Our webinar for July 6 draws on the experiences of activists working through local and regional councils. With local body elections in October – and a global temperature rise of less than two degrees as good as passed - action for climate must be a driving issue. We hope to learn from their struggles and their achievements.

Joanna Santa Barbara will open the session, describing her work on the Nelson Tasman Climate Forum. She says:

"I’m a retired psychiatrist living in Motueka. I’m currently Co-Chair of Nelson Tasman Climate Forum, an organisation that seeks to engage community-wide action on climate change. At the national level I’m interested in promoting understanding of the need for contraction of the human enterprise in responding to human ecological overshoot, and in the importance of reducing inequity in a just response to climate change."

We will hear from Robert Guyton who is a Southland regional councillor of 12 years and initiated a process for council to declare a climate emergency. He is a forest-gardener and an advocate, through his column in The New Zealand Gardener, for the "managed woodland" approach to mahi nga kai ki Murihiku and beyond.

Two key activists from Lower Hutt will share our last half hour.

Peri Zee is an urban planner working towards more inclusive and connected communities who are supported to live good lives within planetary boundaries. She will be leading the implementation of the Lower Hutt Climate Action Pathway, Te Ara Whakamua o Te Awa Kairangi ki Tai.

Jörn Scherzer heads Hutt City Council’s solid waste and climate change portfolio, which includes reducing both Council’s organisational and city-wide emissions. He has an academic background in environmental and resource policy, and he previously worked at the Ministry of Transport and the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA).

Here is the link for this webinar on Wednesday July 6 at 7:30pm:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83585713814?pwd=b2t5N05hVEE5TFJaVHRPMEJuMnkxZz09