Water Law Forum: New Reforms, Rights and Urban Waterways
Are you ready to respond to the suite of changes to freshwater management? Join a panel of leading freshwater and resource management experts as they examine the latest developments right now. You will gain a practical understanding of the new water law reforms, insight into Māori water rights and responses to the reforms and explore the developments in urban waterways and water sensitive urban design. Stay up to date and walk away with key takeaways to implement immediately into your practice.
Description
Attend and earn 3 CPD hours
Chair: Natasha Garvan, Partner, Bell Gully
1.00pm to 1.05pm Opening Comments by the Chair
1.05pm to 2.05pm: New Water Laws and Regulations
- Updates to the National Environmental Standard (NES) of Human Drinking Water, and new NESs for Freshwater and Wastewater
- New NES rules, regulations and limits in response to the updated National Policy Statement for Freshwater
- Practical guidance and key takeaways to implement immediately into your practice
Presented by Helen Atkins, Director, Atkins Holm Majurey
2.05pm to 3.00pm: PANEL DISCUSSION: Implementing the Water Reforms
Examine how Councils, land users and the agricultural sector are implementing the water reforms and gain insight into the wider environmental implications.
Facilitator: Natasha Garvan, Partner, Bell Gully
Panelists:
Dave Allen, Manager, Natural Environment Strategy, Auckland Council
Anna Wilkes, Environmental and Policy Manager, Ravensdown Limited
Chris Allen, National Board Member, Federated Farmers of New Zealand
3.00pm to 3.15pm: Afternoon break
3.15pm to 4.05pm: Māori Water Rights and Responses
- Māori water rights
- Do Kahui Wai Māori believe the Resource Management Act has failed, or has enforcement failed?
- Te Mana o Te Wai
- Climate change/renewable energy
Presented by Millan Ruka, Member, Kāhui Wai Māori – Māori Freshwater Forum; Founder & Environment River Patrol Aotearoa
4.05pm to 4.50pm: Urban Waterways, Water Sensitive Urban Design, and the Law: A Help or a Hindrance?
- The Three Waters: Exploring water and biodiversity
- Integration of green infrastructure
- Water policy and regulation: where is the law heading?
Presented by Mark Christensen, Director, Natural Resources Law; Trustee, Central Plains Water Trust; Chair, Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust
4.50pm to 5.00pm: Final Q&A and Closing Comments
Learning Objectives:
- Receive a timely update on the new water laws and regulations
- Understand how Councils, land users and the agricultural sector are implementing the water reforms
- Examine Māori water rights and gain valuable insight into Te Mana o te Wai, the policy statement from Kāhui Wai Māori
- Consider the developments in urban waterways and water sensitive urban design, and the future of water policy and regulation
Presenters
Natasha Garvan, Partner, Bell Gully
Bell Gully partner Natasha Garvan is an environmental and resource management law specialist. Natasha provides environmental, policy, and resource management advice to infrastructure providers, public bodies, iwi, property and land developers, businesses, and community interest groups. Natasha has in-depth knowledge of freshwater management and related reforms. She is experienced in interpreting and applying the new National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 and National Environmental Standards for Freshwater 2020 to various projects and policy contexts. Natasha was a member of the Governance and Limits Working Group for the second report of the Land and Water Forum. She assisted the NZ Landcare Trust as co-author of the publication ?Community-owned Rural Catchment Management: A guide for partners"" and is a co-founder of 3F (Food, Farms, and Freshwater) - created to provide a pathway to enhancing the environment in a way that adds value to the New Zealand economy.
Helen Atkins, Director, Atkins Holm Majurey
Helen is a partner with Atkins Holm Majurey, a specialist public law and environmental law practice. Helen has specialised in public, environmental, resource management and local government law for many years. She has advised private sector clients, including large corporates and industries as well as working for central and local government. Helen has extensive experience providing advice on policy and planning documents to central and local government and the private sector. She has advised both local and central government and the primary sector on freshwater and water services issues for many years. Helen is a board member (and President-Elect) of Water New Zealand (the Water and Wastewater Association of New Zealand) and the Deputy-Chair of the Auckland Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT). Until 4 years ago she was a member of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Committee to the EPA, a position she held for over 10 years. Helen is also a Development Contributions Commissioner and has been involved in a number of objection hearings including for Tasman District Council, Auckland Council, Queenstown Lakes District Council, Hastings and Manawatu District Councils.
Dave Allen, Manager, Natural Environment Strategy, Auckland Council
Dave has over 30 years experience in natural resource management. He undertook academic studies in biological sciences, with interests in island conservation biology and marine biology. Specifically, he has over 20 years experience managing fisheries through the upper North Island, but also in the freshwater environment. Dave was part of the considerable legislative and operational transformation witnessed in the fisheries portfolio over recent decades, including some key frameworks, judicial decisions, and discussions between various competing interests. Subsequently, he ran his own consultancy business for five years advising on natural resource management issues, particularly as it related to Waikato River issues, and more generally for parties such as the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. His focus at Auckland Council over the last six years has been to further develop and implement strategies to better embed environmental outcomes into council business. A significant part of that work has involved providing feedback to central government on its national work programme for freshwater and coastal initiatives. Dave is a member of the regional sector’s Resource Managers Group – representing natural resource managers from unitary and regional councils. This forum provides a good basis to partner with central government managers to provide feedback about the system wide responses needed to achieve better environmental outcomes.
Mark Christensen, Director, Natural Resources Law
Mark has been a specialist resource management and environmental lawyer for over 30 years, He has led multidisciplinary teams in obtaining a wide range of consents and approvals through public participatory processes, including representing clients in contentious Environment Court, High Court and higher Court appeals. After a career as an environmental law partner in national law firms, Mark now practices on his own and combines resource management law with several commercial directorships and trusteeships in the ‘for purpose’ sector.
Anna Wilkes, Environmental and Policy Manager, Ravensdown Limited
Anna is the Environmental & Policy Manager for Ravensdown, a farmer-owned co-operative that exists to enable smarter farming for a better New Zealand. Ravensdown strives to achieve this by providing products, expertise and technology to help farmers reduce environmental impact and optimise value from the land.
Anna has over 15 years’ experience in environmental science and resource management. Anna joined Ravensdown in 2017 as Environmental Policy Specialist, following 12 years as an environmental consultant with a focus on water quality and resource management planning. In addition to the policy role which involves guiding Ravensdown’s submissions on regional plan changes and central government policy discussion documents, she also manages Ravensdown’s team of environmental consultants. The consultancy helps our shareholders comply with regulatory requirements in the form of nutrient budgets, Farm Environment Plans and resource consents.
While seeking good environmental outcomes is Anna’s primary motivation, it is important that environmental needs are balanced with the other fundamentals of the Resource Management Act, namely that resources are managed in a way that also enables the social, economic and cultural needs of the community to be met.
Chris Allen, National Board Member, Federated Farmers of New Zealand
Chris worked for Air New Zealand for 15 years and qualified as a Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineer. Since 1994 Chris and his wife Anne-Marie have been farming a 360 hectare irrigated, sheep, beef and cropping property in Mid Canterbury. The farm is fully spray irrigated with some stored on farm water and now runs five centre pivots, one lateral /pivot. two Rotorainer irrigators. Technology is used to deliver precision agriculture , including using real time telemetry on irrigation to monitor water flow , quality and Soil moisture. Direct involvement with Farming issues. Elected Federated Farmers Mid Canterbury Provincial President for three years from 2011. 2014 to now appointed to the Ashburton Water Management Zone Committee as a community member. 2014 to now , Elected to Federated Farmers National Board with responsibility for RMA, Water & Environment pest and waste. 2014: Appointed to the governance group of Good Management Practices project. Federated Farmers representative on Land and Water Forum. 2017 Recipient of the Silverfern farms plate to pasture National award title. Chris was Federated Farmers trustee that set up and completed the Draft NPS Bio diversity and report on associated complimentary and supporting measures for Minister of Environment.