When you publish a report with the title Poverty of Wealth: Why minerals need to be part of the rural economy, it is best to prepare yourself for some strong responses to your work, and to quickly grow a thick skin.

Feedback from green groups, politicians, officials, and the online communities who populate the comments sections of various websites are all obvious sources of critical feedback.

Less obvious, but arguably just as important, is the feedback from peers and the general public.

What does the average New Zealander think about recommendations to cut the red tape hindering resource development in a bid to spur economic development in the rural regions, and to ensure local communities share in a portion of the royalties from this mining?

While we have not done any formal polling, reactions from strangers and friends – and our social circles are hardly limited to the like-minded – serves as a useful yardstick. On the whole, reactions were cautiously positive so long as any mining meets strict environmental standards.

The idea of sharing royalty revenues with local government garnered a more uncertain response, amid fears this would be used to acquire gold-plated mayoral thrones. Yet when you explain how costly, complex, and politically fraught the mining consent process is for local government – even where the project offers clear benefits to the community – this uncertainty gives a little.

Indeed, this cautious positivity was shared among some of the aforementioned critics. Some highly placed members of the green community even accepted that mineral development has a role in the economy, but they wanted it to be environmentally responsible development. Online commenters even engaged in a somewhat real debate about the nature of resources and society, as opposed to the more typical practice of flaming and trolling.

By this measure of cautious acceptance, it seems many New Zealanders are open to the idea of increasing the mineral estate’s contribution to the economy, provided there are sufficient protections in place.

If cutting the red tape - or in this case green tape – can be done without sacrificing these protections, then this is a desirable outcome.

This is base of cautious support, particularly from some sectors of the green community, is a good platform from which to start the second part of the project: identifying the policies changes needed to affect this outcome. It gives us some hope that there is a middle way, a sweetspot where mining development does not come at the expense of nature.