Mount Burnett is a hill in Kahurangi National Park, in Golden Bay / Mohua, New Zealand.

Location

Mount Burnett has given its name to the Burnett Range, the range that forms the north-west border of the valley in which the Aorere River flows. At , it is not the highest peak (there is an unnamed peak of in the range) but it is the highest named peak. The locality at the foot of Mount Burnett on the Aorere River flats is known as Ferntown. The nearest sizeable settlement is Collingwood to the south-east of Mount Burnett.

Geography

The mountain hosts an unusual geography, and a number of species of

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

s and sedge are endemic to this mountain, and it is host to a large population of the critically endangered ''

Powelliphanta gilliesi gilliesi ''Powelliphanta gilliesi'', one of the "amber snails", is a species of large, carnivorous land snail, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusc in the family Rhytididae. Distribution This species is endemic to the West Nelson area of the ...

'' subspecies of giant land snails.

Geology and mining

Geological surveys by European colonists identified the presence of the raw materials needed for hydraulic cement in Golden Bay / Mohua. In 1882, a cement works was established in Ferntown. This was done by the company that operated the coal mine at Mount Burnett. In the following year, the company imported machinery for the large-scale production of Portland cement but soon afterwards, it ran out of capital and the cement production was stopped. Mount Burnett is home to an

open-cast Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mining ...

dolomite mine, operated by Sollys Transport, a local Golden Bay company. The Mount Burnett dolomite mine is the only source of the mineral, an important agricultural fertiliser, in New Zealand. The mine employs about 20 people. Some of the dolomite is shipped via

Port Tarakohe Tarakohe, in older sources referred to as Terekohe, is a locality in the Tasman District of New Zealand's upper South Island, located east of Pōhara in Golden Bay. Demographics Tarakohe corresponds to meshblock 2346707, which has an area of ...

. An extension to the mine was declined by the Minister for Conservation, Chris Carter, in 2004. Mining is opposed by environmental groups including Forest & Bird.

Footnotes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burnett, Mount Mountains of the Tasman District Kahurangi National Park Golden Bay