RMLA Academic Advisory Group (AAG) News

Happy New Year! (Is March too late?!) Here is, at last, some RMLA AAG news: 

2014 and 2015 Symposia

Thanks to those who made it to our pre-RMLA Conference Symposium in September last year. I was so swept up in Liz Fisher’s talk and our resulting discussion I had to book an extra session for RMLA AAG members to share their research. 

We will use the same format, but extend it, for our symposium this year. We will have a full-day research-/teaching-oriented symposium for environmental/resource management academics on the day preceding the Conference, Wednesday 23rd September in Tauranga. 

The Conference itself will be held from 24th to 26th September, and the theme this year is Mātauranga Māori. The Committee has lined up Gerald Torres as its international speaker. Should I invite Gerald to lead a discussion at our Symposium? I would appreciate early feedback on this idea, or on suggestions of others who might be good. 

There will be time for another session as well, and also for us to share our research. If anyone has any ideas about this “other” session, please let me know. As it gets closer to September, I’ll make a call for anyone wanting to present research (10 minutes or so each, in a round-table format). 

I anticipate that the RMLA will soon confirm a special registration rate for academics to attend the conference. The symposium will be free, except that there may be a small cost for catering, given that it will be a full-day event this year. 

AAG Web Presence 

At the 2014 Symposium, we agreed that Vernon Rive should be a co-convenor for this group, so that he can work on giving us a web presence. I’ll update you about this soon. 

Resource Management/Environmental Moot 

I have been investigating a proposal to establish a resource management /environmental moot. The idea is to run this between the Environment Court, relevant existing papers taught at the five Law schools, and practitioners affiliated to the RMLA. I have secured the interest of Judge Newhook and the Environment Court judges. I am currently testing the waters with practitioners and academics.

I would appreciate any feedback on this idea, any expressions of interest from coordinators of papers who might be interested in participating in such a scheme, and/or any expressions of interest from anyone keen to help me work on implementing this idea, assuming it turns out to be a good one. 

That’s all for now and I look forward to hearing from you. 

Nicola (email: nicola.wheen@otago.ac.nz)