the fastnesses of Central Otago, especially to the area between Lake Wakatipu and the Lammerlaw Range.
Māori adaptation and migrations (1500–1788).
The 19th century European view of this was that Waitaha did not remain in undisputed possession of their hunting-preserves. They fell victim to a misguided generosity. Seized by a friendly impulse, they sent across the straits to their friends, the Ngati Mamoe (or Katimamoe), some of the surplus stores they had accumulated, and "as their friends smacked their lips over these dainties ... they resolved to wrest the coveted preserves from the Waitaha". Although the Waitaha, unused to war, soon succumbed, a considerable amount of inter-marriage took place. The words are Canon Stack's and according to him the "invasion" began about 1477 AD. In fact few records of strife in Otago during this period survive and, as Stack acknowledged, Māori did not accept this construction of their traditions. More likely, as Anderson and others have maintained, this was simply a migration like later ones, accompanied by occasional bloodshed, not an "invasion". Early in the seventeenth century, a hapu of the Ngati Kahungunu began to infiltrate the Kati Mamoe domain. However they failed to advance beyond Kaikoura, where a chief of Ngati Mamoe killed the Ngati Kahungunu chief, Manawa, in a skirmish.
But with the arrival of a third hapu of the Ngati Kahungunu, the Ngāi Tahu (or Kaitahu), towards the close of the 17th century, the stormy era of Otago history began. Again it has been said that the desire to possess unlimited supplies of the precious "pounamu" or greenstone, which occurred only in the South Island, provided a powerful incentive for invasion. But this has been questioned. The combatants don't fall neatly into groups of Kati Mamoe and Kai Tahu and the given reasons for strife don't refer to greenstone. Hostilities were protracted and Kati Mamoe were never "subdued". There were still people of that descent living in the region when the first Europeans arrived and Kai Tahu were just another Māori people also living in the south.
Much of the history of this time centres around the turbulent careers of two chiefs, Te Wera of the Kai Tahu, and Taoka, his bitter enemy, who were cousins. These two men apparently became involved in several episodes featuring a surfeit of bloodshed. One such incident occurred when Te Wera killed and ate Taoka's son, whom he and his men had encountered on the south bank of the Waitaki. In revenge, Taoka besieged Te Wera's "pa" at Karitane, at that time a Kai Tahu stronghold. The besiegers camped at the southern extremity of the sandspit in Waikouaiti Bay, called Ohine-pouweru, and lived there for six months. Frustrated in their endeavours to seize the pā, Taoka's men uttered the dire threat, "We'll starve you out." But back came the defiant cry, shouted by the Kai Tahu chief above the great gateway, "You shall never reach us! Only by the army of thirst shall we be overcome." Taoka then uttered threats in vain and when at length his food supplies had dwindled, he was reluctantly forced to raise the siege.
Similar skirmishes continued throughout the eighteenth century, waged with a merciless ferocity that must have seriously reduced a once numerous population. On occasion the battles became scenes of bloody carnage. Such conflict occurred in 1750 on the site of the present township of Balclutha, which saw the triumph of the Kati Mamoe. Some fifteen years later at Kaitangata, the Kai Tahu avenged this defeat and routed the Kati Mamoe. Eventually the two groups decided to erect a post on a conspicuous hill known as Popoutunoa, near Clinton: to mark the division of the territory. Thus the Kati Mamoe remained unmolested in the southern portion of the island. Or at least this is Canon Stack's view of the significance of these events. Certainly an end to conflict was brokered at this time which involved marriage across Kati Mamoe and Kai Tahu lines.
This short-lived amity came to an end in 1775 when the sons of Te Wera left Stewart Island to establish a pa between Colac Bay and Orepuki. As the Kati Mamoe could not allow this challenge to pass unnoticed, they rose and destroyed the pa. Their triumph was brief, for while they made their way to the Otago Peninsula, Taihua and his Kati Mamoe party marched into an ambush at Hillend, near the Pomahaka, where their enemies butchered them. Before the close of the century, warfare had again broken out at the Otago Heads, Port Molyneux, and Preservation Inlet. In the vicinity of Lake Te Anau one of the last and most desperate battles took place. A large number of Kati Mamoe were killed and the broken survivors "disappeared into the gloomy forests and never again man's eye beheld them." About the same time, the coast-dwelling Kati Mamoe at Preservation Inlet were also defeated, a pitiful remnant escaping in the direction of Dusky Sound. Summing up the warfare in Otago, Beattie states that of the twenty-five battles which took place south of Temuka, five were family affairs in which Kati Mamoe and Kai Tahu fought among themselves. A feature of the warfare was the monotonous regularity with which the two sides won alternately until the closing phases when the Kai Tahu established ascendancy. According to Beattie, defeated in one battle after another, the dwindling band of Kati Mamoe retreated in various directions, some to the western bank of the Waiau River, where they took refuge in caves, some to the far reaches of Te Anau and Manapouri, and some even to the cold shelters of the fiords. This has been the traditional European view but it is not borne out by the survival of Kati Mamoe lines of descent into the principal chiefly families of Otago into and beyond the time of the European arrival and it has been disputed in modern times.
European explorers, sealers and whalers (1788–1820).
In the late 18th century several European naval expeditions visited southernmost New Zealand, notably the three of Captain James Cook, who did not land in Otago. However, Joseph Banks, sighted a fire on the Otago Peninsula in 1770 which represents the first indirect contact between Maori and Europeans in the Otago Region. As a consequence, following the settlement of Sydney Cove in New South Wales in 1788, visits by several private ventures followed. These saw the first European women to visit New Zealand (in 1792) and to sojourn there (1795–1797), the sojourn of 244 people on an inhospitable shore for several years, and the building of the first European house and ship in New Zealand. Some of these ventures resulted from the pursuit of seals and constituted the first sealing boom. The visitors encountered few Māori (few lived in the relevant areas), and their presents of iron tools perhaps led to those people's demise at the hands of their countrymen. The revival of New Zealand sealing in 1803 saw the detailed exploration of the south west coast and the penetration of Foveaux Strait from the west. At the same time visitors explored the east coast and the subantarctic islands: principally American ships, which produced Owen Folger Smith's charting of Foveaux Strait from the east in 1804. From 1805 to 1807 a boom took place at the Antipodes Islands — territorially part of historical Otago, and probably the source of the Creed manuscript's early European visitors to Otago harbour about 1806/1807. In any case, Sydney sealers operated on the Dunedin coast by late 1809 and had "long" traded for pigs and potatoes at Otago Harbour by 1810, the year in which hostilities broke out there been Māori and Pākehā in the thirteen-year-long feud called the Sealers' War.
In 1809 Robert Murray witnessed the cultivation of potatoes in the Foveaux Strait area, and when Captain Fowler anchored at Otago Harbour the locals already grew potatoes – which they wanted to exchange for iron. The pattern of Māori settlement may have changed over time to take advantage of the "Tongata Bulla" — people of the boats – and the new goods. In 1810 the "Sydney Gazette" described the Māori of Foveaux Strait as "particularly friendly" and anxious to swap potatoes for iron tools. The Ngāi Tahu lived around Otago and wanted to trade, but in their inexperience of the Tongata Bulla remained too truculent. Fowler never discovered this. Before coming to Otago Harbour he had visited the west coast, where six of his Lascar seamen deserted. Later, at Stewart Island, he sent an open boat under Robert Brown to search for them. Brown cruised up the east coast, touched at Cape Saunders on the Otago Peninsula before continuing north to a point north of Moeraki. There a group of Māori, incensed by an earlier incident on Otago Harbour in 1810, set upon and eventually killed Brown's whole party.
These early contacts left a number of Pākehā (non-Māori people) living in the south: James Caddell an English boy-sealer captured from the "Sydney Cove" in 1810; three Lascars (Indian seamen), survivors of the deserting six from the "Matilda", one of them called by Māori "Te Anu". In 1815 William Tucker settled at Whareakeake, later Murdering Beach, where he kept goats and sheep, had a Māori wife and apparently fostered an export trade in greenstone hei-tiki. After a time he left and returned on the "Sophia," a Hobart Town sealer commanded by James Kelly.
In 1817 Kelly anchored in Otago Harbour. The local chief Korako failed to ferry over Māori from Whareakeake who wanted to receive their share of Tucker's gifts. When Kelly, Tucker and five others later went in an open boat along the coast to Whareakeake, the Māori there attacked them, killing Tucker and two others because of this slight, but also because of the general souring of relations since the incident of 1810. Kelly and the remainder retreated to the "Sophia", only to find it occupied by Māori, intent – they believed – on attacking them. Armed with sealing knives, the Tongata Bulla drove the invaders off, resisted another attack, then destroyed "all their navy" and burnt "the beautiful city of Otago". The death toll remains much disputed, but while Kelly probably exaggerated the extent of his revenge, it seems likely he killed several people wholly innocent of the killing of his men.
Māori/Pākehā relations – peaceful from the time of Cook's visit and through the first sealing boom from 1792–1797 – soured with the theft of a red shirt, a knife and other articles by a chief Te Wahia from the "Sydney Cove" on the Otago Harbour late in 1810 – and by his killing by an angered sealer. From this there ensued the Sealers' War a series of attacks and counter-attacks, carried out by persons who soon lost sight of the original cause. Māori killed four men from the schooner "The Brothers" (massacred at Molyneux Harbour); several sailors from the "General Gates", and three lascars from the brig "Matilda". The feud continued until 1823 when Captain Edwardson succeeded in ending it, thus sparking a new sealing boom desired by both Māori and Pākehā.
Edwardson, sent from Sydney in the "Mermaid" to investigate the prospects for a flax-industry, explained Māori truculence in terms of their "vindictive", "crafty" and "lying" character which, he opined, made them "sensitive to the slightest offence". But Edwardson realised that the Māori wanted to trade. With the assistance of Caddell, whom he took to Sydney, he negotiated a truce with the Māori. The attacks and lower prices for skins had dampened the trade, but the restoration of peace saw its brief revival.
In the ensuing peace even the "unpredictably ferocious" Otago harbour Māori modified their behaviour in the interests of trade. Their kin at Ruapuke not only held their traditional monopoly over the sooty shearwaters, or New Zealand muttonbirds, but had effectively monopolised "te tongata bulla" and its wealth. Some 15 to 20 Europeans, many of them with Māori wives, lived on Codfish Island although they moved freely among the Māori "kaiks" on the mainland. These Europeans complied with Māori customs for fear of triggering that much-feared "touchiness". The "Journal" of John Boultbee,
a sealer in the Otago region during the late 1820s, provides ample illustration. On one occasion he went to gather some vegetables which grew wild:
Boultbee did not understand the "strange custom of tabooing", but he recognised that "any willful breach of it considered a serious matter, & in severe cases punishable by death". The security of the intruders depended upon the goodwill of the paramount "rangatira" in Murihiku, Te Whakataupuka. The son of Honegai, who had harried the "Tongata Bulla" wherever he could, Te Whakataupuka proved less truculent and more skilful in manipulating the new arrivals. He became the first to recognise the strategic importance of Ruapuke: he shifted from the mouth of the Matua-a to make his home on the island. Te Whakataupuka impressed John Boultbee as "the most complete model of strength, activity & elegance I had seen combined in any man". He placed the Europeans under his chiefly protection and at times played and joked with them freely. Limits existed to this familiarity. Once, when a group of Pākehā engaged in a mock battle with the chief, one accidentally hit his head with a potato (the head of the chief being tapu). This "excited him suddenly & caused him to seize a tremendous log of wood, which he threw at them..." Cooling quickly, he told them to desist lest he should "perhaps get vexed & hurt them, which he would be sorry to do". When Te Whakataupuka's son, who preferred to live with the Europeans, died, Boultbee and his companions feared that Te Whakataupuka might hold them responsible for the boy's death. Despite his grief the "rangatira" refused to allow his warriors to exact revenge.
The various hapu at Otago from the early 1820s until the 1850s had as their chiefs Tahatu, Karetai and Taiaroa. Unlike Te Whakataupuka and his nephew, Tuhawaiki, who became the paramount rangatira in 1834, neither Taiaroa nor Karetai earned renown for physical feats or for warrior habits. Tensions existed between them. Karetai functioned as the local chief, but Taiaroa, who had close kinship ties with the Canterbury Ngāi Tahu, had been given land on the western side of the harbour where he established a small settlement. When Europeans began visiting regularly he moved his village to the eastern side, close by Karetai's, to muscle in on the trade. Trade had increased rapidly. In 1823 Kent noted only three villages within the harbour; in 1826 Captain Herd reported five. The Otago harbour Māori prospered and Boultbee recorded the arrival at Ruapuke of a boat from Otago laden with '2 large fat hogs & 100 baskets of potatoes each weighing ' For this they received two muskets and one adze.
The Musket Wars.
Campaigns in Canterbury.
European contact seems to have played a role in the resumption of internecine warfare. In the North Island tribes in close contact with Pākehā had acquired muskets by the 1820s. Similarly, in the South Island Māori early acquired European firearms which they used on their relations in the Kai Huaka struggle ("Eat-relations" feud). Fortunately for the South, the feud did not spread to what would later become the territory of the Otago Province, and though petty quarrels between the Otago and Murihiku natives occurred from time to time, open warfare never took place. The "Kai Huaka" troubles began in Canterbury. A woman named Murihaka tried on a dog-skin cloak belonging to Tama-i-hara-nui, a chief. Some members of Tama-i-hara-nui's hapu, exasperated by this sacrilegious act, killed the servant of Hape, a friend of Murihaka's. Hape's whanau, finding the retribution excessive, killed some members of the whanau which had avenged the original presumptuous act. This whanau took "utu" by killing Hape himself. Hape's wife then took refuge with her brothers at Taumutu and they in turn killed three prominent members of yet another whanau. By now, most of the Māori of Banks Peninsula had become involved. The dynamic is simple enough. If one Māori offended another, the aggrieved party's whanau or hapu was obliged to exact an appropriate penalty. In most quarrels this often ended matters unless, as in this case, the penalty seemed excessive. Meanwhile, Tama-i-hara-nui sought aid from kin at Kaiapoi and successfully attacked Taumutu. The Hapu at Taumutu, which included Taiaroa's sister, sent another woman, Hinehaka, who had close ties with several southern chiefs to ask for help. Taiaroa mobilised a large Taua or war party which headed north in canoes. Taiaroa also had kin among the hapu he intended to attack so he went ahead, warned the enemy, then returned to lead the assault. At Wairewa on Banks Peninsula, the southerners won an unsatisfyingly bloodless victory. Fearful of being met by taunts and jeers on returning home, they killed a kinsman of Taununu, a powerful rangatira from Kaikoura who had settled near his kin at Kaiapoi and controlled Rapaki, a large pa in Lyttelton harbour. Utu, which involved revenge, was producing a bloodbath.
Taununu led a successful "taua" south, and Te Whakataupuka now decided to intervene. He and Taiaroa organised a war-party and headed north to seek vengeance. As the southern "taua" approached their enemy, Taiaroa again went ahead to warn his kin: "Escape! Fly for your lives! Take your canoes out to sea! We have guns." This time the enemy moved too slowly. According to survivors of the vanquished "hapu", the southern warriors defeated two canoes overcrowded with helpless fugitives.
The triumphant warriors from Otago, Ruapuke, and the villages around Foveaux Strait proceeded north to Ripapa, Taununu's pa. After destroying the pa the southern warriors evacuated the entire population of Taumutu and brought them south. Tama-i-hara-nui later followed and persuaded most of them to return home, where he finally took his revenge. The fighting continued spasmodically until 1828, but the southerners took no further part in it.
Ngāti Toa invasions.
In 1829, Te Whakataupuka sold of land at Preservation Inlet to the whaler, Peter Williams, on payment of sixty muskets, of gunpowder, of musket balls, two cannonades, two air-guns, and a large quantity of tobacco, pipes, spades and hooks. This increased the armament of southern Māori and facilitated the establishment of the South Island's first whaling station. (In what became the historical province of Otago it was next followed by the Weller brothers' on Otago Harbour in 1831.)
By 1830 the old threat of the invasion of the South Island by the warlike tribes of the north again appeared menacing when Te Rauparaha, chief of the Ngāti Toa, invaded the South and stormed the kāinga (unfortified village) of Takapūneke at Akaroa Harbour and took the paramount chief, Tama-i-hara-nui, hostage. A year later he organised a grand attack on Kaiapoi, the chief centre of the Kai Tahu in Canterbury, and laid siege to it. A strong relieving force of Otago warriors, led by Taiaroa, marched hurriedly into the beleaguered pa, slipped past Te Rauparaha and entered it by night. After a long defence in which he played a leading part, Taiaroa, seeing the hopelessness of the position, escaped with his men to Otago harbour, now the tribal stronghold of Kai Tahu, to prepare a counter-stroke.
In response to Te Rauparaha's first attack in which he conquered and massacred the northern part of the South Island, 350 well-armed warriors, led by Te Whakataupuka and Taiaroa marched northwards and overtook the retreating Ngāti Toa warriors at Te Koko-o-Kupe / Cloudy Bay, near Cook Strait. Here Taiaroa and another young chief, Tūhawaiki, seized Te Rauparaha, only to have the wily chief slip out of his cloak and dive into the sea. He then swam to his canoes. The Kai Tahu claimed a victory; the Ngāti Toa retorted that they had successfully evaded the ambush. The subsequent skirmish at sea proved inconclusive, except that Te Rauparaha escaped. In 1835 Taiaroa, again accompanied by Tūhawaiki who, on Te Whakataupuka's death in that year, had become the paramount chief of Murihiku, organised another large expedition of four hundred men which once more inflicted severe losses upon the Ngāti Toa and their prestige, with that of their chief, had suffered considerably in these encounters with the warriors of southern New Zealand.
Māori belligerence made pākehā nervous and emphasised the tenuousness of trade. In August 1834, the captain of the "Lucy Ann" reported in Sydney that the Māori living beside the Weller brothers whaling station on Otago harbour now treated the pākehā there with the greatest contempt, talked of wiping out all pākehā, and took what they wanted. Their "insolence" grew so much, one captain complained, that "they take from us whatever suits their fancy, such as our clothing. and food from off our very plates – help themselves to oil, in such quantities as they require...". Four captains of whaling vessels complained:
Their own Māori patrons refused to or could not protect them.
Disease now tipped the balance. In September 1835 measles and influenza spread among the southern Kai Tahu and carried off, most notably, Te Whakataupuka. It remains unclear how many died. One European said that the hapu at the mouth of the Tokomairaro River owned nine canoes, but had enough men to crew only one. The whalers often attributed to disease a marked decline in Māori numbers.
But the last act in the intertribal war had not yet taken place. In 1836 Te Puoho, a kinsman of Te Rauparaha, tried to persuade the ageing warrior to march once more against the people of Otago harbour and Murihiku. Te Rauparaha refused and said: "It is easy to burst the tree at the root (Kaiapoi), but harder to burst it at the branches (Murihiku)." "He must not expect the people in the south to be sitting in trees with their breasts open like pigeons facing the sun." Te Rauparaha may have given an official blessing, conditional upon victory. At any rate, in the summer of 1836, Te Puoho led his war-party, about seventy in number, down the West Coast as far as the Awarua River, toiled painfully and crossed the mountains through today's Haast Pass — a miracle of endurance — and, half-famished, moved down the valley of the Makarora River and captured a village at Wanaka. The invaders then proceeded up the Cardrona Valley, crossed the Crown Range and the Kawarau River, using a natural rock bridge, then finally, by following the Nevis and Nokomai Rivers, entered the enemy's heartland, Murihiku. After a short rest to recuperate, they pushed on along the old Māori track that ran over the low hills west of Gore and, soon after crossing the Mataura River, the party reached Tuturau and sacked the village. Unfortunately for the invaders, the whole south soon became aware of the invasion, for Te Puoho did not know that the news of his presence had, despite precautions, been taken to Tūhawaiki at Ruapuke. Nor would he have known that Taiaroa was visiting the island. The two chiefs hastily assembled a force of between 70 and 100 men. The whalers transported the warriors to the mainland. The local pākehā, 'in a state of considerable alarm', prepared to flee at a moment's notice. The unsuspecting Ngāti Toa slept at Tuturau while the Kai Tahu surrounded the village. During the night, the Kai Tahu tohunga summoned up the pulsing heart of Te Puoho, a favourable omen, and in the morning the Kai Tahu quickly defeated the invaders, killing Te Puoho. Taiaroa intervened to save the lives of some of his kin who had helped him to escape Te Rauparaha's clutches during the Siege of Kaiapoi in 1833. At Ruapuke, Bluff and Otago the pākehā and the Kai Tahu celebrated their triumph with enthusiasm and relief.
Thus ignominiously ended the invasion, memorable as the last act of inter-Māori warfare in the South Island. In January 1838, Tūhawaiki and Taiaroa made a sudden march to Queen Charlotte Sound, and in December of the following year, led another war-party in sixteen sealing and four whaling boats, but Te Rauparaha, still smarting from his former humiliations, never again faced the southern warriors. Although these excursions constituted little more than a dramatic demonstration of Kai Tahu rights over Banks Peninsula, they proved that, once and for all, the southerners had overcome their fear of the northerners.
Ngāi Tahu and Christianity.
Tuhawaiki had become the paramount "rangatira" of the Ngāi Tahu and played a decisive role in shaping the future of his people. Born at Taununu, at the mouth of the Matua-a (or Clutha), around 1805 as a nephew of Te Whakataupuka, Tuhawaiki had direct descent from Hautapu-nui-o-tu and from Honekai; he also had an impeccable Ngati Mamoe lineage and close kin-ties with such prominent Pākehā as James Cadell and John Kelly. He had won great mana in both worlds. He had a well-established reputation as a harpooner and sailor, he had an intimate knowledge of Pākehā customs, and in the long campaign against Te Rauparaha he had enhanced his mana. Like his uncle he understood the value of the Pākehā presence and placed them under his mana. Even the truculent Taiaroa obeyed. Unlike his uncle, Tuhawaiki realised that his people could only survive the expansion of European society by borrowing more extensively. He owned a trading ship, built himself a Pākehā house, and dressed like a Pākehā. He encouraged agriculture, traded widely, and appears to have blessed Jones's attempt to colonise the Waikouaiti region. He must also have recognised that the Pākehā presence afforded additional protection against Te Rauparaha. Most Pākehā agreed that he was shrewd, wily and knowledgeable, 'probably one of the most Europeanised Māori...most correctly and completely dressed in white man's clothes, even to the refinement of the cotton pocket handkerchief.'
Tuhawaiki doubtless realised that whaling had transformed the world of his people. Many "kaiks" or villages moved to the vicinity of the whaling-stations (although some may represent foundations by refugees from the Ngati Toa). Large numbers of Māori men worked in the whaling stations while many women lived in "de facto" marriages with Pākehā men. These Māori joined one of the lowest strata of European society, characterised by violence and drunkenness. Observers like Shortland thought relations between the two races were often very good at the whaling stations. Probably no other tribe in New Zealand was so extensively intermarried with and involved in Pākehā society. Possibly nowhere else was the Pākehā so willing to tolerate or adopt Māori customs. Most of the Māori living in the whaling stations dressed like Europeans and during the 1830s acquired an addiction for tobacco and alcohol. But in this they did not differ from the whalers.
Tuhawaiki adopted a threefold strategy for coping with the new world. Firstly, he encouraged the development of skills appropriate to the emergent world of Pākehā and Māori. Secondly, he clearly envisaged the peaceful integration of these two worlds on terms acceptable to the Māori. And thirdly, he recognised the importance of Pākehā religion and the power of the Pākehā "Atua" (or God). Tuhawaiki, widely travelled and knowledgeable in the ways of the Pākehā, possibly ascribed to the Pākehā Atua the role of unifying the two peoples. In accepting James Watkin, the Methodist parson at Waikouaiti, and yet inviting another missionary to Ruapuke, he may have responded to the conversion of his own followers. In any case he travelled to Waikouaiti to hear Watkin's first sermon, asked for a missionary to be sent to Ruapuke, and extended a warm and hospitable welcome to visiting clergy.
During the 1830s Christianity had caught on through much of the North Island. Slaves of the Ngā Puhi in Northland first accepted the Gospel. The news spread fast. Weariness of war, the "mana" of the Bible, and a passion for literacy fuelled the fire. Māori teachers, often self-taught, carried the Word far beyond the zones of the European missionaries. The magic of literacy most dramatically expressed the power of the Pākehā "atua". Bibles, or a few pages from any book, represented a new magic which Māori believed could protect its owner from death in battle, bestow eternal life, ward off sickness, and thus complement the power of traditional karakia (or incantations). Ngāi Tahu sailors must have heard the Word. Northern converts such as Te Rauparaha's son, brought the new Word south. When Watkin arrived at Waikouaiti he found ready a Māori market for his spiritual wares. A large crowd attended his first service and listened attentively ""tho' they could not understand anything that was said". When he printed some Bibles, 'they were eagerly sought after'.
Pākehā magic and the "mana" that one could win by possessing its secret persuaded the southern Māori to turn, in their own way and for their own reasons, to Christianity. When Wohlers arrived at Ruapuke the "tohunga karakia" (or priests) welcomed him as a comrade and explained their theology. The chiefs, led by Tuhawaiki, also adopted the new faith and sponsored traditional Ngāi Tahu teachers for baptism. The tohunga karakia quickly accepted certain elements of the Christian faith, but they, like the young men of inherited mana who patronised Watkin's school, wanted to adapt the new Gospel to the old karakia. These men also wanted to achieve mana as teachers of the Pākehā magic and quickly voiced resentment when the Pākehā "tohunga" started to baptise everyone. Wohlers discovered that both Watkin and Bishop Selwyn had complied with this pressure and for a while the Māori teachers so arranged matters that ""applicants [for Baptism] had to go to them in order to be recommended"."
The Pākehā missionaries then realised that their "mana" as teachers depended on the number of converts they made. Watkin's register of baptisms records the explosive result. In 1841, he baptised two Māori (one of them intended marrying a Pākehā); in 1842 he baptised three Māori; and then in 1843 he baptised 193 and another 158 before leaving in 1844. As many missionaries realised, the Māori transformed Christianity in the process of 'conversion'. To the despair of Watkin, the Māori interpreted the Christian karakia in their own way. Much to the dismay of the practical Wohlers, the strict moral code of the Old Testament proved infectious. When Selwyn preached a 'sermon on contentment with one's lot' the Māori stopped producing food and trade with American whalers fell off abruptly; ""the pigs ate the potatoes, the Māori ate the pigs, and there was nothing left"."
At Waikouaiti and Moeraki the Māori refused to work on Sundays. Not only did the Māori shape the Christian message to their own beliefs, but they found in the denominational structure a familiar world. The different churches proved perfect instruments for sustaining traditional rivalries and animosities while learning Pākehā ways. Because the Ngati Toa became Anglican, most of the prominent Ngāi Tahu joined the Wesleyans. Some villages acknowledged the mana of each denomination's Atua. Very small "kaiks" sometimes built two churches and two schools and the chief at Moeraki made part of his hapu Catholic, part Anglican, and part traditional. Among the Māori the generosity and mana of the Pākehā tohunga counted for much. The Roman Catholic Bishop, Jean Baptiste Pompallier visited the south in 1840, and poor Watkin watched his flock transfer allegiance to the Papist. The worried Wesleyan confided in his journal: ""Their mode of worship and wonderful legends would lead me to fear that Popery would prevail over Protestantism"." The local Māori, probably with a strong leavening of northern refugees, flocked to the new tohunga. His robes and vestments attracted much favourable comment, the pomp of Catholic ritual and liturgy impressed, and some Māori told Watkin to his face that they regretted his 'plain dress and equally plain mode of conducting religious worship'. Pompallier baptised freely, unlike the prudent Protestants, and responded with tolerance to Māori dance and tattooing. To Watkin's horror, Bishop Pompallier even told the local Māori that Hine, the wife of Maui, was the Virgin Mary. The Catholic Church lacked the resources to capitalise upon the Bishop's success and the Wesleyans, left to themselves, regained the lost ground. But allegiances remained volatile. When Selwyn, walking south, swam a flooded river, an entire village joined his church.
European colonisation and New Zealand's leading province (1840–1900).
The Treaty did not at first have much significance in Otago, the Crown even initially declared the area uninhabited so as to make its signing irrelevant. However land-sales and European immigration plans occurred in its wake, making the treaty a turning point in Otago's History.
Land sales and the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.
In the 1830s and 1840s the Māori of Otago and Murihiku, possibly anxious for a strong Pākehā presence, agreed to sell many of their traditional lands. Back in 1833, a further sale of Murihiku land had taken place when Joseph Weller acquired from Te Whakataupuka the whole of Te Picamoke (Stewart Island) and two adjacent islands for one hundred pounds.
In 1838, Tuhawaiki, accompanied by four chiefs, visited Sydney and sold enormous tracts of land "with all the solemnity of archaic phraseology and legal circumlocution". Sydney speculators pursued the golden future with an enthusiasm which increased in intensity with the prospect of British annexation of New Zealand. On 14 January 1840, Governor George Gipps of New South Wales issued a proclamation forbidding future sales, unless to the Crown, and warned that commissioners would investigate all titles already claimed and that, where appropriate, Crown grants would validate them. One month later, on 15 February 1840 during a second visit to Sydney, Tuhawaiki, Karetai and three subordinate chiefs, Kaikoarare, Taikawa and Poneke signed an agreement which "sold" the "Island of Te Waipounamu, also called the Middle Island of new Zealand, also the island called Stewarts island... together with all seas, harbours, coasts, bays, inlets, rivers, lakes, waters, mines, minerals, fisheries, woods, forests, liberties, franchises, profits, hereditaments... save and except such portions of the said island as have been already disposed of.. . and also the island of Robuchi". The purchase was made partly by cash payments and partly by annuities. Tuhawaiki signed for "One hundred pounds of lawful British money and an annuity of fifty pounds a year during the term of his natural life." Hence by February 1840, every acre in Otago and Murihiku, as indeed in the entire South Island, had apparently been alienated by the Māori to hopeful speculators who gambled on receiving from the Crown some title commensurate with the expenses they alleged had been incurred.
The highly questionable nature of these transactions became more evident after Captain William Hobson arrived at the Bay of Islands on 29 January 1840 to win from the Māori allegiance to the British Crown. Then followed two proclamations, the second stating that Her Majesty could not acknowledge as valid any titles of land which were not derived from, or confirmed by the Crown. After the northern chiefs had signed the Treaty, Captain Nias set sail for the south in on 29 April and it was not until June that British Sovereignty over the South Island was proclaimed on Stewart Island. On 9 June HMS "Herald" called at Ruapuke and Major Thomas Bunbury, who was collecting signatures for the Treaty of Waitangi, recorded that "Tuhawaiki, who had recently returned from Sydney enriched by the spoils of commerce, came on board in full dress staff uniform of a British aide-de-camp, with gold laced trousers and cocked hat and plume in which he looked extremely well, accompanied by a native dress sergeant dressed in a corresponding costume." Tuhawaiki signed the Treaty without hesitation, his example being followed by Kakoura and Taiaroa who were also at Ruapuke at the time. Tuhawaiki also had a bodyguard of 20 men, all dressed in British uniforms, although they refused to wear boots.
Scottish settlement scheme.
The New Zealand Company purchased the Otago block from Ngāi Tahu dignitaries on 31 July 1844 for £2,400 and gained legal title in 1847, opening the way for large-scale European settlement in Otago on Wakefield lines. The settlement was planned to be named New Edinburgh but instead the local name Otago (a variant of Ōtākou) was used. George Rennie and William Cargill, both from Scotland, along with the Free Church of Scotland were the initial backers of the settlement. The Free Church had split in 1843 in protest at landowners having power over the nomination of ministers.
The first wave of settlement came of two ships (from Greenock on the Firth of Clyde), the "John Wickliffe", arrived in 1848, and the "Philip Laing" arrived three weeks latter but with twice the passengers. Early immigrants came from Scotland's lowlands as the worst of the highland clearances had occurred decades before. The land of Dunedin had already been divided up and settlers had drawn lots in Scotland to define the picking order. About half of those to arrive were from the Free Church. Of the 12,000 immigrants who were to follow in the 1850s about 75% were Scottish. This can be determined from the diary and informal census of the Reverend Thomas Burns.
William Cargill (first superintendent 1853–1860) and Thomas Burns (both Scottish) were the leaders of the new settlement, however, a number of Englishmen also had positions of power. John Turnbull Thomson was an English surveyor at this time and named many of Otago's landmarks. Otago's other coastal port of Oamaru was laid out in 1858 and its streets were named after British rivers. Some settlers arrived as assisted immigrants. James McNeil, on the site of Balclutha and the Provincial Government established a ferry service across the Clutha in 1857.
The mores of the settlement included a mix of conservative values from the free church, such as the Sabbath Ordinance enforcing no games or work on Sunday, and the decadence of a new colony. At this time free primary education was introduced and Otago started its long debate about the consumption of alcohol.
Most agricultural exports were sold to south east Australia during their gold rush. Sheep farming was introduced, with half a million by 1861. Land was commonly leased to farmers and wages were higher than in Scotland. Some of the run holders began to venture inland to create large stations around Lake Wakatipu and Wanaka. However central Otago would not be fully colonised until after the Otago gold rush.
By 1849 it was starting to be felt by Ngāi Tahu that the crown had defaulted on its obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi. This included those in Otago, and resulted in a claim being made against the crown. The claim cited three main areas where the crown had failed to fulfill its obligations, building schools and hospitals, setting aside 10% of the land as reserve and providing access to food gathering resources. Ngāi Tahu took the case to court in 1868 but no decision could be reached, in part due to a lack of political will by the crown. The claim was to continue to be unresolved for more than hundred years and by the end of the century fewer than 2000 Ngāi Tahu lived on tribal land.
Gold rush period 1861–1870).
While of no direct value to Maori, gold was highly prized by Europeans as a means of exchange and in the production of jewelry. Therefore, when it was first discovered by Europeans in Otago (near the modern town of Lawrence in 1861) it had a profound positive effect on the economy and immigration of the then tiny colony. The Lindis gold rush was slightly earlier involved about 300 miners but was over in a few months. Dunedin soon became the largest city in New Zealand and transport networks and townships expanded into the interior.
In 1862 the gold rush expanded to across inland Otago to Cromwell and Arrowtown. Queenstown, originally a sheep station come hotel became a thriving town. In 1863 new finds were made closer to the coast in the Taieri River catchment. 1863 also saw the peak of the gold rush, with about 22,000 people living in the gold fields. In the 1860s Otago earned £10 million from gold but only £3.57 million from sheep. Water sluicing races extended the life of the diggings but also had a destructive effect on the landscape and soil. After 1864 there were no more discoveries drawing prospectors from overseas. In 1865 Dunedin's wealth and the disruptive wars in the North Island lead Otago to support a failed resolution in the General Assembly for independence from the North Island.
In 1866 Chinese immigrants came to Otago with the support of local businesses. They were to work in the gold mines and experienced legislated racism from other immigrants.
When New Zealand provinces were formed in 1853, the southern part of New Zealand belonged to Otago Province. Settlers in Murihiku, the southernmost part of the South Island purchased from Māori in 1853 by Walter Mantell, petitioned the government for separation from Otago. Petitioning started in 1857, and the Province of Southland was proclaimed in 1861. As the new province of Southland started to accumulate debt by the late 1860s, it became part of the Otago Province again in 1870.
Refrigerated exports and development of the interior (1870–1900).
Due to the gold rush by 1870 one quarter of New Zealanders lived in Otago and one third of exports came from there. In 1881 Dunedin was New Zealand's largest urban centre. The gold mining population with many new Irish and English immigrants shifted the province away from Scottish dominance. The Long Depression was a worldwide economic recession, beginning in 1873 and running either through the spring of 1879, or 1896, depending on the metrics used. In Otago this came soon after the end of the Gold Rush, however by 1882 pastoralism and the associated frozen-meat industry was able to send refrigerated loads to Britain. This lessened the effect of the depression and allowed for continued economic growth in Otago.
The main export product was wool and lamb. However, in the 1880s erosion, rabbits and scab caused problems for sheep farmers. The first refrigerated shipment to Britain was in 1882 and left Port Chalmers (Oamaru?) on the "SS Elderslie." This led to meat-freezing works being established near Dunedin (Burnside) and in Oamaru and Balclutha (Finegand). The forced subdivision of Otago's large holding soon followed between 1895 and 1909 in North Otago 15 runs became 540 farms. The hot summers and cold winters were good for orcharding which developed in Central Otago from the late 19th century.
In order to support agriculture a rail network was built throughout Otago. Starting in Dunedin in 1889, reaching Hyde by 1894, Clyde in 1907 and Cromwell in 1921. While the gold rush diminished less labour-intensive gold mining became more common. From the 1880s quartz mining (instead of alluvium) became possible, while massive dredges continued to work the old deposits. These dredges also inspired the first hydro electric power station at Bullendale near Queenstown in 1886. This gold boom peaked between 1890–1900 but put a lot of individual prospectors out of business.
The 1893 Women's Suffrage Petition was the second of two mass petitions to the New Zealand Government in support of women's suffrage. About one third of Dunedin women signed the petition, a higher percentage than any other city. In 1889 New Zealand's first women's trade union (the Tailoresses) was founded in Dunedin. From the late 1880s onwards worker activists and middle-class reformers investigated poor working conditions in Dunedin and around Otago. Labour manifestos in the 1880s demanded the exclusion of Chinese as they were seen as working for low wages. In August 1890 the Maritime Council went on strike in sympathy with Australian maritime unionists. “ In 1894 Clutha went dry followed by the Oamaru district in 1905 and Bruce in 1922 and in 1917 6pm closing was introduced for pubs. Otago sent men to fight in the Boer War in South Africa. This was the first of many overseas military operations that mean from Otago took part in.
Several major floods have occurred on the Clutha, most notably the "Hundred year floods" of 14–16 October 1878 and 13–15 October 1978. The 1878 flood is regarded as New Zealand's greatest known flood. During this, a bridge at Clydevale was washed downstream, where it collided with the Balclutha Road Bridge, destroying the latter.
Bendix Hallenstein, came from Australia in the 1860s started his retail business in Queenstown and then Dunedin from the early 1880s. By the 1900s he was trading New Zealand wide.
The first the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition in 1889–90 was a high point of Dunedin economic and cultural importance. The large scale tourist potential of Otago had been acknowledged since at least the 1870s in McKay's Otago Almanac. With the building of the Dunedin to Kingston railway in the late 1870s this potential could be realised. By the early 1900s Summer tourism around Lake Wakatipu had been full established.
Stagnation and renewal (1900-today).
In the early 20th century a number of events occurred that are traditionally seen as part of New Zealand's shift towards independence. New Zealand passed on a chance to become part of Australia in 1901. In 1907 the United Kingdom granted New Zealand "Dominion" status within the British Empire, the high death toll from the First World War and in 1920 New Zealand joined the League of Nations as a sovereign state. Other regions particularly in the North Island also begin to overtake Otago's population and economic importance at this time.
The wars and depression (1900–1945).
Otago had a slow start to the new century, followed by two world wars and a depression. In 1920 sheep numbers in Otago were the same as in 1880, with rabbits, erosion and distance from world markets continuing to be a problem. Farming initially expanded rapidly into forested areas. However, in the Catlins especially many were uneconomic and returned to forest or scrub.
With the outbreak of the First World War the Otago Infantry Regiment was formed. Along with the Otago Mounted Rifles Regiment they served at Gallipoli in 1915, before being moved to the Western Front from 1916 until the end of the war. Eight hundred women formed the Otago and Southland's Women's Patriotic Association in 1914, which supported the overseas troops. Four thousand Otago men died during the war and when it ended and the troops returned, the Spanish flu struck between September and November in 1918.
By 1923 Dunedin was New Zealand's fourth largest city and the opening of the Panama Canal (1914) had diverted global trade from the South Pacific. In response to this economic stagnation Dunedin launched the second New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition in 1925. Dunedin grew slowly during this time with a slight decline during the depression, when Dunedin's population fell by 3,000 to 82,000.
The labour movement was slower to get organised in Otago than in other regions. During the Depression of the 1930s unemployed workers were sent to the gold workings in Otago and in exchange for 30 shillings a week could keep some of the gold they found. In the 1932 depression there were riots in Dunedin, stores and cars were vandalised, food packages then given to unemployed.
Feeding Britain and social change (1945–1973).
After the war, with Britain's demand for food and better farming practices Otago experienced increased prosperity. This led to urban growth throughout Otago. Oamaru's population increased by 75%, Balclutha's doubled, and Alexandra's and Mosgiel's tripled. Dunedin's quickly returned to its pre-depression population. By 1946 there were 100 rabbit boards given the responsibility of controlling rabbits on farmland.
Large electric power stations were built on the Waitaki (Aviemore 1968) and Clutha (1956–62) rivers, and a container terminal at Port Chalmers (1971, first container shipment). More recent projects, however, were met with protest due to environmental concerns. The save Manapouri campaign from 1959–1972 and cost overruns on the Clyde Dam made future large projects more challenging. These projects did however, lead to population growth in the surrounding towns,
In 1960 commercial jet boat rides started operating in the Queenstown area. This together with a rope tow on Coronet Peak (1947) and the building of hiking huts made the Queenstown and lakes district a center for year-round tourism. In 1967 10pm closing came back in for pubs
All alone in the world (1973-today).
Otago continued to export most of its produce to the United Kingdom until the 1970s. This began to change when the United Kingdom joined the European Community in 1973 and abrogated its preferential trade agreements with New Zealand. This, along with several international oil shocks and a reactionary government, led to severe economic disruption and hardship in Otago. The (centre-left) Labour government counter-intuitively opted for open market (neo-liberal) reforms to make New Zealand more competitive in the international market place. This led to a shift away from the primary sector. Woollen mills at Kaikorai Valley, Milton and Mosgiel closed in 1957, 1999 and 2000 respectively.
Several counties were amalgamated in 1989 to form the Region of Otago. This was smaller than the 19th century Otago Province, which had included Fiordland and Stewart Island.
Queenstown's primary industry became tourism, including wine tasting and golf, and adventure sports such as skiing, jet boating, rafting, and bungee jumping. A shift from sheep to dairy farming began in Otago, which was more intensive of water and power resources. The old railway was converted into a bike trail for tourists from 2000.
The National Party supported a controversial aluminium smelter at Aramoana, whose requirement for electric power was one justification for the Clyde Dam. Similar environmental concerns have been raised for wind turbines on Otago's mountain ranges. The Alcoholic Liquor Advisory Council (ALAC)) was formed in 1976. Beer went on sale in supermarkets in 1999, and the drinking age was lowered from 20 to 18.
Ngāi Tahu's claim from the late 1840s was recognised by the Waitangi Tribunal in 1991 and negotiations between the Crown and Ngāi Tahu followed that same year in response. The Tribunal stated that they "cannot avoid the conclusion that in acquiring from Ngāi Tahu 34.5 million acres, more than half the land mass of New Zealand, for £14,750 pounds, and leaving them with only 35,757 acres, the Crown acted unconscionably and in repeated breach of the Treaty of Waitangi".
Court battles continued, but with the intervention of the Prime Minister, Mr Jim Bolger, a non-binding agreement was signed in 1996. This was followed by the signing of the Deed of Settlement in 1997, and the passage of the Ngāi Tahu Claim Settlement Act in 1998. The main points agreed to by the crown were to allow Ngāi Tahu to express its traditional relationship with the environment, to issue an apology, grant Ngāi Tahu $170 million and return ownership of pounamu. To enroll as a beneficiary of Ngāi Tahu claim prospective tribe members must prove descent from those members alive in 1848. The list of 1848 living members (the 'Blue Book') was put together in the late 1800s when the fulfillment of the claim seemed imminent.
Planned hydro power plants on the Clutha and Waitaki rivers were stopped. However, a number of wind farms have been built throughout Otago. The Mahinerangi Wind Farm was built in 2011 while a project in the Lammermoor Range was cancelled in 2012 due to complications in the environment and high courts.


Coal mining in the Black Country

Coal mining played an important part in the history of the Black Country, an area of the United Kingdom. It was the basis for the area's industrial development. Without coal there was no power for its industries.
In the nineteenth century commentators spoke of this region as a great coalfield, and of the "earth turned inside out" by all the mining activity. However, the mines were not the large scale operations that we know of today. They were small rough and ready pits similar to the Racecourse Colliery at Black Country Living Museum. There were as many as five or six hundred small pits like this in the Black Country.
Coal Mine Beginnings.
A small pit like the Racecourse Colliery would usually start up in the following way: a few men would get together and rent the mineral rights from whoever owned them; in this area that was usually the Earl of Dudley. This gave them the right to mine a few acres of land for whatever minerals lay under the ground, rather like an underground small-holding. These would be working men, probably miners themselves, who had saved the money from their wages to make this small investment. Alternatively, the Earl of Dudley could mine the coal himself and appoint an agent or a manager to run his pit for him.
The first stage of opening the mine was to dig the shaft. Initially a small makeshift frame would be used to shift the spoil, but as the shaft grew deeper a proper head frame would be erected over it with a winch to raise and lower the bowk. This was eventually replaced by a cage.
A sinking winding engine would be established in a temporary corrugated iron engine house very similar to the one onsite at the Black Country Living Museum. The sinking winder, powered by a steam engine, was used to re-open a shaft at the Black Country Living Museum in the same way that 90 or 100 years ago they would have opened a new shaft. The miners digging out the shaft were lowered down in the bowk. The bowk then removed the spoil as it was dug out, and the circular shaft was lined with brickwork.
The spoil from the shaft was emptied into the tipping wagon which was then pushed along the spoil heap on the tracks to the end where it was tipped off, thus forming the characteristic 'finger' spoil heaps of most small Black country pits. The rocky waste and clay was known as 'tocky'. The machine also on the rails behind the spoil wagon is an early electrical coal cutter the arm extending from the front moved through an arc and cut a corresponding arc in the coal seam which then allowed the coal to drop down in big lumps. One the shaft was established the sinking engine would either be dismantled and sold on or kept to use in an emergency.


Brazil Iron

Brazil Iron is an English private company, whose Brazilian subsidiary is located in Piatã, Bahia. Its main business is the production and sale of iron ore, in addition to the research of manganese.
The company was founded after the acquisition of mining rights in the state of Bahia between 2011 and 2017. Brazil Iron has a total of 25 tenements in Brazil, with an area of 433 km².
History.
Brazil Iron and its Brazilian subsidiary were founded to produce and sell iron ore goods such as lump, sinter feed and pellet feed. The company was formed after the acquisition of mining rights in Brazil between 2011 and 2017.
Operation.
Brazil Iron currently has 3 tenements with a further 22 tenements currently being developed into exploration targets. The deposits contain more than 590 million tonnes of exploration targets of iron ore with geological potential for 2 billion tonnes, plus over 5 million tonnes of targets for manganese.
The company's operation is concentrated in the state of Bahia, with access to five highways, two railways (Ferrovia de Integração Oeste-Leste and Ferrovia Centro-Atlântica) and two ports (Porto de Aratu and Porto Sul, currently under construction) for outflow and foreign trade.
Brazil Iron is currently drilling the Mocó tenement, which has a capacity of 2 mtpa, already supplied trial shipments to Spain, Netherlands and China. Over 90% of the areas of geological potential are unexplored.
The company has already invested over US$ 100 million in its Brazilian operation and plans to invest another US$200 million until 2023.


B2Gold

B2Gold Corporation is a Canadian mining company that owns and operates gold mines in Mali, Namibia and the Philippines. The company is headquartered in Vancouver, and was founded in 2007, and was then listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, then later listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the Namibian Stock Exchange. The company was formed by several executives from Bema Gold following its acquisition by Kinross Gold. The company built itself up through mergers with several other mining companies, including Central Sun Mining, CGA Mining, Auryx Gold and Papillon Resources to give it five operating mines, two of which have been divested, and several exploration properties.
History.
B2Gold was founded in 2007 by Clive T. Johnson and other former executives at Bema Gold which was in the process of being acquired by Kinross Gold for $3.5 billion. The terms of the deal allowed the newly created B2Gold to take Bema Gold's exploration properties in Colombia and Russia. Their initial public offering in December 2007 on the Toronto Venture Exchange raised $100 million for exploration and valuation purposes. In 2008, the exploration company graduated to the Toronto Stock Exchange.
In 2009, the B2Gold became a gold producer with its acquisition of the TSX-listed, and financially distressed company, Central Sun Mining. This all-stock deal, estimated to be valued at $67 million, gave B2Gold its first two mines, El Limon and La Libertad both in Nicaragua. The company produced 21,200 ounces of gold in 2009 up to 157,885 ounces in 2012.
B2Gold added a third mine, in 2012, with its merger with ASX-listed CGA Mining. The deal gave B2Gold the Masbate mine in the Philippines and CGA Mining shareholders received 38% of the combined company. Around this time, in 2013, B2Gold also acquired Volta Resources in an all-stock deal worth US$63 million for its Burkina Faso exploration properties, and lost an exploration property in Rancho Grande (El Pavón), Nicaragua, due to community opposition. With three operating mines, B2Gold produced 366,000 ounces of gold in 2013 and 391,000 ounces in 2014.
B2Gold's fourth mine came from the development of the Otjikoto project, acquired in its 2011 merger with TSX-listed Auryx Gold which gave Auryx shareholders 10% of the combined company. the Otjikoto mine in Namibia achieved commercial production in February 2015. With the four mines, the company produced 493,265 ounces of gold in 2015 and 550,423 ounces in 2016.
Their fifth mine was developed from the Fekola property in Mali acquired with B2Gold's merger with ASX-listed Papillon Resources. The 2014 deal, with an estimated value of US$570 million, gave Papillon shareholders 26% of the combined company,
and resulted in the Fekola mine beginning production in November 2017. The five mines resulted in the company producing approximately 960,000 ounces of gold in both 2018 and 2019. The company sold its assets in Nicaragua to Vancouver-based mineral exploration company Calibre Mining.
Operations.
As of 2020, B2Gold has three operating mines:


Olimpiyskoye mine

The Olimpiyskoye mine is a large iron mine located in eastern Russia in the Sakha Republic. Olimpiyskoye represents one of the largest iron ore reserves in Russia and in the world having estimated reserves of 900 million tonnes of ore grading 28% iron metal.


Vishnyakovskoe mine

The Vishnyakovskoe mine is one of the largest lithium mines in Russia. The mine is located in southern Russia in Irkutsk Oblast. The Vishnyakovskoe mine has reserves amounting to 42 million tonnes of lithium ore grading 0.49% lithium thus resulting 0.2 million tonnes of lithium.


Richard Budge

Richard John Budge (19 April 1947 – 18 July 2016) was a coal mining entrepreneur and chairman of The Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisations.
Early life.
He went to Boston Grammar School in Lincolnshire. He studied Fine Arts at the University of Manchester.
Career.
He entered the coal mining industry when he joined the company of Retford-based (on "West Carr Road") A.F. Budge, owned by his brother Tony (1939–2010), which ran opencast mines. It was also involved in civil engineering schemes such as building the new £3.2m A638 Redhouse interchange on the A1(M) north of Doncaster in 1979; junctions 4–6 of the A1(M) in 1973; and junctions 1–3 of the M621 in 1975; the M181 and a section of the M180 near Scunthorpe in 1978. The company also sponsored the December Gold Cup horse race at Cheltenham Racecourse from 1988 to 1991.
In February 1992, Richard Budge bought the opencast coal and Plant division from the family business with venture capital backing from Schroder Ventures for circa £103m, a transaction approved by Charterhouse Ventures and Prudential Ventures which were preference shareholders of AF Budge. A.F. Budge, was majority owned by his elder brother Tony Budge.
RJB Mining.
When the UK coal industry was privatised in 1994, Budge bought most of the pits for £815m, forming RJB Mining, which he had started in 1992 after buying his brother's opencast business division for £102.5m. This led to Budge being christened "King Coal". He bought three out of five packages of the UK coal industry (17 deep mine pits) on 30 December 1994 for around £700m. At the time there were 19 deep mines left in the UK. The last of these remaining deep mine pits, Kellingley Colliery, would close on 18 December 2015.
When the Labour government came to power, Budge informed the government that ten pits would have to close unless he secured long-term contracts from the electricity generators National Power and Powergen (now called E.ON UK). In 2000, he attempted to sell off its pits to the American Renco Group.
On 14 July 2001 he quit as CEO of RJB Mining. It became known as UK Coal.
Coalpower.
He formed the company, Coalpower, in 2001. It bought the Hatfield Colliery, at Stainforth, in April 2004 from Hatfield Coal Company, helped by £7m of state aid. In late 2003, Coalpower went into administration.
Powerfuel.
His company, Powerfuel, was 48% owned by Budge and 52% owned by KRU, Russia's second biggest coal company. In April 2007, he re-opened the pit at Stainforth, at a cost of £100m, financed by £50m from VTB Bank. It is part of the Barnsley Seam with around 27m tonnes of coal reserves. A£1.2bn 900MW clean-coal IGCC power station, known as the Hatfield IGCC Project, is to be built next to the colliery. ING took control of all the assets in December 2010.
Personal life.
In 1968 he married to Rosalind White and lived at Wiseton in north Nottinghamshire near Gringley-on-the-Hill, close to the A631. He was a member of the Worshipful Company of Fuellers. They had two sons (born 1969 and 1971). Since the late 1960s he had lived in north Nottinghamshire.
Richard Budge passed away on 18 July 2016 in Retford, Nottinghamshire due to prostate cancer.


Overtown, North Lanarkshire

Overtown is a village in North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It has a population of 2,500. It is located to the east of the River Clyde, about south of Wishaw. Originally developed as a mining village in the 19th century, its population declined after the closure of the coal mines and the associated railways in the 1950s.
The village only has a few buildings of note, Clyde Valley High School, which is located to the North-West, and Overtown Primary School. Overtown also has a community centre, a parish Church which serves as a focal point for the community and a small number of independent shops and takeaway restaurants. A "First Glasgow" (the former "Hutchison") bus depot is located in the village.
The A71 road, that links Edinburgh with Ayrshire, passes through Overtown. The road is the main street of the village. It is located on the edge of the Clyde Valley, and is only away from Garrion Bridge. The West Coast Main Line also passes through the village, but no passenger service trains stop there.


Taymyrsky mine

The Taymyrsky mine is a large copper mine in the center of Russia in Krasnoyarsk Krai. Taymyrsky represents one of the largest copper reserves in the world, having estimated reserves of of ore grading 3.49% copper.


Emil John Raddatz

Emil John Raddatz (October 5, 1857 in Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia-November 1, 1933 in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States) was a miner, politician, and businessman who shaped Utah's history and its economy. He served as Mayor of Stockton before representing Utah's seventh district in the 1st State Legislature. Raddatz was President, Treasurer and General Manager of the Tintic Standard Mining Company and President and Treasurer of Duluth & Utah Development Company.
Raddatz was one of the five sons of Otto Casemere Raddatz and Wilhelmina C. Lange. He immigrated to the U.S. from Stettin, now in Poland, in 1869 with his family. They lived in Wentzville, Missouri. In about 1870, his mother died and in 1872, so did his father. He worked as a grocery bagger until 1879, when he moved to Silver Cliff, Colorado and then San Juan. He moved from there to Mexico in 1883, and lived there for a year. In 1884, he moved to Ouray's Red Mountain mining district. He lived there until 1887, when he moved to Stockton, Utah. In Stockton, he managed Calumet, Muscatine, and Silver King mines and began working for the Honerine Mining Company. He later served in an advisorial role for Honerine.
Family.
Raddatz married Emma Henrietta Guth, daughter of Joseph and Elizabeth Guth, on June 4, 1890. They had five children: Pearl, Flora, Eunice, Harold, and Lucille.


Rio Tinto Coal Australia

Rio Tinto Coal Australia (RTCA) is an Australian coal mining organisation, and is part of the worldwide Rio Tinto Group. In Queensland, RTCA operates the Blair Athol, Hail Creek, Kestrel and Clermont mines. In New South Wales, RTCA manages Coal & Allied's operations at Mount Thorley Warkworth, Hunter Valley Operations and Bengalla.
RTCA Operations.
RTCA Queensland Operations.
Blair Athol Mine.
Blair Athol Mine, located in the Bowen Basin in Central Queensland, north-west of the township of Clermont, supplied customers in Asia and Europe with up to 12 million tonnes of coal per annum.
Blair Athol Mine took its name from the historic grazing property, Blair Athol Station, named by pastoralist James McLaren, in honour of his Scottish birthplace. Coal was originally discovered on the site in 1864, however it was a century later that the true worth of the resource was realised, with the first commercial shipments of coal despatched in May 1984 to Japan.
Blair Athol Mine closed on Friday 23 November 2012, after its reserves were mined out. Its stockpile and train facilities will be used by the Clermont Mine, currently under development to the east.
Rio Tinto Coal Australia managed the operation on behalf of the joint venture partners – Rio Tinto (57.2 per cent), Leichhardt Coal Pty Ltd, owned by UniSuper, Rio Tinto and J-Power (31.4 per cent), and Japanese power utilities EPDC Australia Pty Ltd (8 per cent) and JCD Australia Pty Ltd (3.4 per cent).
The former mine site will take up to 6 years to rehabilitate, when Rio tinto will get a $84 million bond back.
Clermont Mine.
In January 2007, Rio Tinto Coal Australia announced the development of the $950 million, 190 million tonne thermal coal deposit in Clermont. The mine is estimated to cost A$950 million. The Clermont Mine is currently under construction, and is located east of the current Blair Athol Mine, in the Bowen Basin region of Central Queensland.
When the mine reaches full capacity (expected in 2013), it will produce up to 12.2 million tonnes of high quality thermal coal. It is expected to have a life of about 17 years. Clermont Mine will employ around 400 people in the construction phase and approximately 380 during operations. Operations recruitment commenced mid-2007 and will continue through 2008 and 2009.
Rio Tinto Coal Australia's joint venture partners in the open cut mine are Mitsubishi Development Pty Ltd (31.4 per cent), J-Power Australia Pty Ltd (15 per cent) and JCD Australia Pty Ltd (3.5 per cent).
Hail Creek Mine.
Hail Creek Mine is located north west of Nebo and south west of Mackay in the Bowen Basin. It produces up to 8 million tonnes of high quality coking coal used in steel production.
Hail Creek's resources were discovered in 1968 and project feasibility work progressed in the 1970s. In 2001 the decision was made by the joint venture partners to develop the mine. After a two-year planning and construction period Hail Creek Mine was officially opened in 2003.
Rio Tinto Coal Australia manages the operation on behalf of the joint venture partners, Rio Tinto Coal Australia (82 per cent), Nippon Steel Corporation (8 per cent), Marubeni Coal (6.66 per cent), and Sumisho Coal Development (3.34 per cent).
Kestrel Mine.
Kestrel Mine, located in Queensland's Bowen Basin northeast of Emerald and west of Rockhampton, is an underground longwall operation supplying world markets with premium quality high volatile coking coal as well as thermal coal.
Kestrel Mine was previously known as Gordonstone Mine under management by mining company ARCO. Operations commenced in 1992. RTCA purchased an 80% interest in the mine in February 1999. The remaining 20% interest is held by Mitsui Kestrel Coal Investment, which is owned by the Mitsui Group. The mining operation is managed by RTCA.
The name "Kestrel" was selected by a vote of employees in 1999. The nankeen kestrel, a small, slim falcon, is common to the area.
Coal and Allied Industries: RTCA New South Wales Operations.
Coal and Allied Industries Limited is now 80% owned by Rio Tinto, and 20% owned by Mitsubishi Development. Rio Tinto Coal Australia manages Coal & Allied's three operations, located in the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales.
Bengalla.
Bengalla is the newest mine in Coal & Allied's portfolio, located four kilometres west of Muswellbrook in the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales. Development Consent was granted for Bengalla in 1996 and the site commenced production in 1999.
Coal & Allied acquired its interest in Bengalla in 2001, and is the manager of the site on behalf of the joint venture partners.
The current participants and their interest in the joint venture are; CNA Bengalla Illlnvestments Pty Ltd 40 per cent,
Wesfarmers Bengalla Limited 40 per cent, Taipower Bengalla Pty Ltd 10 per cent, Mitsui Bengalla Investments Pty Ltd 10 per cent.
Hunter Valley Operations.
Hunter Valley Operations (HVO) is a multi-seam, multi-pit open cut mining operation located in the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales, northwest of Singleton and from Newcastle.
Production commenced at HVO in 1968 at the current West Pit, which was then part of the Howick mine. The Hunter Valley No. 1 mine began production in 1979. In 2000 Coal & Allied merged the Howick and Hunter Valley mines to create Hunter Valley Operations. The Lemington mine, which began production in 1971, was acquired and merged into Hunter Valley Operations in 2001.
Hunter Valley Operations is 100 per cent owned by Coal & Allied Industries Ltd.
In 2006 HVO won Rio Tinto's CEO Safety Award for most improved performance and in 2007 HVO won Rio Tinto's CEO Safety Award for safety performance.
Sponsorship.
Newcastle Knights.
Coal & Allied have been the major (naming rights) sponsor for the Newcastle Knights Rugby league team in the National Rugby League competition from 2005 to 2011. This sponsorship was ceased at the end of the 2011 season with the sale of the knights to the Hunter Sports Group.
In 2007 the sponsorship was revised and renamed a 'Community Alliance', a partnership arrangement, rather than a sponsorship, designed to identify the genuine needs of communities, particularly those with Indigenous and disadvantaged populations.
Programmes include events, educational and training opportunities, including indigenous student mentoring, junior football clinics, health and wellness programmes for staff and corporate growth opportunities for players beyond the life of their playing careers.
Community contributions.
Rio Tinto Coal Australia operates eight community development funds. Funding applications are assessed by a board, of both Rio Tinto Coal Australia and other community representatives, with the aim of contributing to local communities in a manner that improves their long term sustainability.
Since their inception, Rio Tinto Coal Australia's community development funds have contributed approximately $12 million to the communities in which the company operates. In 2008 Rio Tinto Coal Australia's five operating community development funds approved close to $2 million in funding.
Of this:
28 per cent was for cultural and heritage programmes
28 per cent was for education programmes
16 per cent was for business development programmes
14 per cent was for training and employment programmes
12 per cent was for community benefit programmes, and
1 per cent was for sport and other programmes.
2008 was the final year of funding for four of the funds and towards the end of the year Rio Tinto Coal Australia announced their continuation. This is a commitment of $3 million over three years in each state, Queensland and New South Wales.
In addition, during 2008 and early 2009 Rio Tinto Coal Australia launched three Aboriginal Community Development Funds. The Clermont Aboriginal Community Development Fund, Wiri Yuwiburra Aboriginal Community Benefits Trust and Kestrel Mine Aboriginal Community Development Fund are designed to support projects that work towards providing business, education and training opportunities for the Wiri Yuwiburra, Wangan and Jagalingou and Kangoulu people in Central Queensland.
With the sale of Tarong Mine in early 2008, Rio Tinto Coal Australia no longer operates the Tarong Community Development Fund or the Aboriginal Community Interest Consultative Committee.


Noche Buena mine

The Noche Buena mine is one of the largest silver mines in Mexico and in the world. The mine is located in the center of the country in Zacatecas. The mine has estimated reserves of 1 million oz of gold and 32.4 million oz of silver.Noche Buena translates into English literally as "Good Night", but is typically the term used for the Christmas Eve holiday in Latin American cultures.


203rd Infrastructure Construction Engineer Division

203rd Infrastructure Construction Engineer Division() was activated in February 1972 from 209th Geologic Survey Unit and all other units in Guangdong under the command of the Second Ministry of Machine Building. The division was composed of 9 regiments:
The division was under the command of Guangzhou Military Region. Headquartered in Shaoguan, the division acted as a Uranium-related geologic survey unit in Southern China.
In July 1975 the division was transferred to Infrastructure Construction Engineer Office, Ministry of Second Machine Industry's control.
In May 1978, the division was renamed as 27th Detachment of Infrastructure Construction Engineer(). All its regiments were renamed as follow:
In October 1978 the detachment was transferred to Second Machine Industrial Command, Infrastructure Construction Engineer's control.
On January 1, 1984, the detachment was demobilized and reorganized as Southern Geologic Survey Bureau of the Ministry of Nuclear Industry.