Garth Harmsworth

Garth Harmsworth completed an honours MSc in earth sciences at Waikato in 1983. His environmental-science career has included resource assessment, national databases, GIS and Indigenous research at Manaaki Whenua from 1992. He has worked with Māori organisations, government agencies, councils and communities on land-use planning, ecosystem health, cultural indicators, landscape restoration and research capability.

Garth Harmsworth joined Landcare Research in 1992. His work connected land-resource assessment and national environmental databases with GIS and Māori-led research. Manaaki Whenua’s professional account describes research on Māori land use, ecosystem indicators and the relationship between environmental information and Indigenous knowledge. He co-authored the 2005 Motueka case study on developing and using GIS for iwi and hapū with Mick Park and Dean Walker. His earlier work included regional land-resource data for GIS in 1993–1994 and Māori land-values research in 1995–1996.

Garth Harmsworth prepared a discussion document on Māori values for land-use planning in 1995 and contributed an extended abstract on GIS and Māori land values to the April 1996 remote-sensing and GIS workshop at Massey University.