The Green Desk

Winter is upon us, which means that tree planting season is too. Apart from being quite huggable, trees are one of our best bets at mitigating climate change and our native wildlife depends on them for shelter and food. This week on the Green Desk Frances Wright caught up with Robyn Haugh, the CEO of Trees That Count, a native tree planting initiative that works through a gifting and planting system. They spoke about how Trees That Count came to be, and what it’s doing for our planet and Aotearoa's biodiversity. Whakarongo mai!

The Green Desk is back! Join Frances at her metaphoric green desk as she brings you all the latest green news.

This week she looks at funding from the Government’s Jobs for Nature Mahi mō te Taiao programme. Predator Free 2050 Limited has announced $4.8 million in funding for seven companies developing predator eradication tools and ‘best practice’ for their use, while creating and supporting jobs.

The funding is being invested through the ‘Products to Projects’ initiative, launched in 2019 to accelerate development and commercialisation of new tools that will help groups working to achieve mainland eradication of possums, rats and mustelids at landscape scale without the use of fences.

Now, three years on, a number of new tools are already available to buy and are successfully in use, with many more only months away.

Frances speaks to the Science Director for Predator Free 2050, Professor Dan Tompkins, about why it’s crucial to be continually innovating New Zealand's 2050 national eradication goals. 
 

This week on The Green Desk, Bronwyn Wilde spoke to Dr Kēpa Morgan about mauri modelling  - a framework for decision-making which measures sustainability trends.   Unlike a purely economic view of sustainability, the model recognises four dimensions of wellbeing,  environmental, cultural, social and economic. Kēpa first invented the mauri-o-meter in his 2008 thesis about municipal waste water management, but since then it has been applied throughout the country to a number of ecosystems, including the clean-up following the Rena oil spill. Bronwyn and Kēpa spoke about the model, how it compliments and even improves on western science, and why we value certain knowledge over others.

He began by shedding some light on the concept of  "mauri".

This week Bronwyn spoke to Dr Daniel Hikuroa, a senior lecturer at the Te Wānanga o Waipapa, Māori Studies, at the University of Auckland who has just been appointed the UNESCO Commissioner for Culture for Aotearoa, New Zealand. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation was founded in 1946, and New Zealand was the second country to ratify the constitution. It mission is to build peace, eradicate poverty and foster sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, sciences and culture.

Hikuroa will replace the previous comissioner, Arapata Hakiwai, and hold the postition for three years. Bronwyn spoke to him about his expertise that he brings to the table, as well as his aspirations for the role.