Dr Greg Ryder

Greg is an environmental scientist and RMA commissioner with 40 years’ experience investigating the effects of land use, hydro-electric schemes, irrigation, mining, stormwater and wastewater discharges on freshwater and coastal ecosystems throughout Aotearoa. He founded his consulting business in 1995 and now operates as Greg Ryder Consulting. Greg has served as a Board Member of the Environmental Protection Authority, a Freshwater Commissioner under the Resource Management Amendment Act 2020, and has sat as an independent commissioner on more than 30 RMA hearings covering a broad range of activities including hydro development, gravel extraction, irrigation, mining and wastewater discharges.
Greg has a long affinity with the Clutha River / Mata-Au, having grown up in Balclutha for much of his younger life and then undertaken multiple assessments of the river and its tributaries in his professional carrier.
Greg splits his time between Lake Hāwea and Dunedin, drawn back to the mountains and freshwater environments of the Upper Clutha. With a particular interest in environmental monitoring, he brings decades of technical and governance experience to Wai Wānaka’s work protecting the catchment he calls home.