Don Linklater Memorial Bursary applications open for 2024
Applications have now opened for the Horizons Regional Council Don Linklater Memorial Bursary.
Fish and Game and the Environmental Defence Society (EDS) may seek costs against Horizons Regional Council as a result of the Environment Court siding with their claims about the unlawfulness of the implementation of the One Plan.
Gary Taylor, of EDS, says the court case cost them a lot of money and they are considering applying for costs against the council. He says the council needs to analyse the decision of the court and come up with a lawful process.
EDS took the council to court esseentially because it wouldn’t listen to their concerns – something the court also agreed with, Taylor says.
“We met with the council but they hadn’t satisfactorily addressed the concerns about the legality of the process. So we decided with Fish and Game that the only way forward was to test that legality and that has now happened.
“Hopefully that has cleared the air on this and it should be possible to get a solution. I am sympathetic to farmers caught up in this because of the uncertainty, but it’s of the council’s making.”
Taylor says the whole country is in a period of uncertainty because fresh water policy is still evolving. He says the national policy statement is being amended and that will require all regional policy statements and plans to be amended to give effect to it. Farmers are asking “are their existing consents still legal?” According to the council, the answer is yes.
But Taylor says if the process of granting those consents wasn’t lawful it casts doubt on them.
The council may need to look at this and other issues, he says. EDS hopes to tlka to the council to work out the next steps.
The European Union Ambassador says the new free trade agreement (FTA) between the bloc and New Zealand will bring significant benefits to both parties.
Less Wellington bureucracy and more local, on-farm common sense was the focus of recent meetings held in South Canterbury as part of the Government's National Woolshed tour program.
'A lot of interest and positive responses' appears to be the way farmers are viewing the Government's initiative to hold a series of woolshed meetings around the country.
A Southland farming leader wants the regional council to delay a proposed regional rates hike, much of which is intended to fund flood protection works.
Rural Women New Zealand (RWNZ) says access to personal banking services in rural communities is fundamental to promoting outcomes that benefit Kiwi consumers.
Horticulture NZ chief executive Nadine Tunley will step down in August.