Kate Mackness is a new staff person in the Environmental Planning programme.  Kate has a Master of Planning Practice from the University of Auckland, and a Diploma in Tourism from the University of Otago.  She has 10 years’ experience as a policy and resource management  planner.                                 

Professor Bob Evans, from the Northumbria University in the UK, has joined the environmental planning programme at Waikato.   WELCOME BOB EVANS!

One of the challenges of the academic world is the many and varied styles of writing - from business-like and down-to-earth, to highly abstract, intense, long-winded or incomprehensible to the average reader of the English language.  It must be said - even your lecturers find some of the readings obscure, confusing or downright mysterious.  They sometimes have difficulty understanding the meaning of what their colleagues are trying to say, as the linked article demonstrates: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n24_v12/ai_18400885/

Reflections contributed by Aggrey Thuo, PhD candidate, Department of Geography, Tourism and Environmental Planning.

Informal settlements are very important ‘transitional phenomenon’ and ‘conveyor belt’ that low-income people in most developing countries needs to survive in cities.  If there are no such settlements, then low-income people from the poverty stricken rural areas would never move/fit in to the city. Many may frown upon poor people migrating to the cities from the rural areas, but such attitude is misplaced. The comfort that cities offer should be treated as a common resource- or at least the greater opportunities- for every willing citizen to access.

Thuo is a PhD candidate from Kenya who is doing research on the dynamics of urban expansion into the peri-urban and rural hinterland of Nairobi.  He has written his reflections on the role of cities for an article in the East African (http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/) a newspaper with its headquarters in Kenya. 

These are my personal reflections on an article in the Inquirer http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/editorial/view/20090608-209290/Saving-our-river and http://blogs.inquirer.net/notjustforprofit/2009/05/17/cleaning-up-the-pasig-river/about a cleanup of the Pasig River in Manila.   The Pasig River is our version of the Waikato River. It's Manila's longest, and also currently the dirtiest. It wasn't always dirty; it used to be the Mutya (Beautiful Muse) of Manila, a paramount of cleanliness and sparkling radiance. That was in the 1800s and early 1900s, before populations grew to exponential proportions. Now, the Pasig is a big sewer canal littered with shanties and garbage on its banks.

Hello Folks!

I was checking news from the Philippines today and I came across three articles that I found relevant to my review of our class in Environmental Planning Theory. This is the first of the three (http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view_article.php?article_id=209329 .  This article is about Baguio City, the Philippines' summer capital.

Kathryn is an interdisciplinary student who did her undergraduate degree as a BSc in Biology and switched to a BSocSc(Hons) in Geography.  She has just completed a Masters thesis that nicely demonstrates the value of a social science analysis for a biodiversity management.  To find out more, read on . . . . .

Research Project: Sustainable Development and Long-Term Council Community Planning, 2008.  A Work Placement Report by Carla Hemmes

The Faculty of Arts and Social Science has recently introduced a new Work Placement paper, FASS 396 which is open to 3rd year students.  It involves 80 hours in a workplace setting and a report based on the work experience.  Carla Hemmes of the Geography, Tourism and Environmental Planning Department, completed her work-based paper at Hamilton City Council in 2008.

The topic of her paper was the concept of sustainable development and how this can be demonstrated in the process of developing Long-term Council Community Plans (LTCCPs) under the Local Government Act 2002.

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 Achieving long term sustainability of iconic tourism destinations through management planning: A comparison of the management of Milford Sound / Piopiotahi New Zealand, and Windermere, Lake District National Park, United Kingdom. 

 National parks are established for conservation of natural environments in both New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Successful management of national parks requires a balance of social, economic and environmental factors in order to maintain national park values