Business will be encouraged to invest more in conservation with the appointment of Auckland businessman Rob Fenwick to a Department of Conservation role. An environmental business leader and long-standing advocate of conservation values, he has taken
Business will be encouraged to invest more in conservation with the appointment of Auckland businessman Rob Fenwick to a Department of Conservation role.
An environmental business leader and long-standing advocate of conservation values, he has taken a part-time position as DOC’s commercial relations adviser.
Mr Fenwick will report to the director-general of conservation, Al Morrison, and will work to increase the value of private business support for conservation work.
More than 4500 private businesses already operate on public conservation land.
Mr Morrison says DOC is extremely fortunate to attract a businessman of Mr Fenwick’s environmental vision and commercial expertise to such a strategic role.
"Rob has been a trail blazer for sustainable business in this country – he knows first hand that good environmental practice adds real value to the bottom line – and through his own experience he understands that business can be also be good for conservation.”
Mr Fenwick' is a co-founder of the successful organic waste management business, Living Earth, and a director of the Stone Paper Company which looks to produce paper from waste construction materials.
He is chairman of the Antarctica NZ, the NZ Waste Advisory Board and BNZ Save the Kiwi Trust. He is a trustee of the Air New Zealand Environmental Trust, a committee member of the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development and has also served as chairman of the national board of St John and deputy chairman of TVNZ. He has been closely involved in restoration and release of native birds in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf and is a patron of the NZ Native Plant Conservation Network.
He was made a Companion of New Zealand Order of Merit in 2008 for his services to conservation and has an honorary doctorate from Lincoln University in natural resources.
