Background

The Environmental Protection Agency’s role is to “protect New Zealand’s environment and the people who live and work in it, for a better way of life.”

Dr Jacqueline Rowarth was working as a professor of agribusiness before she took on the role of Chief Science Advisor with the EPA in 2016. She also has shares in a Waikato dairy farm.

However, her choice was controversial due to her pro-farming interests. She had also claimed the Waikato River was one of the top five cleanest rivers in the world, something refuted by the New Zealand Freshwater Sciences Society.