Aramoana Smelter

Independent State of Aramoana Micronation
Flag Seal
Official languages	English
Establishment
• Declared	December 23, 1980
Purported currency	New Zealand Dollar

The Save Aramoana Campaign was formed in 1974 to oppose a proposed aluminium smelter at Aramoana in New Zealand.

In the late 1970s Aramoana was proposed as the site of a major aluminium smelter by a consortium of New Zealand-based Fletcher-Challenge, Australia's CSR Limited and Swiss firm Alusuisse. An aluminium smelter was already operating at Tiwai Point when the smelter at Aramoana was proposed.

From its inception, the Otago Harbour Board had vested in it for harbour purposes,land on the Northern side of the Otago Harbour entrance. This included a quarry for rock to build the mole that protected the entrance; the village, originally housing workers on the mole, and later leased out for holiday homes; a large area of salt marsh; and adjacent dry-land leased out for rough grazing.

After the Comalco Aluminium Smelter was opened at Bluff's Tiwai Point in 1971, Otago interests sought a similar project in 1974 on the OHB land at Aramoana. It was not well founded, and was withdrawn in the face of modest opposition.

That opposition remained alert to any unusual activity on the OHB land, and when surveyors were seen on the flats over the summer of 1979-80 conservation interests began to organize what became the Save Aramoana Campaign.

At the time the site was included in the Waikouaiti District Scheme, under zoning provisions of dubious legality and which a planner/economist with the campaign took to court for a declaratory judgment as to their legality. This had the effect of placing the whole project sub judice, and therefore unable to proceed. It cost $50.00 to lodge that action with the court, and when it became clear that the project would not be able to quietly proceed under the existing rules, the entire campaign for and against the smelter was thrust into the public arena.