Parks Board will hold weekly public lectures

Press, 2 July 1983, Page 13

Parks Board will hold weekly public lectures

A series of weekly lectures designed to encourage public awareness of the recent changes in the administration of the national parks and reserves in Canterbury will be held in September and October. The lectures will be held at the University of Canterbury extension studies department and have been organised with the North Canterbury National Parks and Reserves Board. The board took over the development of policy on parks and reserves under the 1980 National Parks Act. Mr Glen Innes, a board member who organised most of the lectures, said: “It is a tremendous step forward in the board’s linking with its public. I hope by covering a wide range of issues, some of them contentious, members of the public wil come away more familiar with the nature of parks and reserves and their administration, and look with more interest on further developments in these areas.” The seven weekly lectures

will cover the 1980 act and its consequences, ecological districts in Canterbury, a case study on the establishment of national reserves, and management planning in the Mount Cook and Arthur’s Pass national parks, among other topics. The last session will be an open forum. The lecturers will be

members of the National Parks and Reserves Board or staff from the national parks. The lectures will be held between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Thursdays and will begin on September 8. Optional field trips either to Castle Hill-Arthur’s Pass or to Banks Peninsula have also been organised.