Mfakeyi Makayi

Sounds Air is cutting back two regional services, blaming out-of-control costs.

From the end of September, it will no longer fly Blenheim to Christchurch or Christchurch to Wanaka.

This follows the withdrawal of the Wellington to Taupo and Wellington to Westport sectors in December last year.

I was born and raised in Zambia, a country known for its rich copper-binding history.

Alignment of the stars meant that by birth and by science, I became a miner.

Everything we build and use was either grown or mined.

From the walls to the windows, the tables and the chairs, your phones, your computers, the stage, my copper earrings and maybe your jewelry.

So today, when we talk about building a circular economy, we mean we need to electrify everything.

Our economies will have cars and trucks, robots, drones and aircraft powered by batteries.

Our children will need computers in all schools with equal access, and we'll have data centers full of advanced chips to bring us AI, all sourced by abundant sources of renewable energy.

The raw materials we'll need will be recyclable, so we can become clean and circular.

So that means a lot more lithium, copper, cobalt, nickel and others.

So we need to build more than 400 new mines by 2040 for us to become circular.

But before you can build a mine, you have to find the raw materials.

The thing is, today's mining industry leaders are doing too little to advance our qualities of life.

In other industries that rely on discovery for growth, like pharmaceuticals and technology, for every dollar they return to shareholders, they spend about a dollar in R&D.

In mining, however, for every dollar returned to shareholders, less than a penny is spent in exploration.

With such underinvestment, it shouldn't surprise you that the technology used in exploration and mining has barely advanced.

In fact, we've gotten 10 times worse in the last 30 years at making ore body discoveries.

But there's good news.