Celeste Lane
Otago Regional Council (ORC)
Celeste Lane is a Senior Environmental Officer with Otago Regional Council (ORC), specialising in agricultural compliance and environmental management across dairy farming, intensive winter grazing, and large irrigation schemes. After completing her studies in Microbiology and Environmental Management, she began her local government career with Central Otago District Council before joining ORC in 2024.
Celeste is passionate about building strong relationships with rural communities and believes that genuine engagement is key to achieving positive environmental outcomes. Committed to using every interaction as an opportunity for education and engagement, she works with landowners to improve their understanding and ability to meet their regulatory requirements while encouraging sustainable environmental practices.
Boots on the Ground Engagement
Otago Regional Council’s recent experience in dairy compliance has highlighted that effective regulation depends on strong, consistent engagement between regulators and the regulated.
Over the past four years, legislative changes – specifically the National Environmental Standards for Freshwater (NES-FW), Plan Change 8 (PC8) and the introduction and later repeal of the Intensive Winter Grazing (IWG) regulations, created uncertainty, frustration, and reduced confidence in the stability of agriculture-specific rules. This significantly effected farmers’ willingness to engage with new animal effluent consenting requirements, despite a fixed legislative deadline of 4 December 2025.
Through persistent engagement, ORC achieved high levels of consent uptake within six months, while also improving relationships, reducing environmental risk and reducing regional non-compliance.
This presentation will focus on the lessons that came up as ORC navigated these challenges. This session will detail what methods help rebuild trust, what hindered progress, and how engagement approaches directly influenced compliance outcomes.
The learning outcomes from the presentation will include:
Recognising how rapid regulatory change can erode confidence and reduce engagement, even amongst previously compliant communities.
Identifying engagement strategies that support constructive relationships, including targeted outreach, clear messaging, and an “every opportunity for education” approach.
Applying lessons from Otago’s experience to strengthen other compliance programmes, particularly where communities are fatigued by or distrustful of regulatory change.
Attendees will be encouraged to consider how they would respond as regulators or the regulated parties to scenarios drawn from Otago’s effluent and IWG consenting processes, before comparing their approaches with what occurred in practice. Discussions around decision-making, communication, and the role of discretion during periods of high pressure or community stress will also be included.