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Celebrating our achievements

The 2021 Science New Zealand Awards ceremony, held online in December, recognised research excellence across the CRIs. Dr Kenny Bell won an Early Career Researcher award for his work in climate econometrics – the future economic and social impacts of climate change. Dr David Whitehead was awarded a Lifetime Achievement award for his outstanding contributions to plant physiology, ecosystem carbon exchange, and greenhouse gas emissions. Manaaki Whenua’s internationally acknowledged Weed Biocontrol Team won a Team award for their wide-reaching work over many decades in the development and release of biocontrol agents to control serious intractable weeds across New Zealand and further afield.

David Whitehead (left), Kenny Bell (right)

David Whitehead (left), Kenny Bell (right)

Kia Whakanui te Whenua: People, Place, Landscape, a Māori landscape classification framework book with contributed chapters from Dr Garth Harmsworth, Dr Shaun Awatere, and Dr Nikki Harcourt, was the runner-up in the non-fiction category at the 2021 New Zealand Heritage Literary Awards in October 2021. Dr Harmsworth (with Jonathan Procter) wrote He Tatai Whenua: Towards Developing a Māori Landscape Classification Framework. Dr Awatere and Dr Harcourt wrote a chapter on Whakarite Whakaaro, Whanake Whenua: Kaupapa Māori Decision-making Frameworks for Alternative Land Use Assessments. The judges commented: ‘This fresh and timely Māori-led collection is bursting with knowledge that focuses on ideas concerning whenua, tinana and wairua to intervene in ways of thinking about people and landscape. The result is a beautifully produced and powerful intervention into current debates concerning the fields of traditional science and western science that extends how heritage itself is defined.’

From left: Drs Garth Harmsworth, Shaun Awatere, Nikki Harcourt

From left: Drs Garth Harmsworth, Shaun Awatere, Nikki Harcourt