Big conservation meeting in Chch

Press, 29 September 1979, Page 14

Big conservation meeting in Chch

Christchurch will be the venue for the fifteenth general assembly of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, the largest international conservation conference to be held in New Zealand. Planned for October, 1981, the conference is expected to attract about 250 delegates from throughout the world.

The union, the world’s foremost conservation agency, identifies world conservation priorities and co-ordinates international programmes working with the United Nations environment programme, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, Unesco, and the World Wildlife Fund. Its general assemblies are

held every three years, the last being in the Soviet Union in 1978.

The Deputy DirectorGeneral of Lands (Mr P H. C. Lucas), who is regional councillor of the union and a member of the conference steering committee, said a draft world conservation strategy was considered at the last conference and should be released in its final form next year.

The New Zealand Nature Conservation Council was co-ordinating a draft conservation strategy for this country which it was hoped would be ready for the 1981 conference. Mr Lucas hoped the New Zealand example would encourage other countries to prepare conservation strategies.