The RMLA Conference is about more than the sessions, speakers and networking. This year’s Friday Fieldshops offer attendees the chance to step beyond the conference venue and experience the places, stories, landscapes and communities that make Te Tai Tokerau truly unique.

Rapid expansion of flexible electricity use and batteries could be crucial for a secure and affordable energy system, saving energy users between $5.4 and $20.8 billion through to 2050.

RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has released an investigation report and launched consultation on Wellington’s heritage planning rules related to five key sites.

This opinion piece from Dr Greg Severinsen, reform director with the Environmental Defence Society gives a sobering assessment of how the government’s proposed regulatory relief framework could play out in Auckland.

‍RMLA, which represents lawyers, planners, judges, scientists, engineers, economists, landscape architects and other professionals working across New Zealand's resource management system, made a detailed submission on the Bills during the select committee process earlier this year. At a high level, RMLA supports the Government's intention to reform the resource management system and recognises that the Bills introduce a number of positive concepts and processes, including greater standardisation across plans, regional spatial planning and the establishment of a Planning Tribunal.

A Yale PhD candidate moved to Whanganui to investigate what nearly a decade of legal personhood has meant for Te Awa o Whanganui and its people.

The Government has introduced the Building Amendment Bill, which proposes a range of changes to New Zealand's building system, including reforms to liability settings, consenting processes and building research funding.

New Zealand's first complete national picture of public drinking water and wastewater network environmental performance shows many water networks are under severe pressure, with wastewater overflows, drinking water leakage and consent compliance emerging as significant challenges.

Unlocking New Zealand's environmental information outlines how better collection, management and use of environmental information could support more effective responses to New Zealand's environmental challenges.

RMLA’s Lauren Wallace and Kate Stubbing shared some initial thoughts on the Environment Select Committee recommendations and what these may mean in practice for transitional consenting. In short, the session was a useful reminder that, while a new planning system is on the horizon, RMA-based consenting isn't going anywhere just yet.

RMLA was saddened to learn of the death of Jim Hopkins on 27 July 2026. Within RMLA, Jim was a long-standing and valued member who made a distinctive contribution to the Association and to the Resource Management Journal. Over many years, his writing brought something unusual and important to its pages: an ability to look at the complexities, conventions and occasional absurdities of resource management through a sharply observed and warmly humorous lens.

Published annually by the Faculty of Law at the University of Auckland, NZJEL is New Zealand’s leading academic journal dedicated to environmental and resource management law, featuring in-depth legal scholarship, commentary, and analysis from leading academics, judges, practitioners, and policy experts.