Chair’s Report for the year preceding 2025 Annual General Meeting, October 2025

The Society has seen a steady trend of growth and activity in the past year. Some highlights for the society included a keynote presentation at the Australasian Land & Groundwater Association conference in Auckland in October 2024, a presence at the Underground Festival in north Canterbury in February, and a very popular exhibit in the Forestry Hub at the Mystery Creek Fieldays in June of this year.

Our programmes of outreach and engagement have been strengthened by the work of member organisations such as Char Pae and City to Farm. We have also had member workshops supported and promoted by Quorum Sense, and Phil was invited to give a guest lecture on biochar to postgraduate students at Auckland University in August. On the disappointing side of things, some of our colleagues and policy champions within key ministries were lost to early redundancies and restructuring as central government austerity measures took effect. Aotearoa New Zealand's position as a laggard in biochar uptake internationally won't be helped by further diminishing public sector support for trials and commercialisation. This means that the mahi of developing biochar's potential lands squarely on organisations like BNNZ and ANZBIG, along with the challenges of leading initiatives with a small core team of volunteers.

Other activities to note have been our semi-regular Members Lounge informal video chats, with guest speakers including Tom Miles of the US Biochar Initiative, and Simon Arnold from the Bioenergy Association of NZ. Our contract admin Dylan Graves has managed back-office streamlining and our collaborative relationship with ANZBIG including dual memberships. Dylan has also produced several articles for related organisations and publications, and started a podcast series called Char Chit Chat. And the All Black Earth newsletter has kept up its steady stream of releases and promoted the events taking place in the world of biochar here in our corner of the Pacific.

As we look ahead to the coming year the executive committee will have a focus on strategic planning and looking for more opportunities to partner with organisations in areas like forestry, energy, primary industry, and economic development. We will also plan a Special General Meering early in the new year to ratify and adopt a new constitution for the Society so that we meet the new statutory requirements.

Heartfelt thanks go out to all of our membership, and to our executive committee, who give their time and expertise to keeping the Society working in a cohesive manner. Thanks also to Dylan for looking after the administrative details, and to ANZBIG for providing support and access to the greater pool of activity and engagement across the Tasman.

Phil Stevens
Chair

Committee members re-elected: 

Trevor Richards, Ben Elms, Phil Stevens, Simon Day, James McNally, John McDonald-Wharry, Andrew Finlayson, Pranoy Pal

Positions elected:

Chairperson: Phil Stevens   
Deputy Chair: Andrew Finlayson   
Secretary: Trevor Richards
Treasurer: Ben Elms