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26 November 2025

Episode 2: What is the difference between the “three bios”?

How biosecurity, biodiversity, and bioprotection collide in moments of crisis. Through the story of the PSA kiwifruit outbreak, the team unpacks what happens when a biological threat gets through the border, how industries and communities respond, and what this event taught Aotearoa New Zealand about resilience.

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Episode Highlights

  • How the “three bios” — biosecurity, biodiversity, and bioprotection — intersect

  • PSA as a real-time case study in border failure and scientific response

  • Why surveillance systems buy time, not perfection

  • The rising threat of invasive hornets and wasps

  • Biodiversity and everyday New Zealanders as the biosecurity frontline

Episode Description

The PSA outbreak changed the trajectory of Aotearoa New Zealand’s kiwifruit industry and revealed just how tightly our “three bios” are linked. In this episode, we revisit one of the country’s most significant biological events to explore how biosecurity, biodiversity, and bioprotection collide in real time.

Using PSA as our lens, we trace the story from the first signs of incursion through to industry-wide impact, rapid scientific response, community collaboration, and the innovations that helped growers rebuild. Along the way, the team touches on recent hornet scares and what they reveal about how quickly biological threats can escalate.

This episode shows that the three bios are not policy terms but interconnected systems shaping the health of our landscapes, the resilience of industries, and the futures of communities that depend on them.

Revisiting PSA is not just looking back at a crisis — it’s understanding a blueprint for how Aotearoa New Zealand can learn, adapt, and strengthen resilience as new threats emerge.

Meet the Hosts

  • Professor Amanda Black — Director, Bioprotection Aotearoa; soil scientist at Lincoln University.

  • Professor Peter Dearden — Co-Director, Genomics Aotearoa; geneticist at the University of Otago.

  • Dr Nick Waipara — Forest pathologist with Plant & Food Research Group of the Bioeconomy Science Institute, and a long-time collaborator with Te Tira Whakamātaki.

Glossary of Key Terms

Incursion
When a new pest, pathogen or invasive species enters Aotearoa and begins to establish.

PSA / Psa-V
Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae, a bacterial disease that causes kiwifruit vine canker.

Biocontrol (Biological Control)
Using living organisms — insects, fungi or viruses — to manage pests and diseases.

Phage (Bacteriophage)
Viruses that infect bacteria; an emerging tool for targeting plant pathogens.

Unwanted Organism
A legal term in the Biosecurity Act describing organisms considered a risk to NZ’s environment, economy or communities.

Further Reading & Show Notes

Biosecurity Act & Legislation

Hornets, Wasps & Invasive Insects

PSA / Psa-V in Kiwifruit

Incursions & Active Threats

Biodiversity

COVID-19 Parallels

About the Podcast

Under the Lens is a conversation series that examines the challenges and opportunities facing Aotearoa New Zealand’s natural and productive environments. We connect research with real-world decision-making and explore how ecosystems resist, recover and thrive.

Our Voice

Warm. Curious. Grounded.
We welcome tough questions, speak in plain language, and focus on real people and real impacts.

Where This Episode Fits

This kōrero continues our first pilot series podcasts, breaking down the “bio” terms that shape environmental conversations. By unpacking the systems behind biosecurity, bioprotection, biocontrol and biodiversity, this episode prepares listeners for case studies, incursions, emerging tools and community-led responses in later episodes.

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