Nick Ledgard (Ashley Rakahuri Rivercare Group and BRaid) is a retired forestry researcher (Scion/NZFRI) returning to ornithological roots put out as a youngster. He is a long-time OSNZ member. Currently, he spends most of his time trying to improve the lot of native birds on braided rivers (particularly on the Ashley-Rakahuri River) and pursuing his interests in farm forestry and wilding trees. He is the chairman of the Ashley Rakahuri Rivercare Group and BRaid.

Craig Pauling (Environment Canterbury) was born and raised in Ōtautahi/Christchurch, attended Aranui High School and is a graduate of Lincoln University. He is of Māori and European descent, with tribal affiliations to Ngāi Tahu and Ngāti Mutunga. Craig has a degree in Environmental Management, and post-graduate qualifications in Social Science and Ecology. He is also a qualified RMA hearings commissioner, and has 20 years’ experience in environmental policy, research, and consultancy. He is a founding trustee and co-Chair of Te Ara Kākāriki, a charitable organisation dedicated to ecological restoration on the Canterbury Plains, as well as being co-Chair of Te Kākahu Kahukura, and is also heavily involved in waka ama, being the President of Te Waka Pounamu Outrigger Canoe Club based on the shore of Whakaraupō/Lyttelton Harbour. Craig’s key priority for this term is to help guide the review and strengthening of our regional plans, which is key to protecting and enhancing our environment – ki uta, ki tai – from the mountains to the sea. This includes addressing the state of our waterways, wetlands and groundwater, our unique biodiversity as well as confronting the challenges of a changing climate.

Jennifer Schori (Department of Conservation) is currently a Senior Biodiversity Ranger with Project River Recovery. She has spent the past 9 years studying and working in braided river ecosystems, primarily in the Upper Waitaki Basin. Her work focuses on monitoring of populations of threatened river birds, lizards, and invertebrates to understand trends and measure the benefits from conservation actions.

Dean Nelson (Department of Conservation) is currently Senior Ranger Biodiversity with a focus on the Kakī Recovery Programme and threatened freshwater fish and plants in the Twizel District. He was also previously the Senior Ranger for Project River Recovery for eight years. Dean oversaw the implementation of the large-scale Tasman River Predator Control Project in 2004 and has helped manage kakī numbers in the wild to increase slowly but steadily. His other passion is the management of threatened non-migratory galaxiids using trout exclusion barriers in small spring fed streams.

Biz Bell Managing Director (Wildlife Management International Ltd: WMIL) is a seabird and island restoration specialist working a range of ecological and conservation projects throughout New Zealand and around the world. As Managing Director of WMIL, Biz directs a team of passionate ecologists completing a variety of seabird and shorebird conservation projects for government and non-government agencies across New Zealand. Biz has undertaken long-term seabird and shorebird research projects over the past 30 years. She has banded tarapirohe adults and chicks as well as directing the kāhu banding project to determine impacts this species may have on tarapirohe. Biz is an invasive species eradication and control expert, having eradicated pest species from over a dozen islands around the world, and undertaken and directed long-term predator control operations in New Zealand. Biz provides technical advice to a number of Predator Free NZ projects across the country, and see the involvement of communities as vital for the long-term legacy of these, and other, conservation projects.

Amy Whitehead (Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research) is a quantitative wildlife ecologist with a keen interest in science-based environmental decision-making. Her work combines modelling with practical conservation actions, focusing on improving outcomes for threatened species and ecosystems. She loves turning data into real-world solutions that help protect species and wild places.

Billy (Stephen) Barton (Phoenix Kennels) has been many things, Boilermaker by trade, lover of field sports, including working as a gamekeeper (where his passion of trapping and working dogs started) in Wales before moving to NZ. For 14 months he was part of the pest eradication programme on Macquarie island—using rabbiting dogs. Since then, he has been a professional trapper (for a while as a DOC ranger), a ferreter and a detection dog breeder, trainer (for rats, cats, rabbits, hedgehogs, possums and wallabies, and operator. He is an experimenter in all things trapping and predator control including development of predator lures. Billy strongly believes that effective predator control must involve an understanding of the predators and thinking outside of the box.

Grant Davey (Ashley Rakahuri Rivercare Group) has been a mineral exploration geologist in six countries and was a hydrogeologist at Environment Canterbury for four years. He has a PGDip in Environmental Science. For more than eight years he’s been an active member of the Ashley Rakahuri Rivercare Group and BRaid.

Frances Schmechel (Environment Canterbury) has been involved with braided rivers and shorebirds (wader
species) since she moved to NZ in the early 1990s. She studied Chatham Island oystercatchers as part of her thesis while at Lincoln University, and has since been involved with waders via the black stilt recovery programme, braided river bird surveys, as a member of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on Braided River birds, and is currently involved via her work at Environment Canterbury where she helps to implement the Canterbury Water Management Strategy (CWMS) and manages one of the Regional Flagship Programmes for Braided Rivers.

Jason Butt (Environment Canterbury) is the Principal Biodiversity Advisor – Wetlands at Environment Canterbury. As well as providing expert advice, this role involves collaboration with various stakeholders to promote sustainable management practices for wetlands, ensuring their protection and restoration. He is the current Chair of the NZ National Wetland Trust – an organisation which promotes the understanding and conservation of wetlands across the country – and past chair of the Canterbury Botanical Society. Jason has contributed to numerous projects across Canterbury, including at Travis Wetland and Te Waihora/Ellesmere.

Robert Carlson-Iles (Department of Conservation) is a Biodiversity Ranger in the Rakapuka office. He is a jack of all trades and has been involved with braided river bird monitoring, landscape scale weed control, coastal wetland restoration, long-tailed bat work, freshwater fish surveys and protection and threatened plant work. Before DOC, he was a Biodiversity Officer with ECan, and for his sins, a Senior Consents Planner before that.

Miles Burford (Environment Canterbury) joined Environment Canterbury in 2022 after 10 years working at the Department of Conservation (DOC) in the national biodiversity monitoring programme. In a Science Analyst role, he primarily works with Environment Canterbury ecologists and biodiversity staff on braided rivers and wetlands storing and maintaining ecological datasets and tool development. He has working on building a Canterbury Maps Experience Builder platform for all users to interact with the braided river bird survey database.

Naomi Wells (Lincoln University) joined the Soils & Physical Sciences Dept staff in 2021, after five years working at Southern Cross University (Lismore, NSW, Australia) on issues around nitrogen and greenhouse gas dynamics at the interface of terrestrial/aquatic/marine ecosystems. As a biogeochemist, Naomi accounts for how biologically-active elements move through landscapes. She works across aquatic, terrestrial, marine, and atmospheric sciences in order to understand how nitrogen, a critical agricultural fertiliser and now ubiquitous aquatic contaminant, moves around the planet. She received her PhD from Lincoln University in 2014, her MSc from the University of Aberdeen, and her BA from Wellesley College (USA). You can find out more about her research here.

Angus McIntosh (University of Canterbury) is a Professor of Freshwater Ecology and an Associate Dean in Te Kura Pūtaiao Koiora | Biological Sciences, Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury. He is a member of the Ako Aotearoa Academy of Tertiary Teaching Excellence and co-leader of UC’s Freshwater Ecology Research Group. His research has investigated trophic interactions across environmental gradients, often experimentally, to reveal key drivers and pathways for repair and management of aquatic ecosystems. His work has covered topics ranging from low flows to restoration of agricultural streams, mostly in streams, but also working in wetlands and lakes.

Sam Millar (WSP) is a Senior Water Engineer at WSP, where he is often the lead design engineer or project manager of three waters infrastructure projects for local Councils around Aotearoa New Zealand. His projects have included designing buried pipeline crossings of braided rivers, supervising the construction of wetlands & waterway realignments, design of stormwater infrastructure, and other water & wastewater pipelines. Sam has a track record of using his technical skills to manage the (often conflicting) needs of various stakeholders, and advocating for integrating current legal environmental protection constraints with civil engineering projects.

Mark Hansen (WSP) is a Principal Ecologist at WSP, with over 20 years of experience around Aotearoa New Zealand in the environmental industry. Primarily a Terrestrial Ecologist, Mark is a recognised herpetologist (lizards and frogs) and bat ecologist, though Mark is well experienced in Freshwater Ecology and fish management. Since joining WSP, Mark has been the Project Ecologist lead on numerous major infrastructure Projects for the NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi and District Councils, and helped clients navigate legislation and adverse effects on protected species to ensure project outcomes. Mark also has several years dedicated to biosecurity and several years dedicated to biodiversity monitoring. He is a member of the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand and several other societies.

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