Speaker: Al Morrison, Director-General of Conservation.
Topic: "Commerce on the DOC estate"
This subject has been stirring much debate in recent months. In addition to having one of the most influential roles in New Zealand conservation, Al Morrison is also a very entertaining speaker. Al will take questions at the conclusion of his presentation.
When: Tuesday 1 November, 12noon to 2pm.
Where: The restaurant at Speights Ale House on Bealey Ave.
Cost: $5 per person for room hire. Lunch and drinks available for purchase.
Al will speak from 12:30pm. Audience questions from 1pm. Break for informal chat from 1:30pm.
We recommend you order lunch well before Al starts. Lunch menus available here.
Many of you, like me, will remember Al Morrison from when he worked as the parliamentary reporter on Morning Report on National Radio. Every weekday morning his journalistic cynicism would be brought to bear on the easy targets that trundle by on the conveyor belt of national politics.
Any of us who stopped to reflect for a moment on his possible eventual fate might have concluded that a corporate communications manager salary would beckon.
This seemed to come to pass when he left Radio New Zealand and arrived on the doorstep of the Department of Conservation. But the script was torn up when, not much later, he spectacularly burst into the role of Director General of Conservation.
I don’t know much about Al Morrison, but I know that he must offer something special to achieve a role like that without the usual laborious climb up the public service ladder.
Just how special I didn’t realise until his speech of 7 October 2010 at Lincoln University. You can read it in full here. An astonishing summation of the state of New Zealand biodiversity, Al Morrison asks us what Elvis and Howard Morrison have in common before traversing the issues to conclude a simple business case: "Toi te whenua, toi tu te tangata. If we look after the land, the land will look after us."
When we mentioned this speech in a Green Drinks email last year, many folk inquired as to whether Al would be a speaker at a Green Drinks event. Twelve months of emails and phone calls later, we have finally got there.
These days Al is known for championing the role of commerce on the DOC estate. We have asked him to speak on this controversial topic and there will be 30 minutes for questions from the audience.
Posted on October 27, 2011
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