3 July 1996 Symposium takes stock of Resource Management

New Zealand's Resource Management Act (1991) – its influence, implications and workings – come under scrutiny at a Lincoln University symposium this weekend (Friday evening to Sunday afternoon, 5-7 July).

Hosted by the University's Centre for Resource Management, the symposium, titled Resource Management: issues, visions, practice, is bringing together ecologists, environmental scientists, policy analysts, geographers, conservation personnel, academics, local authority staff and others from throughout New Zealand.

Keynote speakers on the opening evening are former Conservation Minister Philip Woolleston and Denise Church, the Secretary to the Minister for the Environment. Papers to be presented during the symposium include topics such as "There Is No Shallow End: Planning Practice In A Free Market Economy"; "Community Participation In Resource Management – Fact Or Fiction?"; "Pesticides And Sustainable Management – State Control Or Market Control?"; "Protecting Biodiversity Values On Private Land, And For Marine And Freshwater Ecosystems"; "Integrated Pollution Control: Role Models For New Zealand?" and " 'Managing' Paptuanuku: Essential Differences Between Maori And Western Ways Of Viewing Resource Management".

A workshop session on "A National Policy Statement for the High Country" will be chaired by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Helen Hughes.

The Director of Lincoln University's Centre for Resource Management, Dr Ian Spellerberg, said it was entirely appropriate that the Centre should host a symposium such as this given the influential role his predecessor, the late Dr John Hayward, had in helping to shape 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 Ian Spellerberg, Director, Centre for Resource Management, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand.