22 April 1994 Posthumous Award of Lincoln's Bledisloe Medal

A posthumous award of Lincoln University's prestigious Bledisloe Medal has been made to the late Director of the Centre for Resource Management, Dr John Hayward.

Instituted in 1930 as a top award for former Lincoln students who have significantly assisted farming in New Zealand or otherwise advanced the country's interests, the Bledisloe Medal has never before been given posthumously.

The citation for Dr Hayward notes his outstanding career and contributions first as a soil conservator with the Otago Catchment Board, then as a Planning Officer with the Tussock Grasslands and Mountain Lands Institute, then as Director of the Joint Centre for Environmental Science run by Canterbury University and Lincoln College, then as foundation Director of the Centre for Resource Management  when it was established in 1982.

It was in his associations with the Joint Centre for Environmental Science and subsequently the Centre for Resource Management that Dr Hayward had his widest influence.

With the Joint Centre he extended its programme from an intellectual base in the science of natural resources to the management of those resources and included the social, cultural and institutional dimensions of natural resource management.

This emphasis made the centre's Master of Science degree in Resource Management unique and the graduates much sought after by government departments, local authorities and other institutions.

At both the Joint Centre and its successor the Centre for Resource Management, Dr Hayward displayed outstanding ability as a teacher.  He would invite guests, including Cabinet Ministers and environmental protagonists, to participate in the teaching programme thus ensuring his students were fully up to date with the latest thinking.

Within 10 years of its foundation the Centre had acquired an international reputation for the quality of its postgraduate teaching and research. More than 300 postgraduates now hold positions of responsibility in both the private and public sector.

Dr Hayward was appointed to the NZ Environmental Council in 1979 and became chairman in 1981. Former Environment Minister Dr Ian Shearer has described him as the most intelligent, dedicated and foresighted and reasonable colleague he ever worked with.

The late 1980s ushered in an era of reform to New Zealand's system of environmental management and administration and as a Planning Council member and convenor of its environmental programme Dr Hayward played a pivotal role in policy formulation and advice.

He was influential in shaping the reforms which led to the establishment of the Ministry for the Environment, the Department of Conservation and the Conservation, Environment and Resource Management Acts.

Dr Hayward was a member of the Ross Dependency Research Committee's Environmental Review Panel and visited Antarctica in 1991. He was Chairman of the NZ Hydrological Society from 1977-81, a Council member of the NZ Association of Soil and Water Conservators and a member of the NZ Royal Society.

For services to the environment he was awarded a 1990 Commemorative Medal.

Born and brought up in Dunedin, John Hayward received his secondary education at Otago Boys' High School. He came to Lincoln in 1958, subsequently graduating with a Bachelor of Agricultural Science degree. In 1969 he completed a Master of Agricultural Science with First Class Honours and then in the 1970s he embarked on a Ph.D.

His doctoral studies on the mechanics of erosion in a steep catchment on the Torlesse Range overturned the conventional wisdom about mountain processes and was instrumental in changing soil conservation policies in the mountain lands. His Torlesse work highlighted the dominant role of nature in mountain processes and showed that human influences were rather less than was earlier presumed.

Dr Hayward died in December 1993 aged 55 and at Lincoln University's 1994 Graduation Ceremony the Bledisloe Medal was accepted by his widow, Mrs Jan Hayward of Christchurch.

Ian Collins, Journalist, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand.