The Otago Regional Council embarked on an Integrated Catchment Management Programme in 2022. This was a new approach for ORC and they needed to ensure a genuinely collaborative process that resulted in ‘buy-in’ from mana whenua, community, and key stakeholders.

Integrated Catchment Management is being delivered through the development of Catchment Action Plans (CAPs), whole of ecosystem plans that link actions to outcomes. OCR needed a collaborative process, a robust framework based on logical theory of change, grass roots approach using best available information, accountable monitoring and reporting and ability to adapt. The Conservation Standards enabled all of this and packaged it in an optional project management tool – Miradi.

This session outlines how the Conservation Standards came to be used by Otago Regional Council, how it has been used in the Catlins area with mana whenua and community through a series of workshops, what challenges were faced using the approach at a landscape scale for an integrated management – whole of ecosystem, and how ORC adapted to those challenges.

If you have questions about this session please contact: 

Haojin Tan, haojin.tan@gmail.com