BOI to host national resource management conference

Changing landscapes – political and literal – will be top of the agenda when about 170 delegates from across New Zealand gather in the Bay of Islands for the New Zealand Association of Resource Management’s 66^th annual conference.

Northland Regional Council Land Manager Duncan Kervell, who is chairing the multi-agency organising committee for the October 15-17 Waitangi-based event, says this year’s theme is ‘Change at Pace and Scale: Essential Freshwater- Afforestation and Land Use Change – Climate Change’.

Northland Regional Council Land Manager Duncan Kervell.

Mr Kervell says while the conference is always useful for those working in land management, the evolving nature of the sector – including looming big changes in approaches to the way climate change and freshwater are managed – meant this year’s event would be especially valuable.

“It’s a real opportunity for us to discuss the massive changes coming around the Zero Carbon Bill as well as the government’s recently-announced freshwater reforms and the consequent land use changes and resource management implications at a local level.”

Keynote speakers include David Burger (Dairy NZ’s Strategy and Investment Leader), Cheryl Barnes (Deputy Secretary Water & Climate Change Ministry for the Environment) Huhana Lyndon (CEO Ngati Hine Forestry Trust), Warren Parker

(Chair Forestry Ministerial Advisory Group & Pamu Farms NZ), Andrew Booth (local dairy farmer and DairyNZ climate change ambassador) and Mike Petersen (New Zealand Special Agricultural Trade Envoy).

Representatives from 16 local authorities across New Zealand as well as staff from the Ministry for the Environment and Ministry for Primary industries are among those expected to attend.

As well as the obvious land theme, Mr Kervell says the conference is also a great opportunity to showcase Northland’s other attractions to his counterparts from other parts of New Zealand.