British Interest in NZ Law

Forest and Bird, Issue 291, 1 February 1999, Page 50

British Interest in NZ Law

—Helen Fraser

Di Menzies

A British conservationist has been consulting with Forest and Bird about the workings of the Resource Management Act. Mark Southgate from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds visited New Zealand for six weeks on a Winston Churchill Fellowship which also took him to a number of district and regional councils. During his six-week visit he called at Forest and Bird’s Wellington office, seeking views on how the Act worked, comparing it with conditions for habitat protection in Britain. His description of planning in the United Kingdom made the Resource Management Act seem very straightforward.

He also delivered a range of material from RSPB; from bequest brochures to conservation strategies for species. This will be helpful for our staff even though conditions differ in Britain: RSPB has 1.2 million members and manages an extensive network of more than 24,000 hectares of reserves. In his short stay, Mark Southgate reached the same conclusion as many, locally, that a major legislative overhaul is not the best way to improve the functioning of the Resource Management Act. Greater resourcing of councils and communities, and more direction from central government are the keys to improving the Act’s implementa-

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