Fraser Toulmin
Toi Moana Bay of Plenty Regional Council
Fraser Toulmin is the Compliance Team Leader at Toi Moana Bay of Plenty Regional Council, where he leads a multidisciplinary team responsible for environmental compliance, monitoring, enforcement, and regulatory response across a diverse range of primary sector activities (forestry, earthworks and dairy farming). In this role, he provides strategic and operational leadership, supports complex compliance and enforcement matters, and works closely with industry, iwi, communities, and government agencies to achieve positive environmental outcomes.
Fraser has been with Bay of Plenty Regional Council since October 2015. Prior to moving into regulatory compliance leadership, he worked as a Senior Advisor in Emergency Management, developing extensive experience in risk management, resilience, incident response, and interagency coordination. This background has provided a strong foundation for navigating complex environmental issues and leading teams through challenging regulatory environments.
Since being appointed Compliance Team Leader in October 2021, Fraser has focused on building organisational capability, improving regulatory consistency, and fostering collaborative approaches to environmental compliance.
Fraser is currently the Chair of the National Forestry Audit Group, a role he has held for the past two years. Established to improve national consistency in the implementation of the National Environmental Standards for Commercial Forestry (NES-CF), the group brings together forestry compliance practitioners from regional councils across New Zealand to undertake peer reviews, share lessons learned, address interpretation challenges, and strengthen compliance decision-making.
A regular contributor to national compliance forums, Fraser presented at the 2024 Environmental Compliance Conference ("The Good, the Bad and the Fast Tracked") and returns in 2026 to share the ongoing evolution of the national forestry audit programme. His presentation highlights how practitioner-led collaboration, peer auditing, and structured national engagement are helping to improve consistency, transparency, and confidence in environmental regulation across New Zealand's forestry sector.
From Regional Interpretation to National Consistency: A Collaborative Approach to monitoring under the NES-CF
Regional variation in the interpretation and application of the National Environmental Standards for Commercial Forestry (NES-CF) quickly became an area of frustration for both regulators and industry. Reflecting on other work programme progression at a national level (Dairy Audits), a group of forestry compliance officers initiated a collaborative, practitioner-led approach to address inconsistency and build national alignment.
This presentation discusses the evolution of that initiative, from informal discussions to an established annual forum bringing together forestry officers from across the country. Through structured engagement, the group navigates interpretation challenges, audits each other's compliance approaches, and works collectively to respond to regulatory updates. The result has been improved consistency, increased confidence in decision-making, and a stronger, more unified regulatory voice.
Attendees will gain insight into how national collaboration can be practically implemented. Key learning outcomes include:
Understanding the impacts of inconsistent regulatory interpretation.
Learning how peer review and file auditing can strengthen decision-making and quality.
Identifying practical mechanisms to improve national consistency in compliance practice.
Recognising the value of regular, structured officer engagement in responding to regulatory change.
This session provides a replicable model for other regulatory programmes seeking to move toward consistent, transparent, and industry-trusted compliance delivery.