Our Changing World

Working with the community and local schools, the Karioi Project aims to turn the tide on biodiversity loss in their area. In recent years they've rallied around the grey-faced petrel, or Ōi, who they hope to help return to the maunga.

In the great cycle of nutrients between the ocean and the land, seabirds are an important link. Burrowing seabirds transport nutrients from the sea into the costal bush where they nest. But many are having a hard time on the mainland coast due to predators.

Follow Our Changing World on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRADIO, Google Podcasts, RadioPublic or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

This is the challenge that the ōi or grey-faced petrel in Whāingaroa Raglan is facing.

The bush-clad Karioi maunga, eight kilometers south-west of Raglan, is the most northerly forest on the west coast that connects all the way from mountain top to sea. In recent years the grey-faced petrel has been spotted digging burrows to nest along the coastline at the base of Karioi, but predators such as ferrets and stoats are taking a massive toll on both the chicks and adult birds.

This is what the Karioi Project team are taking action on.

What began as a small volunteer effort has grown to a project employing 12 people part time, including predator control rangers, educators, a backyard trapping hub coordinator, and a seabird ranger dedicated to monitoring the ōi.

Led by project manager Kristel van Houte, the aim is to protect the local biodiversity of Karioi, its ngahere, and the surrounding coastline. It focuses on predator control, both on the maunga and along the coast, with an emphasis ōi nest areas.

The ōi is an oceanic seabird, dark black-brown in colour, with grey feathers at the base of the bill and throat.

They are one of the few burrowing petrels to still survive on the New Zealand mainland, in small colonies scattered around the upper North Island coast. Larger colonies are doing well on predator free offshore islands.

In the Karioi team, Nic Callaghan is the seabird ranger responsible for the monitoring of the burrows. The birds will return in late Autumn, find their mate (they are monogamous), and breed, with an egg laid around mid-winter. The eggs hatch in August or September, with chicks fledging between November and January. At the moment the project is monitoring around 50 burrows, but the numbers of chicks fledging are consistently low, due to the impact of predators.

With an extensive education programme and backyard trapping hub, the team are working with the community to help restore this vital connection between the ocean and the land.

To learn more:

There are a number of Our Changing World episodes celebrating seabirds! Listen to:

More seabirds on Mana island…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Two stories about the promise and perils of chemistry research. From a team recreating Renaissance beauty recipes in the hopes of rediscovering a 'miracle ingredient', to a researcher investigating New Zealand's deadliest synthetic cannabinoid.

Natural products are the origin of many of today's beauty products and medicines, with plant, mineral and animal product extracts analysed and then often re-made, or improved upon, in the lab.

Today we have one story about new discoveries from old recipes, and another about what can happen when this kind of chemistry goes wrong.

Follow Our Changing World on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRADIO, Google Podcasts, RadioPublic or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

The Beautiful Chemistry Project

When art historian Associate Professor Erin Griffey was invited to give a public talk on her research into Renaissance beauty culture, she thought some show and tell would be the way to go. Linking up with some of her University of Auckland colleagues in the chemistry department she pulled out a few old recipes and they started making a batch of 15th-century beauty products.

That was the birth of the Beautiful Chemistry Project - an investigation into Renaissance beauty recipes to discover the secrets they might hold.

Griffey's extensive research and cataloguing of Renaissance texts on the subject has provided a database of thousands of beauty recipes, including ingredients from the mundane, to the bizarre and sometimes even dangerous.

Since Senior Research Fellow Dr Michel Nieuwoudt got on board she has helped to support summer students in their investigations of some of the 'stickier' recipes. Those that, according to Erin's database, resurfaced numerous times across the decades and in different countries.

Using chemical and functional analysis the team are figuring out how these recipes work, and if there are compounds in these old beauty products that have been overlooked by today's cosmetics. 

Investigating the dangers of AMB-FUBINACA

Between 2017 and 2019, the synthetic cannabinoid AMB-FUBINACA was Aotearoa New Zealand's deadliest illicit drug.

Across those two years, it is thought to be related to at least 58 deaths, though may have contributed to more than 70.

Cannabinoids are compounds found in the cannabis plant that are able to activate cannabinoid or CB receptors in our bodies. This is because we have our own endocannabinoid system - cannabinoids we make ourselves that bind to these receptors…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The Nevis Fault is a sleeping giant fault, one that awakens only every 10,000 years or so. This week, a team of geologists use paleoseismic trenching to answer questions about this fault and to figure out the pattern of past earthquakes.

Aotearoa New Zealand is in a collision zone. It is the place where the mighty Australian and Pacific tectonic plates meet. The main fault line runs the length of Te Wai Pounamu and off the east coast of Te Ika a Māui, but the pressure of these two plates meeting causes cracks and fissures across Aotearoa.

Follow Our Changing World on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRADIO, Google Podcasts, RadioPublic or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

These interconnected fault lines rupture at different times, releasing some of the pressure of this massive collision. Some of them rupture relatively frequently. We know that part of the main fault line, the Alpine Fault, is one of these, producing large earthquakes about every 300 years. Others are low recurrence earthquake fault lines, with a larger time interval of more than ten thousand years between ruptures.

The Nevis Valley fault is one of these low recurrence ones. Found in the grassy high country of Otago it runs the length of the Nevis Valley, up to the Kawerau Gorge. Past studies have indicated that it ruptures every 10 to 12,000 years.

This was determined by a method called paleoseismic trenching - digging a deep trench perpendicular to the fault line and looking at the sedimentary layers for evidence of pre-historic earthquakes. This was first done on this fault in the 1980s, but recent advances in technology and dating techniques warrant a second look, says Professor Mark Stirling of the University of Otago.

Stirling is co-lead of an Earthquake Commission-funded project to investigate the seismic risk in low seismicity areas in Southland and Otago.

Dr. Jack Williams, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Otago, is also working on this project, and he is part of the team who are carefully cleaning and marking the trench wall. Once the wall is tidied up after the digger's impact, a grid is set up, and the visible sedimentary layers are marked.

https://players.brightcove.net/6093072280001/default_default/index.html?videoId=6307389939112

This is the beginning of the tricky interpretation step…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

It's Prime Minister's Science Prize time! We meet some of the people awarded the 2021 prizes for their mahi.

The annual Prime Minister's Science Prizes recognise the best in New Zealand science research, teaching and communication.

Now the 2021 results are in. Congratulations to all the winners!

Listen to interviews with prizewinners Bianca Woyak, Carol Khor and Professor Dame Jane Harding in this week's episode of Our Changing World.

Follow Our Changing World on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRADIO, Google Podcasts, RadioPublic or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Outdoor science for hands-on learning (Bianca Woyak, winner of the Science Teachers Prize)

Bianca Woyak is passionate about what she does - 'People call me high energy. I've got so much energy. I always give 150% into anything that inspires me and I want to do.'

Add a specialist science role, a supportive principal, large school grounds and an enthusiastic school full of students, and you've got a winning combination.

A teacher at Burnside Primary School in Ōtautahi Christchurch, Bianca has been awarded the 2021 Te Puiaki Kaiwhaaho Pūtaiao Science Teachers Prize for her success in engaging students in science through a range of environmentally focused activities.

These have included water testing in the local stream, riparian planting, beekeeping, growing trees for planting in Ōtautahi red zone areas and maintaining the school's veggie patch and fruit trees.

Bianca believes in the power of hands-on approaches and real-world learning that is student-led as much as possible.

This is how the B5 (Burnside Brings Back Boulder Butterfly) project came about. While studying the self-introduced Monarch butterfly the students started to wonder about local endemic species. Working with local experts the team decided to recreate a boulder copper butterfly habitat on school grounds and translocated some of these as yet undescribed butterflies there.

When a new generation hatched, they knew that the project had been a success, and the students are now working with other schools and the local zoo to create boulder copper butterfly habitats there too.

Claire Concannon visits Burnside Primary School to catch up with Bianca and tumuaki (principal) Matt Bateman and learn about some projects from the student scientists themselves.

Improving drug treatment for melanoma (Carol Khor, winner of the Future Scientist Prize)

With our high-UV exposure, Aotearoa leads the world in rates of skin cancer, and melanoma is the deadliest form…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Researchers from the University of Waikato are tackling the tricky question of how to restore native biodiversity in our urban areas.

For her Masters research at the University of Waikato, Hannah Rogers has gotten to know every green patch, nook and cranny of Kirikiriroa Hamilton.

Follow Our Changing World on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRADIO, Google Podcasts, RadioPublic or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Within their Nature in the City Strategy, Hamilton City Council set themselves the ambitious target of moving from 1.8% to 10% native vegetation cover in Kirikiriroa by 2050. Across the city there are hundreds of patches of green that they could target for native regeneration. So where should they start?

What the council really needs is a priority list tool. Something that can point them towards the sites with the most potential for restoration.

And that's exactly what Hannah has been working on.

She has mapped and visited different forest remnants, gullies, parks and patches of bush across the city to assess their potential to contribute towards this 10% goal.

In investigating the potential of the sites, Hannah has used eight different ecological criteria, including what plant species there are and how they are doing, the size of the area available for regeneration, the connection to other green spaces, and the type of landform the site is on.

One of the areas that is particularly interesting, and sits high on Hannah's list, is Hillcrest Park. This is because it contains a small remnant of kahikatea forest at its centre. Some of the trees are estimated to be around 120 years old. 

But age isn't everything. The kahikatea remnant is missing the usual array of plants, ferns, epiphytes, and lichens that would be found in a fully functioning, mature native forest.

These are the nuanced aspects of the potential and challenges of restoration at different sites that Hannah's research aims to collect.

Her research feeds into a wider body of work around urban ecological restoration. Led by her supervisor, Professor Bruce Clarkson, the People, Cities and Nature research programme investigates the best ways to bring biodiversity back into cities.

The programme involves multiple universities and institutions and conducts research in several urban areas around Aotearoa. Bruce says that while there are obvious challenges to urban restoration, there are many benefits too, both for nature, and for people.

To learn more

In Urban lizards Alison Ballance speaks to researcher Chris Woolley about his work finding lizards in Wellington as part of the People, Cities and Nature research work.   …

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

We join Marine Science PhD student Namrata Chand on her Autumn field work collecting seaweed samples to learn more about this 'underdog of the ocean'.

Namrata Chand began diving in the coral reefs and warm crystal-clear waters around her native Fiji. Diving to sample seaweed in Otago Harbour for her PhD is quite a different experience.

Follow Our Changing World on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRADIO, Google Podcasts, RadioPublic or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

'I describe it as refreshing' she says, 'My first dive in Dunedin was in nine-degree water'.

Namrata, or Nam, is studying a type of endemic (found only in New Zealand) red seaweed called Adamsiella chauvinii. Instead of attaching to rock like kelp, this seaweed species can grow on the soft sediment habitat found in Otago Harbour. It is thought to play important roles for this ecosystem including taking up nutrients from the water and providing habitat for a range of other seaweed species and marine creatures.

For her research, Nam wants to understand where this red seaweed grows in the harbour and in what quantities, which nutrient, light and temperature conditions it likes, and what other seaweed species grow with it.

To do this, she has been sampling seaweed at sites in three different areas of the harbour. The samples are taken back to the University of Otago's Portobello Marine Laboratory where Namrata sorts them into different species and weighs them to get the biomass of each type.

Alongside this, over the last two years, Nam has been gathering data on the light and temperature conditions in each area, as well as water samples to do seasonal nutrient analysis.

In the footsteps of female phycologists, Nancy Adams (after whom the species is named), and her co-supervisor Professor Wendy Nelson, Nam has also begun pressing some of the seaweed samples she has collected. This has helped her to get up close and personal with the different species, aiding her identification skills. But it will also be part of her PhD legacy - Nam will deposit her pressed seaweed collection into the University of Otago herbarium for future students to be able to view and use.  

In this episode, Claire Concannon joins Nam on her Autumn seaweed sampling trip to learn more about this 'underdog of the ocean', and the art of seaweed pressing.

To learn more

Scientists elsewhere in Aotearoa are growing macroalgae for research purposes and to explore potential uses of native seaweed and freshwater macroalgae. Listen to this episode about the Facility for Aquaculture Research or Macroalgae in Tauranga Moana…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Pūtahi Manawa / Healthy Hearts for Aotearoa has an ambitious goal - to close the inequity gaps in heart health. Researchers in this Centre of Research Excellence explain the gaps that exist and how they plan to address them.

Cardiovascular diseases - disorders of the heart and blood vessels - are the leading cause of death globally. In Aotearoa, alongside cancer and respiratory diseases, they are one of the leading causes. 

Follow Our Changing World on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRADIO, Google Podcasts, RadioPublic or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Cardiovascular diseases are also responsible for a large portion of the difference in life expectancy between Māori and non-Māori and Pacific and non-Pacific people.

Life expectancy is a term used for the average period that a person might expect to live. In Aotearoa there is a difference in life expectancy of about seven years between Māori and non-Māori, and about five years between Pacific and non-Pacific.

A Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE) is aiming to address these, and other, heart health inequities. Pūtahi Manawa / Healthy Hearts for Aotearoa is one of ten CoREs, whose funding began in July 2021, and will run until December 2028.

Pūtahi Manawa have set ambitious goals - the Centre aims to address heart health research and health-care gaps that affect Māori, Pacific peoples, women, and rural communities. To do this, it will need to be 'business not as usual' says co-director Dr. Anna Rolleston. That is, a new way of doing research - working with communities to research what is important to them, and within their world view.

While based in the University of Auckland, as a CoRE, Pūtahi Manawa has partnerships with other Universities and groups. Researchers can apply for funding and support if their plans fit with the Centre's goals and values.

One of the partners in the CoRE is the University of Otago's Christchurch Heart Institute. As part of her work in Christchurch Dr. Allamanda Faatoese is investigating the risk factors for cardiovascular disease among Māori and Pacific people. Allamanda has also been learning from these communities about the barriers to them participating in research.

In the University of Auckland, Dr. Anna Ponnampalam has been investigating the intergenerational heart health impacts that can result from pregnancy complications. Anna has focused on gestational diabetes - when the person develops diabetes during their pregnancy. While gestational diabetes generally resolves after pregnancy, it leaves both the pregnant person and their baby at greater risk for developing diabetes and heart disease later in life…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Claire Concannon meets with some of the people working to protect New Zealand's naturally rare ecosytems and the endangered plants found within them.

Aotearoa is home to over 70 naturally rare ecosystems - places that make up a tiny amount of the total area of New Zealand but can hold incredible amounts of biodiversity.

Follow Our Changing World on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRADIO, Google Podcasts, RadioPublic or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Naturally rare ecosystems happen when there are distinct environmental conditions within a geographically small area; whether it is the underlying rock, the soil chemistry, the climate in the region and/or the local effects of volcanic, geothermal, river, or ocean activities.

Braided riverbeds, coastal turfs, shingle beaches, salt pans, volcanic lahars, tarns and cushion bogs are all examples of naturally rare or naturally uncommon ecosystems in Aotearoa.

These specific landscapes, soil chemistries and conditions have given rise to unique flora and fauna that live in these places. So what you get is a set of rare, endemic (found only in Aotearoa), plants and animals dependent on specific ecosystems and restricted to very small areas.

And many of these are threatened.

In the Waitaki Valley area of North Otago limestone ecosystems are rare and in decline. When it breaks down, the limestone rock produces rich fertile soil good for farming, and the stone itself is quarried for building. So the land has been extensively modified, and the areas suitable for limestone endemic plants has shrunk.

One of the biggest problems for the limestone-soil specific plants is non-native grasses such as Chewings fescue. The grasses smother the plants, blocking out light, sucking up all the moisture and building big impenetrable root mats that stop new plant seedlings from establishing. The low growing natives just can't compete, and so their numbers have been dwindling.

At the back of the Department of Conservation's Oamaru field station DOC ranger Tom Waterhouse has been growing these limestone endemic plants in a nursery. But as science advisor Dr. Clement Lagrue explains, the longer-term issue is where to put them. Intensive monitoring and hand weeding have saved the plants from extinction for now, but to allow them to flourish a habitat 'reset' might be what is required.

University of Otago Botany Masters student Jacinta Steeds is trying to investigate what scale of reset is needed. She is running a field trial on small plots of land to look at what type of weed removal works best…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

A visit to Scott's Terra Nova hut to learn about the care given to the objects by Antarctic Heritage Trust conservators. This is an edit of the Antarctic Heritage Trust's podcast 'Frozen in Time: Scott's Antarctic Legacy'.

Scott's Terra Nova hut at Cape Evans in Antarctica has a history rich in both triumph and tragedy.

Follow Our Changing World on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRADIO, Google Podcasts, RadioPublic or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

In January 1911 Scott and his party disembarked from the Terra Nova ship at a site Scott named Cape Evans after his second in command. Along with the dogs, ponies, sledges, food and scientific equipment they had onboard, they also had a prefabricated hut which they assembled at the cape.

This was to be the men's home over the winter, where the scientists in the party would begin to learn about this remote continent, and from where Scott and his team would launch their expedition for the South Pole the next Antarctic summer.

The hut and more than 11,000 artefacts left behind by expeditions still remain today. Stepping inside, the hut seems, as Sir David Attenborough described, frozen in time.

But that is only due to the extensive conservation work undertaken by New Zealand's Antarctic Heritage Trust. In 2007 the trust began a seven year journey to conserve the wooden hut and the artefacts left behind.

From the building itself, to each tin of preserved food left behind, to the equipment and chemicals in the science lab and dark room, the conservation work was painstaking in its detail. Every artefact was documented, cared for and, where possible, placed back in the hut.

In the Antarctic's Heritage Trust podcast Frozen in Time: Scott's Antarctic Legacy the trust's Chief Operations Officer, Francesca Eathorne, visits the hut and speaks to the conservation experts about their work.

Listen to this week's episode to hear an edit of this podcast.

You can hear the Antarctic Heritage Trust's full podcast, explore photos of the hut and artefacts and hear additional audio at https://nzaht.org/frozen-in-time/.

To learn more:

Visit the Saving Antarctic Heritage Our Changing World compilation webpage from 2015 which has different audio pieces about the conservation work both at Scott's hut at Cape Evans and Shackleton's hut at Cape Royds.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details