By Imogen Foote (Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington) A lack of consensus among international conservation regimes regarding albatross taxonomy makes management of these ocean roaming birds tricky. My PhD research aims to generate whole genome data for some of our most threatened albatrosses in a first attempt to bring their taxonomy into the genomic era. The albatross dilemma If there’s one thing that you could get albatross taxonomists to agree on, it’s that you’ll never get all albatross taxonomists to agree on species boundaries. However, species are the currency of conserv ..read more

Mike Joy, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington   Water scarcity and water pollution are increasingly critical global issues. Water scarcity is driven not only by shortages of water, but also by rendering water unusable through pollution. New Zealand is no exception to these trends. Demand for water has rapidly increased, and New Zealand now has the highest per capita take of water for agriculture among OECD countries. Regulatory failures have also led to over-allocation of many ground and surface water resources. Some water sources are also well on the way to being unusable ..read more

Simon Kingham, University of Canterbury   The Dutch have long been recognised as leaders in cycling. Denmark is not far behind, with more bikes than cars in its capital Copenhagen. This is the result of many years of investment. Even the UK, with less of a cycling tradition, is investing and showing growth in cycling. New Zealand is starting to follow suit. The Emissions Reduction Plan, released last week, includes NZ$350 million to encourage walking, cycling and public transport. Investment in cycling is often motivated by the need to curb emissions and to increase rates of active transp ..read more

Jen Purdie, University of Otago If your next car is not electric, then it must be much smaller than your last one. Scientists have warned that the world needs to halve emissions every decade to keep global warming less than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. The government of Aotearoa New Zealand aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. Last year, the Climate Change Commission (CCC) laid out the path to net zero in its advice to the government. In recent weeks, the government has released its plan to achieve these climate targets. The goal is not insignificant, especi ..read more

Elizabeth Elliot Noe, Lincoln University, New Zealand; Andrew D. Barnes, University of Waikato; Bruce Clarkson, University of Waikato, and John Innes, Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research   Urbanisation, and the destruction of habitat it entails, is a major threat to native bird populations. But as our new research shows, restored urban forests can return native birds to our cities and improve species richness. The older the restored forest, the more native bird species it can support. Shutterstock/Dmitry Naumov We define restored urban forests as green areas within a city, dominated by na ..read more

In the depths of winter, most people from southern New Zealand head to warmer climes for a much-needed dose of Vitamin D. Yet during the height of the last Ice Age, one species of moa did just the opposite.  I’m reminded of Bill Bailey’s En Route to Normal tour that visited Dunedin last year where he was performing one of his great comedic songs. On this night he was singing about being at a dark deserted crossroads, framed by a lone street light, with only a kiwi for company. The punchline, delivered to peels of laughter from the audience, is that it was a Friday night in Inver ..read more

PHOTO (cropped): Japan Meteorological Agency, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=114321094 Jenny Stein, Resilience to Nature’s Challenges National Science Challenge Following a volcanic eruption, local communities understandably have more pressing concerns than ensuring a sample of ash gets sent to a lab. But that sample will provide crucial insight into the extent and types of hazards people will be exposed to in the eruption aftermath. Carol Stewart is a researcher with the Resilience to Nature’s Challenges National Science Challenge, Associate Professor of Environmen ..read more

Professor Kevin Burns, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Most of us know the sad story of New Zealand’s natural history. Having evolved for millennia in the absence of mammals, most New Zealand animals never learned how to cope with the throngs of predatory mammals that accompanied us on our journey to Aotearoa New Zealand. Thankfully, recent conservation efforts have stemmed the tide of extinction. Fenced sanctuaries like Zealandia now support vibrant populations of native birds, safe from harm from introduced rats, cats and stoats. Given the rarity of native birds and their ..read more

Ask any museum curator if you could destroy the only known bone of a diminutive extinct animal for genetic research, and the answer, once the curator had regained their composure…well, I’ll leave that one to your imagination. Walk into the behind-the-scenes collection at any museum in Aotearoa New Zealand and you’re immediately drawn to the big things, whether that’s historical taxidermy, like imposing carnivores with their glassy eyes that eerily follow you around the room, or the skeletons of marine leviathans that once explored the ocean’s depths. Yet tucked away, dwarfed by the adjacent sh ..read more

Matthew Hobbs, University of Canterbury and Lukas Marek, University of Canterbury As councils and central government consider what cities of the future will look like, a new tool has been developed to map how various features of where we live influence public health. The Healthy Location Index (HLI) breaks down healthy and unhealthy elements in cities across New Zealand. It offers important lessons for how we plan and modify our cities to increase physical activity levels and tackle important issues such as obesity and mental health. The obesogenic environment New Zealand has one of the highes ..read more