Top law expert joins lake nitrogen fight

Public law expert Mai Chen will speak at a community meeting in Rotorua on Sunday. Photo / File

One of New Zealand's most high-profile lawyers has been drafted in to help landowners fight proposed Lake Rotorua nitrogen rules.

Mai Chen, managing partner of Chen Palmer Public and Employment Law Specialists and adjunct professor of law at Auckland University, will speak at a public meeting in Rotorua on Sunday.

The meeting, organised by Protect Rotorua, is intended to answer questions from the community about how the new Bay of Plenty Regional Council rules will affect landowners.

The rules set out how nitrogen discharge allowances will be allocated to individual rural properties in the lake catchment area and are likely to affect all properties over 2 hectares.

The overall goal is a 140-tonne reduction in the discharge of nitrogen into Lake Rotorua by 2032. An Incentives Programme in place for landowners seeks to remove 100 tonnes of nitrogen from entering the lake that is discharged on to land by 2022.

Protect Rotorua's Sharon Love, chairwoman of the Rotorua Deer Farmers Association, said a local deer farmer had engaged Ms Chen to advise landowners and farmers.

"We as a community group are passionate about the focus of this process being about the lake and working together as a community to find the right solutions," Ms Love said.

"Someone is paying for Mai Chen to come and give us some advice. That means we have got a voice. We can actually have a voice." Ms Love said the group hoped to start a fund so they could continue to use her legal services. She said many people in the catchment zone had "given up" and were "over it", as the lake issue had been dragging on for years.

However, it was vital people understood the rules were going to affect them and their livelihoods, she said.

Speakers also include Pahiatua farmer Andrew Day and Corina Jordan from New Zealand Fish and Game Council.

-The meeting will run from 3.30-5.30pm at the Holiday Inn, 10 Tryon St. All are welcome.