First Environment Commissioner

Press, 19 December 1986, Page 4

First Environment Commissioner

Wellington reporter Parliament has appointed Mrs Helen Hughes as its first Commissioner for the Environment. The Ombudsman and the Privacy Commissioner are the only other offices directly responsible to Parliament rather than to the Government of the day. Mrs Hughes will have a watchdog role on all matters relating to the environment. She will be able to review procedures established by the Government to manage the allocation, use, and conservation of natural re-

sources. Mrs Hughes was born in Nelson and educated at Nelson College for Girls and the University of Canterbury, where she gained a master’s degree in botany. She also attained a master’s degree in plant science at Vassar College in New York. Mrs Hughes has previously worked in the D.5.1.R., the Planning Council, and the Fijian Department of Agriculture, and has taught at Christchurch Girls’ High School and Onslow College in Wellington.

She is a member of the board of the Cawthron Institute in Nelson, is chairman of the New Zealand Man and Biosphere Committee of U.N.E.5.C.0., is a past president of the Wellington branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand, and a past chairman of the New Zealand Committee for Water Pollution Research. Mrs Hughes has until now been Acting Commissioner for the Environment. Her appointment as commissioner followed agreement by both sides of the House.