title: The Law of Ecosystem Restoration for Community Conservation Groups

authors: Ewing, Kellie Joy

subjects: Ecosystem restoration

abstract: Across New Zealand communities have identified the need to restore and rehabilitate damaged ecosystems in their locality. However, community conservation groups (CCGs) often face significant obstacles when undertaking activities to restore and rehabilitate ecosystems. Activities carried out by CCGs require the people managing them to have an understanding of a plethora of different regulatory and legislative instruments, such as regional and district plans, corporate law, health and safety legislation, and employment law. The land use regulation that applies to a particular restoration site also has the potential to significantly affect how effective a CCG can be by either restraining the impacts on the land by neighbouring land use practices that impact negatively on the site, or by creating a legal environment that facilitates legal protection for significant conservation areas and prevents development. All of these factors, and a large number of others, require CCG to have an understanding of the law. 

Many of the issues that CCGs face have not been dealt with adequately in legal writing in the past and are not well understood. Therefore further research and writing is necessary is this area to help CCGs undertake their work with minimal legal obstacles. To help address this gap this research paper will evaluate some of the main legal issues faced by CCGs and determine how these issues can be resolved by answering the question:
What are the main legal barriers faced by Community Conservation Groups (CCGs) when undertaking ecosystem restoration projects and how can these barriers be removed effectively?
To answer this question the two main methods of research that have been used are literature analysis and review, and semi-structured interviews with a range of CCGs and other organisations involved in ecosystem restoration. There are two main topics covered in this paper. Firstly, corporate issues for CCGs and secondly, land management issues for CCGs.

text: The Law of Ecosystem Restoration for Community Conservation Groups Across New Zealand communities have identified the need to restore and rehabilitate damaged ecosystems in their locality. However, community conservation groups (CCGs) often face significant obstacles when undertaking activities to restore and rehabilitate ecosystems. Activities carried out by CCGs require the people managing them to have an understanding of a plethora of different regulatory and legislative instruments, such as regional and district plans, corporate law, health and safety legislation, and employment law. The land use regulation that applies to a particular restoration site also has the potential to significantly affect how effective a CCG can be by either restraining the impacts on the land by neighbouring land use practices that impact negatively on the site, or by creating a legal environment that facilitates legal protection for significant conservation areas and prevents development. All of these factors, and a large number of others, require CCG to have an understanding of the law. 

Many of the issues that CCGs face have not been dealt with adequately in legal writing in the past and are not well understood. Therefore further research and writing is necessary is this area to help CCGs undertake their work with minimal legal obstacles. To help address this gap this research paper will evaluate some of the main legal issues faced by CCGs and determine how these issues can be resolved by answering the question:
What are the main legal barriers faced by Community Conservation Groups (CCGs) when undertaking ecosystem restoration projects and how can these barriers be removed effectively?
To answer this question the two main methods of research that have been used are literature analysis and review, and semi-structured interviews with a range of CCGs and other organisations involved in ecosystem restoration. There are two main topics covered in this paper. Firstly, corporate issues for CCGs and secondly, land management issues for CCGs.

year: 2008

title: Kids Greening Taupō: Conservation Education Based on a Collaborative Community Model

authors: DePetris, Thea

subjects: environmental education

abstract: Ecological degradation threatens the life-giving capacity of Earth. Literature identifies education and collaboration across all sectors of society as being critically important to reversing the trend of degradation. Aligning with these proposed solutions is a 21st Century approach to education, which calls for new partnerships and relationships to be formed between educational organisations and the wider community. Based on these principles, Kids Greening Taupō (KGT) represents an innovative conservation education programme. 
This study examined the progression of an 18-month pilot project through which KGT was conceived and implemented in Taupō, a provincial town located in the central North Island of New Zealand. This study provides an example of a process used to develop a conservation education programme through a partnership model between five educational organisations and four community organisations. The purpose of the investigation was to develop an understanding, based on the researcher’s and stakeholders’ perspectives, about the structures formed and processes undertaken to design and implement KGT, as well as the formative outcomes observed through the development of the programme. 
An evaluation of the pilot project was conducted using an interpretive study based on an ethnographic approach. Data were collected through participant observation, semi-structured interviews and documentation analysis, and then was thematically analysed. The research process included several factors to enhance the trustworthiness of the findings, including credibility, dependability and confirmability. 
The findings of this study identify four stages of KGT programme development through which a number of structures, processes and outcomes evolved. Although an initial strategic planning process established a shared vision among the stakeholders and environmental projects for each participating educational organisation, a lack of consensus about other important strategic components led to some developmental challenges. Additionally, two sets of structures and processes emerged through the analysis of the data that were categorised as being enablers, barriers or a combination of both in relation to planning, implementing and maintaining KGT. The outcomes observed were related predominantly to the themes of educational, ecological, social and professional aspects.
Collectively, the experiences of the KGT pilot in conjunction with educational theory based on a 21st Century approach and environmental and sustainability education has led to the development of a collaborative community education model. This model, together with the findings about the KGT structures and processes, may inform the development of other similar programmes utilising a collaborative community approach. Strategic and operational recommendations are provided about possible ways to modify KGT in order to realise the potential of the programme in the Taupō context.

text: Kids Greening Taupō: Conservation Education Based on a Collaborative Community Model Ecological degradation threatens the life-giving capacity of Earth. Literature identifies education and collaboration across all sectors of society as being critically important to reversing the trend of degradation. Aligning with these proposed solutions is a 21st Century approach to education, which calls for new partnerships and relationships to be formed between educational organisations and the wider community. Based on these principles, Kids Greening Taupō (KGT) represents an innovative conservation education programme. 
This study examined the progression of an 18-month pilot project through which KGT was conceived and implemented in Taupō, a provincial town located in the central North Island of New Zealand. This study provides an example of a process used to develop a conservation education programme through a partnership model between five educational organisations and four community organisations. The purpose of the investigation was to develop an understanding, based on the researcher’s and stakeholders’ perspectives, about the structures formed and processes undertaken to design and implement KGT, as well as the formative outcomes observed through the development of the programme. 
An evaluation of the pilot project was conducted using an interpretive study based on an ethnographic approach. Data were collected through participant observation, semi-structured interviews and documentation analysis, and then was thematically analysed. The research process included several factors to enhance the trustworthiness of the findings, including credibility, dependability and confirmability. 
The findings of this study identify four stages of KGT programme development through which a number of structures, processes and outcomes evolved. Although an initial strategic planning process established a shared vision among the stakeholders and environmental projects for each participating educational organisation, a lack of consensus about other important strategic components led to some developmental challenges. Additionally, two sets of structures and processes emerged through the analysis of the data that were categorised as being enablers, barriers or a combination of both in relation to planning, implementing and maintaining KGT. The outcomes observed were related predominantly to the themes of educational, ecological, social and professional aspects.
Collectively, the experiences of the KGT pilot in conjunction with educational theory based on a 21st Century approach and environmental and sustainability education has led to the development of a collaborative community education model. This model, together with the findings about the KGT structures and processes, may inform the development of other similar programmes utilising a collaborative community approach. Strategic and operational recommendations are provided about possible ways to modify KGT in order to realise the potential of the programme in the Taupō context.

year: 2016

title: Nobody knows me even though I’m always there: Why Māori men do exist - in all the wrong places

authors: Stanley, Paul

subjects: Maori

abstract: In the study of psychology, Māori men are often only seen as the perpetrators of the problems. There is very little focus on finding solutions for Māori men, with Māori men. In the top eight causes of death for Māori males aged 15 to 24 are car crashes, homicide, and suicide. With respect to car crashes, there is a close link between alcohol-related car crashes and suicide. As a nation, we should be concerned with all of the above issues, as each of them is preventable. Invariably, we fail see the deaths of these young men as warning signs of much wider issues about why they wanted to die, or why they felt the need to kill someone close to themselves. The argument tendered in this paper is that the same way in which Māori as a group have been researched, as being “the problem”, equally applies to the way in which Māori men have continued to be have been researched: Māori men are only ever portrayed as “the problem” and are never portrayed as part of a solution subjected to this process as well. The lyrics of a well known song by UB40, One in Ten, exemplify this notion of being unknown, even though Māori men do exist in Aotearoa.

text: Nobody knows me even though I’m always there: Why Māori men do exist - in all the wrong places In the study of psychology, Māori men are often only seen as the perpetrators of the problems. There is very little focus on finding solutions for Māori men, with Māori men. In the top eight causes of death for Māori males aged 15 to 24 are car crashes, homicide, and suicide. With respect to car crashes, there is a close link between alcohol-related car crashes and suicide. As a nation, we should be concerned with all of the above issues, as each of them is preventable. Invariably, we fail see the deaths of these young men as warning signs of much wider issues about why they wanted to die, or why they felt the need to kill someone close to themselves. The argument tendered in this paper is that the same way in which Māori as a group have been researched, as being “the problem”, equally applies to the way in which Māori men have continued to be have been researched: Māori men are only ever portrayed as “the problem” and are never portrayed as part of a solution subjected to this process as well. The lyrics of a well known song by UB40, One in Ten, exemplify this notion of being unknown, even though Māori men do exist in Aotearoa.

year: 2003