Our Changing World

By RNZScience

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per episode

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Our Changing World episodes

March 30Monitoring plastic pollution in Northland, and the elusive bittern
Our Changing Word heads to Whangārei to speak to a Northland Regional Council scientist whose been using stormwater drains to estimate the scale of our plastic pollution problem. Plus, just outside Christchurch, one of New Zealand’s biggest lakes is home to the ‘canary in the coalmine’ of wetlands. The secretive and elusive Australasian bittern seems to be in trouble - how can we help?
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Join Alison Ballance on a kayak across a lake to listen to some booming bittern crooners.
Listen to the nine to noon interview with John Sumich about the 2025 Matuku muster.
The research into microplastics was part of the AIM2 project, which was reported on in 2021 as part of the OCW episode ‘Unwelcome visitors’.
Another source of microplastics is textile waste, but an international project is looking to a future where our clothes are fully biodegradable.
Guests:
Richard Griffiths, Northland Regional Council
Peter Langlands, Bittern Conservation – New Zealand
Harry Caley, Department of Conservation
Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details
27 min
March 23 The tree keepers
In Dunedin the local tree crop association has been looking after a heritage apple orchard, but some mixed up labels meant they weren’t quite sure what varieties they had. A chance encounter at a public open day sets one young researcher on a scientific quest to ID them all. Plus, in a nursery in Rotorua, a propagation scientist is figuring out the best way to grow a native tree from cuttings.
Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details
27 min
March 16How to grow a kiwi
Take a (very) large egg, some insects (plus specially developed food), and a safe place to put on weight for a while. This is how you grow a kiwi, and improve wild survival rates from 5% to 65%. With over 2,600 hatches across their 30 year history, the National Kiwi Hatchery have a lot of experience under their belt, but there's always more to learn from our iconic national bird. Our Changing World visits the hatchery to learn how they combine conservation and eco-tourism to help grow kiwi numbers.
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Operation Nest Egg has also been a great success for the rowi kiwi, the only remaining wild population of which lives in Ōkārito on the South Island’s West Coast.
In July 2025 little spotted kiwi were found on New Zealand’s mainland for the first time in 50 years. Two chicks and eggs were subsequently brought to Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Christchurch to allow them to get to stoat-proof weight.
With a lot of help, and stoat trapping, brown kiwi are returning to the wilds of Wellington.
Candling is also used to track kākāpō embryo development and egg fertility, learn more in episode 12 of the Kākāpō Files II podcast.
Guests:
Emma Bean, manager of the National Kiwi Hatchery
Carole Dean, kiwi keeper, National Kiwi Hatchery
Rebeca Bothamley, tour guide, National Kiwi Hatchery
Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details
31 min
March 09Iwi-led conservation in the Kaimai Mamuku ranges
In the Kaimai Mamuku ranges iwi-led conservation projects are tackling pests, removing weeds and planting natives to restore their whenua.
Ngāti Hinerangi’s Wairere Mahi project has been trapping around the Wairere falls, and restoring a nearby system of lakes.
The projects were born from the Jobs for Nature fund established by the government during the Covid-19 pandemic. But with that fund now finished where will the money to support future conservation work come from? The Manaaki Kaimai Mamuku Trust supporting these projects has some ideas.
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Jobs for Nature also supported an iwi-led wetland restoration project just outside Dunedin.
In 2024 The Detail spoke to a number of Jobs for Nature supported projects that were nearing the end of their funding.
The Turning Point video series followed some of the kaimahi working on different Jobs for Nature projects across Aotearoa.
Country Life’s Dollars for Nature episode covered the government announcement about voluntary nature credits market.
Guests:
Louise Saunders, CEO of Manaaki Kaimai Mamuku Trust
Mohi Korohina, Wairere Mahi project manager
Hera Denton, GoEco
Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details
27 min
March 02 The thorny issue of the long-spined urchin
A native species is taking over a jewel-in-the crown marine reserve. But what can be done?
Centrostephanus, the long-spined urchin, is munching its way through the world-renowned rock walls and kelp beds of the Poor Knights Islands. DOC, University of Auckland scientists and a local hapū are running removal trials to investigate whether this might be a way to manage its march.
Sign up to the Our Changing World monthly newsletter for episode backstories, science analysis and more.…
Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details
27 min
February 23The Democratisation of Space?
New Zealand is third in the world for the number of orbital rocket launches from our shores, sitting just behind the US and China. Phil Vine discovers some of the challenges raised by our push into the unknown and how it is changing the final frontier.
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Through a science experiment on the ISS, New Zealand researchers have been taking advantage of the unique conditions in low earth orbit to investigate commercial opportunities.
While New Zealand is well known as a place from which to launch rockets, we do not have a lot of our own hardware in space (the University of Auckland does have TPA-1 CubeSat). But that might be about to change.
Tech bros turned space bros like Elon Musk are making big waves out in orbit. The latest news is that Musk is hoping to harness the sun through satellites to power AI data centres.
The New Zealand government's biggest investment in an international space mission ended in failure last year after MethaneSAT, a satellite built to detect methane emissions around the world, lost contact.
While there are challenges inherent in humans and their technology being in space, that’s not all that is going on. Scientists are keeping a close eye on an active black hole and bright lights have Northland locals turning their eyes to the skies.
Guests:
Mark Rocket, CEO Kea Aerospace
Dr Priyanka Dhopade, senior lecturer in mechanical and mechatronics engineering, University of Auckland
Dr Tuana Yazici, space law expert
Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details
26 min
February 16Science for future fashion
We know there are issues with sustainability within the fashion industry - can science help create a better future? Claire Concannon visits the Bioeconomy Science Institute in Rotorua to learn how New Zealand scientists are contributing to a massive multi-national project aimed at shaping the textile industry of tomorrow.
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UPWEARS has their own research project page if you want to learn more.
Learn more about how the Bioeconomy Science Institute (formally Scion) is figuring out how to make new materials and products using bio-waste products rather than fossil fuels.
The rise of synthetic fibres impacted the wool industry here in New Zealand, although some entrepreneurs and weavers are making it work for them.
Guests:
Dr Yi Chen, Bioeconomy Science Institute, and UPWEARS
Dr Robert Abbel, Bioeconomy Science Institute, and UPWEARS
Sean Taylor, Bioeconomy Science Institute, and UPWEARS
Louise Le Gall, Bioeconomy Science Institute, and UPWEARS
Dr Kate Parker, Bioeconomy Science Institute, and UPWEARS
Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details
26 min
February 09Going for eradication - Predator free South Westland
Since 2018 there's been a massive effort underway to clear over 110,000 hectares of South Westland of possums, rats and stoats. As the pest numbers have dropped the native flora and fauna seem to have flourished. The eradication stage is now nearing completion, and the focus is switching to maintenance. What will it take to keep the pests out long-term? And what can be learned from this large-scale project that could be used elsewhere in Aotearoa?
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Read/Listen to the rest of the reports from Tess Brunton’s reporting trip to the West Coast, about the eradication project, the work of species dogs, the feedback from tour operators and how rowi, New Zealand’s rarest kiwi, has been helped come back from the brink.
For more on the use of AI in pest management project, listen to how the Southern Lakes Sanctuary team have been making use of it at Wye Creek.
Guests:
Chad Cottle, Predator Free South Westland
Ethan Perry, Predator Free South Westland
Nate St Hill, Predator Free South Westland
Pouri Rakete-Stones, Predator Free South Westland
Dion Arnold, White Heron Sanctuary Tours
Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details
27 min
February 02Insect vibes
Some insects communicate using a secret language that we can’t sense – a language of vibrations. Now researchers at the Bioeconomy Science Institute are starting to decode what insects are saying to each other. They hope to harness this knowledge to develop new, chemical-free methods of pest control to help farmers and growers.
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Insects can also be recruited to help. For example, insects can be released into New Zealand for biocontrol in the effort to combat invasive weeds.
While we often talk about the impact of invasive mammals on New Zealand’s bird life, they are also a problem for native insects too.
We’ve got some invasive pest spiders here too, but researchers are trying to figure out if they can trap them by developing a special spider perfume.
Guests:
Dr Mark MacDougall, Bioeconomy Science Institute
Dr Lloyd Stringer, Bioeconomy Science Institute
Pete Mundy, Castle Rock Orchards
Dr Rachael Horner, Bioeconomy Science Institute
Dr Bethan Shaw, Bioeconomy Science Institute
Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details
27 min
January 26Sight in the womb
When do humans begin to interact with the world, and develop our sense of self? When we are born? Or might it start even earlier than that? Our visual systems are a key way that we perceive the world. New findings from the University of Waikato have shown that light can enter the womb and that we might already be learning about the world before we arrive in it.
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Listen to Our musical minds to learn why, to psychologists, humans’ musical ability is just weird.
Like our sense of vision, our ability to hear also involves physical inputs from the world around us combined with the processing and prior knowledge of our brains. But sometimes things can go a bit awry, such as happens for those with tinnitus.
Our visual system is evolved for daylight, but what about those creatures that live in the deep darkness, such as squid.
Professor Vincent Reid’s early research in this area was covered by RNZ podcast ‘This Way Up’ in 2017.
Hear more from William Ray in the award-winning Black Sheep podcast series, or in a recent Our Changing World episode about the Flowers of the Underworld.
Guests:
Professor Vincent Reid, University of Waikato
Associate Professor Jacob Heerikhuisen, University of Waikato
William Ray, Janella Espinas, James Espinas Ray
Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details
27 min

About Our Changing World

From the publisher's feed

Dr Claire Concannon follows scientists into the bush, over rivers, back to their labs and many places in-between to cover the most fascinating research being done in Aotearoa New Zealand.