It is with great sadness that we note the death of HydroTrader's managing director Dr Tony (Anthony) Davoren on 10 June 2023.
Without Tony; his mana, boundless knowledge of hydrology, soil moisture monitoring and irrigation, and connections throughout the farming industry, HydroTrader Ltd wouldn't have taken off, let alone been a success.
From the formation of the company in 2006, through the public launch in 2007 which raised the ire of then Minister for the Environment David Benson-Pope, and the subsequent brokerage of the first water allocation trades later that year, Tony has been a tireless advocate of responsible water permit trading. Numerous media interviews followed, in which Tony was quick to counter claims of "New Zealand's natural water resources being for sale," noting that it is the allocation, in the form of a conditional water permit, owned by an individual, company or Trust, that is being traded.
Water allocation trading is now an accepted part of this country's resource management practices, primarily in Canterbury, where it enables existing permit holders to benefit from upgrades in water use efficiency by selling surplus allocation, for new water users to gain access to otherwise fully-allocated resources, and as a means of reducing over-allocation through the surrender of a percentage upon transfer to another site.
Without the leadership of Dr Tony Davoren, it is unlikely that these outcomes would have been realised on the scale they have been over the 17 years HydroTrader has been in existence, with over 18 million cubic metres of annual water allocation having been traded.
So we now bid farewell to our colleague and friend Tony, and extend our heartfelt condolences to his wife Raewyn, children, grandchildren and wider whanau."
Warwick Pascoe (Technical Director) & Gus Walkden (Financial Director)