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Innovation 2021 articles

  1. Updates and investment boost our national soils mapping capabilities

    S-map Online provides the best available soil resource data for New Zealand and, in doing so, underpins the government’s roadmap for the food and fibres sector, Fit for a Better World.

  2. A new soil pH map for New Zealand

    Soil pH indicates the relative acidity or alkalinity of a soil, and significantly influences various soil functions, soil quality and fertility. Considered a ‘master variable’ in soil science, pH affects soil in almost every way – its physical structure, patterns of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus ...

  3. Monitoring paddock-scale changes in land-use – from space

    For over a decade, scientists at Manaaki Whenua have been developing and improving methods to map agricultural land-use and crop type using satellite imagery. This work is vital to the setting and assessment of environmental plans, as it enables land-use changes and their likely consequences to be m...

  4. How one thing leads to another – building long and deep relationships in effective land management

    Manaaki Taiao is a rōpū (group) made up of Manaaki Whenua Kairangahau Māori (Māori researchers) working on Māori-led research projects within a range of science portfolios.

  5. Reconstructing long-term climate change

    Long-term palaeoecological and climate reconstructions provide baseline information to show how species and ecosystems have responded to climate change and human activities in the past. These palaeo-archives are increasingly being used to help inform conservation management plans and policies, incre...

  6. Our contribution to environmental reporting for Aotearoa New Zealand – the story so far

    Since 2015, research organisations across New Zealand have contributed to a growing national cache of environmental reporting data under the 2015 Environmental Reporting Act, which brought into existence the requirement for cyclic national environmental ‘domain’ reports. This means the Ministry for ...

  7. Regenerative agriculture – what does it mean for New Zealand?

    Regenerative agriculture has been proposed as a solution for some of New Zealand’s most acute challenges. Advocates suggest it can improve the health of our waterways, reduce topsoil loss, offer resilience to drought, add value to primary exports, and improve the pervasive well-being crisis among ru...

  8. Technology tracking tōrea

    Designing conservation management strategies to protect native manu is especially challenging for mobile species, which range widely across
    New Zealand and face multiple threats in different places and at different times. Researchers face additional technical challenges in building
    knowledge of wher...

  9. Restoring New Zealand birdscapes

    Manaaki Whenua researchers are combining ambitious field-based research and computer modelling to derive evidence-based conservation management strategies that agencies, ecosanctuaries and farmers can all use to help native birds thrive, in montane native forests, on farms, and in coastal harbours a...

  10. Turning the next page on predator control in New Zealand

    The story, so far, is well-known. Introductions of small mammals to New Zealand have caused catastrophic losses of indigenous biota owing to
    predation, browsing, and competition for shared resources. Our deeply endemic bird species, highly adapted to New Zealand’s pre-predator
    environments, are part...

  11. A range of work in wetland biodiversity

    Wetlands are important ecosystems for their biodiversity, cultural, and recreational values as well as their key role in carbon storage. However, wetlands are also ecosystems under threat. In New Zealand, wetlands have declined by ~90%, mostly over the past 200 years, from around 10% to just ~1% of ...

  12. Changes in the rural hazardscape

    New Zealand is a highly dynamic, multihazard environment, including coastal, riverine, and seismic landscape hazards. Manaaki Whenua’s social scientists are currently building a wide body of knowledge about the importance of co-creating knowledge about disaster response, allowing effective knowledge...

  13. He matawara o mua – Taking account of shifting ecological baselines

    Global biodiversity losses due to human activities have accelerated more in the past 50 years than at any time in human history. Intertwined with this rapid decline is the loss of knowledge about past environmental conditions and species abundances. This loss threatens how the next generation percei...

  14. Fake clues: using misinformation about odour to protect rare bird species

    Mammalian predators primarily rely on smell as their main cue, enabling them to detect food from a distance. Smell is – usually – a reliable strategy for locating food.

  15. New biocontrol tools showing promise

    Introduced Vespula wasps – the German wasp (Vespula germanica) and the common wasp (V. vulgaris) – are generalist predators that attack a wide variety of arthropods, including honeybees, butterflies, flies, and spiders. Where they are invasive, these wasps have detrimental effects on normal ecosyste...

  16. DNA sequencing for better identification of fungi

    It is an exciting time to be a fungal taxonomist (someone who specialises in the identification and classification of fungi) according to Dr Peter Johnston, one of Manaaki Whenua’s experts in the discipline.