The National Catchment Forum is back

The NZ Landcare Trust has announced that it will have the fourth chance for its flagship event, the National Catchments Forum.

The event will be held on October 6 and 7 at New Zealand’s Te Papa Tongarewa Museum, after two years of ups and downs due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The forum is designed for attendees to connect, discuss the latest innovations and celebrate the work being done to move towards more sustainable land use.

Participants include leaders and members of watershed groups, farmers, iwi, rural professionals, resource management agencies and agribusiness.

NZ Landcare Trust chief executive Dr Nick Edgar says he is delighted the event can go ahead after more than two years of delays and cancellations.

“The Covid pandemic saw the first such event canceled just weeks away when it was held at Invercargill on April 1-2, 2020. Of course, that saw the whole country heading into a lockdown never seen before,” says Edgar.

He says that after that, with support from the Department of Primary Industries and the Department of the Environment, NZ Landcare Trust sought to bring the event into a national setting, choosing Te Papa as its new venue.

“We tried to hold it in October 2021 and then we went into another lockdown in August and changes to the rules for the event were brought in so it had to be postponed so we rebooked for May 2022 which had to be postponed again, so to speak I’m thrilled to see it come to fruition in a few days, to put it mildly!

“So much work and planning has gone into this event and now it is bigger and better than before – we have amazing speakers from capture groups and agencies who can inspire and share their work and management knowledge capture,” says Edgar.