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.
South Waikato farm manager Ben Purua’s amazing transformation from gang life to milking cows was rewarded with the Ahuwhenua Young Maori Farmer award last night.
Bankers have been making record profits in the last few years, but those aren’t the only records they’ve been breaking, says Federated Farmers vice president Richard McIntyre.
The 2023-24 season has been a roller coaster ride for Waikato dairy farmers, according to Federated Farmers dairy section chair, Mathew Zonderop.
Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) director general Ray Smith says job cuts announced this morning will not impact the way the Ministry is organised or merge business units.
Scales Corporation is acquiring a number of orchard assets from Bostock Group.
Family and solidarity shone through at the 75 years of Ferdon sale in Otorohanga last month.