This year's awards took a slightly different tack to the previous two years with the focus moving away from policy and plan documentation and instead being widened to include "any group or personal contribution by way of documentation, authorship, process or activity which has served to develop the law, theory and practice of resource management."

There were seven nominations in total which included a mix of documents and services to resource management. The National Committee adjudicated directly on the nominations and decided that the outstanding nomination was for the David Williams edited textbook "Environmental and Resource management Law" (2nd edition).

As noted in the foreword to the book by The Right Honourable Sir Geoffrey Palmer one of the primary challenges of environmental law is its cross-disciplinary nature. The contributors to this book "have compiled a volume which will undoubtedly prove to be most useful not only for practitioners but also for academic lawyers".

The award was received by Derek Nolan, the book's sub-editor, on behalf of David Williams and the many contributing specialist authors at the RMLA conference in Queenstown.