HomeProductive landscapes occupy almost 50% of Aotearoa New Zealand’s land area and are the engine room of the economy. However, our productive landscapes are under significant stress from established pathogens, pests, and weeds and will face an array of additional threats in this warming climate.
Reactive responses to tackle individual invasions as they arise are no longer sufficient, nor is it sustainable. Bioprotection Aotearoa adopts a fundamental shift in thinking, where our research focuses on strategies that aim to increase the resilience and resistance of productive ecosystems against a broad cross-section of abiotic and biotic threats.
The key to the success of our research is that it spans biophysical and socioeconomic sciences within a framework that explicitly adopts cultural values into all aspects of research. Our research is unified under an indigenous values framework, Te Taiao-a-rangi. It acknowledges our connection to Ranginui, the sky father, and Papatūānuku, mother earth.
Three pillars support our research themes underpinned by a foundation that holds them strong.
Pou 1
Titirangi
Piercer of the heavens
Bioprotection defines what a healthy and productive ecosystem
should look like and provides a framework to assess the wellbeing
of an ecosystem of any scale.
Pou 2
Poutokomanawa
The heartbeat of the whare
Within an ecosystem, bioprotection examines the interactions and relationships that form among organisms, identifying their collaboration network and partnerships to resist attack and defend themselves.
Pou 3
Nuku-a-rangi
Shifting throughout the heavens
Using this fundamental knowledge, leaders in bioprotection can leverage these mechanisms to design innovative solutions and tools that improve the resilience and resistance of organisms and holistically restore the overall health of an ecosystem.
Recloaking Papatūānuku
Recloaking Papatūānuku
Mānuka me te kānuka
Extending across our whare is the foundation “Recloaking Papatūānuku”. This guides our research to weave the science and innovation embedded in mātauranga Māori and Pasifika indigenous knowledge.