AUCKLAND CONSERVATION BOARD
Te Runanga Papa Atawhai o Tāmaki Makaurau
DOC-6092217
10 October 2019
John Luke
Email: [email address]
Dear Mr Luke
Thank you for your Official Information Act request to the Auckland Conservation Board,
dated 27 September 2019. You requested the following (with wording slightly amended for
clarity):
1. How many similar events to the Auckland Mayoral Conservation Awards has the
Auckland Conservation Board Chair or members attended in the last three years?
2.
In the past three years how many engagements has the Auckland Conservation
Board had with iwi, mana whenua, community and volunteer groups?
3. Has the Auckland Conservation Board taken any effort to enhance low attendance
at the Public Forum part of each Board meeting? What sort of point of connection
has the Board made or represented?
4. Has the Auckland Conservation Board taken effort to engage any other ethnic
groups beside the iwi? Any community event in the past three years that the Board
has attended or any effort the Board has taken to get more attraction from the
ethnic community (non-iwi)?
By way of context for my response the questions you have raised concerning how the
Conservation Board engages with the community are ones that the Board has itself
considered and discussed at several of its meetings in recent years. The Board has a relatively
limited budget, so we are constrained in the amount of proactive engagement we can
attempt. Board members also nearly all work full time and have other commitments, so the
time available from individual members to support proactive engagement is also limited.
The Board has made efforts to engage more broadly as I have explained below, but to date
the limited steps we have taken have not necessarily resulted in increased engagement by the
community with the Board.
SERVICED BY
DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION
TĀMAKI MAKAURAU AUCKLAND
Private Bag 68908, Wellesley Street, Auckland 1141
Telephone (09) 307 9279
Auckland Conservation Board - OIA response - Luke - second request - DOC-6092217
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The Board does have a Communications Sub-committee, and that Sub-committee will
continue to work on how the Board can engage with a wider spectrum of Auckland’s large
and diverse communities.
As I advised you in my letter dated 1 October 2019, in response to your earlier Official
Information Act request, Board members will also often attend events and engage with the
community when undertaking their employed, contracted or volunteer roles. While they
attend these in other capacities, members may report on such events and engagement at
Board meetings.
Note that not all Board members attended the events and engagements identified in my
responses below, and in some cases the Board was represented only by one or a few
members.
Your questions and our responses are listed below:
1. How many similar events to the Auckland Mayoral Conservation Awards has the
Auckland Conservation Board Chair or members attended in the last three years?
The Auckland Conservation Board Chair and members have attended the following
events that are similar to the Auckland Mayoral Conservation Awards during the period
October 2016 to October 2019.
All Conservation Boards are seeking increased opportunities to attend or speak at such
events to raise their profile and build awareness of what Board’s do and how members of
the community might connect with Boards.
9 November 2017
Event to mark approval of the Hauturu/Little Barrier
Conservation Management Plan hosted by Ngāti
Manuhiri.
19 October 2017
Annual Conservation Week function for associates of
the Department of Conservation.
17 September 2018
Annual Conservation Week function for associates of
the Department of Conservation.
23 January 2019
Event to mark signing of a Conservation Relationship
Agreement between the Department of Conservation
and Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki.
16 September 2019
Annual Conservation Week function for associates of
the Department of Conservation.
2.
In the past three years how many engagements has the Auckland Conservation Board
had with iwi, mana whenua, community and volunteer groups?
3
The Auckland Conservation Board has had the following engagement with iwi and mana
whenua, and community and volunteer groups, during the period October 2016 to
October 2019.
Some of this engagement has been in association with the regular meetings of the Board,
where the Board has invited representatives of iwi or community groups to speak to the
Board or join with it during a field inspection when the Board has combined an
inspection visit with a meeting. Engagement as part of such meetings is asterisked in the
list below.
October 2016 to August Various meetings with representatives of Ngāti
2017
Manuhiri (concerning the preparation and approval of
the Hauturu/Little Barrier Conservation Management
Plan)
16 November 2016
Pūkorokoro Miranda Naturalists’ Trust representative*
31 May 2017
Kawau Island Advisory Committee representative*
16 August 2017
Ngāti Manuhiri representatives*
15 November 2017
Ngāti Whatua o Kaipara representative and North-
West Wildlink representative*
14 February 2018
Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki representative, Motutapu
Restoration Trust representatives, and Rangitoto
Island Historic Conservation Trust representative*
16 May 2018
Long Bay Okura Great Park Society representatives
and Kiwi for Kiwis representative*
25 June 2018
Ngāti Manuhiri representative spoke to a combined
group of the New Zealand Conservation Authority and
the Board
8 August 2018
Ngāti Manuhiri representatives*
14 November 2018
Ngāti Paoa representative and Waiheke Resources
Trust representative*
3. Has the Auckland Conservation Board taken any effort to enhance low attendance at
the Public Forum part of each Board meeting? What sort of point of connection has the
Board made or represented?
The Auckland Conservation Board has recognised that in recent years there has been low
attendance at the public forum part of its regular meetings. This has been discussed at
several of its meetings, as part of the wider discussions about how the Board engages
with the community I referred to in the context for my response set out above.
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A number of presenters in the public forum part of each meeting have been as a result of
requests to speak to the Board. Some have been related to a particular issue that those
speakers wished to bring to the attention of the Board or on which they wished to seek
the Board’s views.
The Board has taken some steps to try and encourage greater engagement with the
community, including posting information about its meetings on the Board’s Facebook
page
(https://www.facebook.com/auckconservationboard/), and on the Neighbourly
app. Postings to the latter app are undertaken by Board members who have joined that
app and live or work in locations where we plan to hold our meetings.
The Board has also proactively invited representatives of iwi or community groups to
speak to the Board as part of its meetings. A number of those iwi and community group
representatives identified in my response to Question 2 above spoke to the Board as a
result of proactive invitations.
The Board also contributes several times a year to the “Conservation Boards newsletter”
which is compiled by the Department of Conservation’s central support team for
statutory bodies. This is sent to all those who subscribe and provides a channel for
communicating about the Board’s activities to the wider public. Past newsletters and a
link to subscribe to future issues can be viewed at this webpage:
https://www.doc.govt.nz/news/newsletters/conservation-boards-newsletter/.
I also note that Board members are expected to engage with their friends, associates and
communities in the course of their work and activities between Board meetings, so they
can be more fully informed about conservation issues that are important to the
community and give added depth to their contributions at Board meetings. This
expectation is set out in the “Code of Practise for Conservation Boards” (2015) that is
available to view on this webpage as a linked document:
https://www.doc.govt.nz/about-
us/statutory-and-advisory-bodies/conservation-boards/what-conservation-boards-do/.
The Code of Practise also encourages Boards to hold their meetings in different parts of
their regions to encourage engagement with communities. As I advised in my response to
your earlier Official Information Act request, the Board has met in a variety of different
locations across our region in the three-year period October 2016 to September 2019.
4. Has the Auckland Conservation Board taken effort to engage any other ethnic groups
beside the iwi? Any community event in the past three years that the Board has
attended or any effort the Board has taken to get more attraction from the ethnic
community (non-iwi)?
How the Board might engage with Auckland’s diverse ethnic communities has also been
discussed at several of our regular meetings. As Auckland is considered to be among the
world’s most “super diverse” cities, this presents the Board with a real challenge.
In my response to Question 3 above I have identified some of the ways by which the
Board has tried to build greater engagement with the various communities of the
Auckland region. The issues I discussed above, and the actions taken by the Board to
build greater engagement, are also pertinent to this question.
In addition, I also note that the Board has had members appointed to it from different
ethnicities, including on the current Board. While those individuals cannot possibly
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represent a whole community, and are not expected to, they nevertheless bring their
unique cultural context to the Board’s discussions and can bring to Board business the
perspective of their friends and associates with whom they might engage in between
meetings. The list of current Board members along with a short bio for each can be
viewed on this webpage
: https://www.doc.govt.nz/about-us/statutory-and-advisory-
bodies/conservation-boards/auckland/board-members/.
The Board is currently working with the Department to identify ways by which it might
engage with one of Auckland largest ethnic groups, the Chinese community. This work is
still in the very early stages of discussion, but the Board is taking a lead from the
Department of Conservation which has undertaken some new initiatives over the past
year to engage with that particular community.
If you wish to discuss anything in this response with the Conservation Board, please contact
me through the Board’s Support Officer by emailing [email address].
Yours sincerely,
Lyn Mayes
Chair
Auckland Conservation Board
