EcoLincNZ

Category: community conservation

  • Making a splash: Protecting the manu with Mānuka and Kānuka

    The art and joy of bombing off a bridge. Photo: Gen Toop. Dec, 2022

    “Do a manu” “Do a bomb”. On a hot summers day these are the chants that ring out across Aotearoa as packs of kids and adults line up on bridges or climb atop rocks and get ready to jump into a lake or a river. A ‘bomb’ or a ‘manu’ is a very precise manoeuvre that involves jumping from somewhere high, curling into a ball and making the biggest splash you can when you hit the water. Some would argue that a manu involves more technical aerial acrobatics than a simple bomb. Either way, the bomb or the manu is a rite of passage for many New Zealand kids.

    But increasingly this treasured national pastime is under threat. The Ministry for the Environment painted a grim picture of waterway health in its recent Our Freshwater report. Nearly half of New Zealand’s lakes are in poor or very poor health. Only two in every hundred lakes are in good or very good health. Many rivers have become so polluted that they are now unsafe for swimming at times. And it is not only humans who can no longer safely swim in some of the country’s rivers. Native freshwater fish are struggling to survive. More than three-quarters of them are threatened with extinction.

    The native freshwater birds that depend on rivers, lakes and estuaries, are also in peril. More than two thirds of them are threatened with extinction or at risk of becoming threatened. Introduced predators, like trout and stoats, are one of the main culprits behind the decline in native freshwater fish and bird populations. The degradation of freshwater habitat by pollution is another driver that is pushing these precious species closer to extinction. Cleaning up waterways is important not only for protecting the long-held tradition of doing a ‘manu’, it’s also critical to the protection ngā manu (the birds) of Aotearoa.

    Algal Bloom in the Waikirikiri, Selwyn River. Photo Credit: Gen Toop. Jan 2021

    Nitrogen pollution is one of the leading causes of the degradation of New Zealand’s freshwater ecosystems. When excess nitrogen on the land seeps down through the soil past the rootzone of plants it can get into the groundwater. From there it can move into the aquifers that many communities and cities get their drinking water from, or it can re-emerge in springs and get into lakes and rivers. Once in those lakes and rivers nitrogen can cause algal blooms, which can suck oxygen out of the water making it difficult for freshwater fish to survive. These algal blooms also make rivers a lot less appealing for jumping into on a hot summers day. Some algae are even toxic and can cause human health issues as well as kill sensitive animals like dogs.

    There are lots of different forms of nitrogen, but one of the main forms that leaches in this way is nitrate. The vast bulk of nitrate pollution getting into New Zealand’s freshwater comes from agriculture. That’s mainly because New Zealand’s pastures are loaded up with synthetic nitrogen fertiliser and the urine of the livestock feeding on these pastures has huge amounts of nitrogen in it. When livestock, particularly dairy cows, urinate the plants can’t always use all the nitrogen for their growth and so the excess nitrate can leach into waterways.

    Mānuka (Leptospernum scoparium) flowers. Photo Credit: Vil Sandi, Flickr, licensed under CC-BY-ND 2.0

    A promising new solution to this nitrate leaching problem has been explored by researchers from Lincoln University, Canterbury University and Plant and Food Research. In 2017, the scientists simulated a dairy cow urinating (not something many of us do in our day jobs) and compared the nitrate leaching rates under three tree species that could be planted into dairy pastures; radiata pine (an exotic species), mānuka (native) and kānuka (native). They found that mānuka and kānuka leached far lower amounts of nitrogen (2 kg/ha) than pine (53 kg/ha).

    Speaking about the project Dr Juergen Esperschuetz, the lead researcher from Lincoln university said, “These results show mānuka and kānuka could be even more effective at protecting water systems than anyone expected.”

    Intentionally planting trees into pasture where animals continue to graze is a farming system called silvopasture. Silvo is derived from the latin word for forest and pasture, well we all know what that is. Silvopasture is not just about shelterbelts, windbreaks, and riparian buffers, systems which relegate trees to the margins of a farm. Instead, silvopasture systems often plant trees into the paddock itself. It has been said that silvopasture, and other agroforestry systems like it, represent a shift away from monocultural production and towards an agricultural system that more closely mimics natural forest ecosystems. Mānuka and kānuka are native trees to Aotearoa so incorporating them into dairy pastures also provides a way to bring more native biodiversity back into farming landscapes.

    The researchers also found that soils under the mānuka and kānuka emit far less nitrous oxide, with the mānuka soils emitting the least of the three. Nitrous oxide is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, it is long lived and in Aotearoa, the vast bulk of nitrous oxide emissions come from livestock farming. So planting mānuka and kānuka into dairy pastures could also help in the fight against climate change. On top of that, both trees produce high-value products in the form of oils and honey and that could be used to supplement farm income.

    Cows grazing in a silvopasture. Photo Credit: Gayle Weaver,pixabay.com, licensed under CCO

    Since the publication of this study, other researchers have gone on to use parts of its methodology and draw on its findings in their research. In the Wairarapa, a study done in the field found much lower nitrate levels under manuka than under pasture, corroborating the findings from this glasshouse study done by Dr Esperchuetz and his team. In Spain, researchers also drew on the study when they investigated nitrate leaching risk under walnut silvopasture.

    This study has added to the toolkit of options available to help reduce the environmental impact of pastoral farming in Aotearoa. Incorporating mānuka and kānuka trees into pastures will not only bring biodiversity into farming landscapes. Thanks to this research, we now know it will likely help clean up our lakes and rivers too, protecting both ngā manu and the manu now and into the future.

    This article was prepared by Master of Science postgraduate student Genevieve Toop as part of the ECOL608 Research Methods in Ecology course.

    You can read the full article here: Esperschuetz, J., Balaine, N., Clough, T., Bulman, S., Dickinson, N. M., Horswell, J., & Robinson, B. H. (2017). The potential of L. scoparium, K. robusta and P. radiata to mitigate N-losses in silvopastural systems. Environmental pollution, 225, 12-19.

  • A giant pest problem: elephants in the backyard

    New Zealand has a huge agricultural industry. It also has a pest problem. I myself have been out to a friends’ farm and was told to “squash a mouse if you see one”! Which I think we can all empathise with to an extent. When the little b*stards are eating your food, they might as well be infesting your wallet.

    Image CC-BY-SA Diego Delso on Wikimedia Commons: Elephants and humans live in close contact in Africa

    Now, think about scaling that up a couple of levels. You no longer have nuisance, albeit damaging, mice scurrying around your farm shed. Instead you have elephants, in herds of 11+, munching through entire fields and even ripping doors off your grain sheds. Stomping won’t quite suffice here (and may go the other way).

    This is an issue that Abel Mamboleo and his PhD supervisors, Chile Doscher and Adrian Paterson, at Lincoln University investigated in their JOJ wildlife and Biology paper in 2020. Instead of the standard numbers, quantities and figures you may expect in a science paper, here they take a slightly alternative approach to the topic. What do people think is happening in their backyards? After all, fear and perceptions are powerful things.

    To start with a bit of context – who are we talking about when referring to people? This study interacted with people in the region of Bunda, a very densely populated region in Tanzania. Much of its land is a part of the idyllic Serengeti ecosystem, and boasts an internationally renowned tourism hotspot.

    Bunda location within Tanzania – right next to the Serengeti: Image CC-BY-SA Macabe 5387 on Wikimedia commons

    These people rely heavily on farming. In fact, 80% of annual income in Bunda comes from this industry. You can imagine how devastating it is to have these creatures, as amazing and majestic as elephants may be, decimate their fields of crops.

    Elephants eating crops is not a new story. In fact, there are even somewhat humorous accounts of elephants eating rotten fruit in orchards and getting themselves rather drunk in the process. Thieving behaviour may even be tolerated – these giants are big money for tourism. However, in this particular context, such interactions are becoming more and more problematic. In this area, as the human population grows, human-elephant interactions also increase.

    Mamboleo went to this area to ask local people their thoughts about these interactions. Using interviews and questionnaires in local languages to ensure clear messages, they found that 88% of those asked thought these human-elephant interactions were on the increase. Furthermore, 79% of respondents reported these events were most common on farms.

    This in and of itself is not necessarily an issue. Local people had described the elephants as generally ‘docile’ and can even be safely approached to within 50 m. In the past, farmers have sometimes been able to simply scare elephants away themselves using traditional techniques, such as patrolling and fencing. Elephant ‘friendliness’ has even been suggested in other parts of Africa, with some suggesting elephants are going as far as to domesticate themselves. However, now, elephants are beginning to ignore these scaring techniques, some becoming bolder and potentially more dangerous.

    How is this affecting people?

    You can begin to see how conflicts between elephants and humans are likely to grow, with 32% of people thinking that elephants will react to seeing a person by killing them, and guarding crops being a main way for these people to protect their livelihoods. And for another large minority, 42% of those asked, they experienced elephants simply continuing to eat their crops in the presence of humans. Evidently, these people don’t have effective tools to deter elephants and protect their farms.

    Extreme measures: what to do next?

    We can see how people would be having a hard time with their elephant neighbours here. But what about the elephants?

    Elephants are protected in Tanzania. The people of Bunda know this. However, desperate times sometimes call for desperate measures. Therefore, occasionally, when an elephant is raiding crops, people may turn to lethal measures. Whilst few people who were interviewed list this as a response to seeing elephants raiding crops, Mamboleo raises the valid point that this number could be higher. Local people know that there could be consequences of authorities finding that illegal elephant kills had taken place in the Bunda region.

    Elephants & mice – really that different? Image by GlobalP from iStock

    This may seem like a drastic response. However, killing pests such as rats, rabbits and mice that eat crops in NZ doesn’t seem so drastic, does it? Of course, this is a very different situation – elephants are native to this area, and are endangered and protected. But this comparison does make you realise that wanting to kill the problem can be a fairly universal response.

    Mamboleo notes that cheap responses can be turned to in the absence of timely support from conservation authorities…so what can be done about that?

    Well, there are some cool things being done across Africa to help with these conflicts. For example, do you know that elephants are scared of bees? Who’d have thought. Some projects actually exist to build bee hives around fences to keep elephants away, and this seems to work pretty well. It also turns out that elephants don’t like spicy food – so chilli can be used in a similar way.

    Image by Kengee8 on Wikimedia Commons: Example of elephant-bee fence

    More ideas, such as this would, be very useful to help in these situations. Answering questions such as when are elephants most likely to visit the farms may also be helpful for targeted responses, Mamboleo says.

    Knowing how people feel, how they’re responding to the situation, and what they need to do to help them resolve the situation for the best outcomes for people and wildlife is a great first step here. That’s the valuable context needed to now take the next steps and make solutions that will work. Especially when we can’t just stomp on the problem!

    This article was prepared by Master of International Nature Conservation student Sally Sinclair as part of the ECOL608 Research Methods in Ecology course.

  • The hotspots are where it’s at if you want to spot a cat: the search for the common leopard

    The Himalayas are an almost mythical place, where mountains loom and the clouds surf down their sides before sliding into the forests below. The songs of rhesus monkeys, palm civets, and the occasional jackal sing out from the thick trees. This landscape is beautiful yet rugged. Travelling through is difficult for our human capabilities, in many cases impossible.

    Now imagine. This is the backdrop you must navigate to discover the number of big cats that live there. To top it all off, your target is the shyest and one of the rarest of them all, the inappropriately named common leopard.

    A common leopard relaxing in the sun
    (Source: Daily Pakistan: Pakistan’s common leopard endangered due to loss of habitat)

    Now, it’s not unusual that scientists doing field research are thrown into difficult situations. You might end up with dangers like Carlos Jared who innocently picked up a frog while doing fieldwork in Brazil, discovering frogs can be venomous. Or you might accidentally glue yourself to a crocodile while attaching a radio transmitter like Agata Staniewicz did (find that and more hilarious field research fails here).

    But when you’ve got a shy animal, add in an impassable landscape, plus the addition of the very real and dangerous threat of bumping into rebels which is, unfortunately, the reality in parts of Pakistan, you’ve really got your work cut out for you.

    This momentous task is one Muhammad Asad, PhD student at Lincoln University, took on as he bravely set off to northern Pakistan. Nobody had done this before and the leopard landscape was mostly unknown. But he was up for the challenge.

    The not-so-common leopard

    Leopards are found all over the world, the most widespread of all land-based carnivores. They’re incredibly adaptable, able to make their homes in all sorts of climates: from the savannas of Africa, the tropical forests of South East Asia, to the freezing mountains of far north Russia. They even make it work when humans move in.

    Their only request, being rather introverted, is that they have lots of space. They’re very territorial, protecting their home range fiercely. But honestly, a bit of peace is a reasonable request!

    Despite this incredible flexibility, common leopard populations are in decline. They’re no longer found in 63-75% of their historic range. The decline in Asia is even bigger, with an 83-87% drop! It’s no surprise that these gorgeous cats are listed as critically endangered.

    The majestic common leopard
    (Source: Daily Pakistan)

    Leopards are facing many different threats. The main ones are:

    • habitat is lost or changed,
    • trees cut down,
    • inbreeding from being cut off from one another,
    • human developments being built near their protected ranges,
    • prey disappearing,
    • poaching,
    • and human-wildlife conflict.

    Clearly, these cats need protection. So, leaving New Zealand and heading back to his native Pakistan, Muhammad took the first step to build a conservation plan; he had to figure out how many leopards there were and where they were found.

    To do this across the entire country would be too big a job. Instead, he focussed on the Gallies and Murree Forest Division in northern Pakistan, lying in the outer Himalayas. Here, leopards are protected under the law. Even so, there are often no checks for this, with hunters easily getting away with it. This is made worse by the slow and sometimes non-existent compensation programmes, programmes designed to reimburse farmers who have lost livestock to a leopard attack. The locals often resent the leopards. But it’s hard to blame them when people, including children, are occasionally attacked and killed.

    Leopards are poached frequently in Pakistan. Cubs are trapped to sell in the illegal pet trade or body parts and skin are taken for sale. Skin, claws, and teeth are sold in north Pakistan.
    (Source: Raj K Raj/Getty Images)

    Estimating the number of leopards in an area is very tricky. They have large territories with very few cats within each area. Figuring out where to look, especially when the landscape has the worst access, is the key to success.

    How to find leopards

    Muhammad and his crew began with a questionnaire survey. They asked people from local communities who lived nearby to fill these out. They asked about losses of livestock, when the attack happened, and the type of injury, for example, bite marks on the neck, missing dogs, or human casualties.

    Based on the information from the locals, they ended up with 63 different sites where they could focus the leopard hunting efforts. A much better start!

    Next, they moved into these sites, peeling their eyes for signs of poop, territorial markings (such as peeing on a tree), and tree scratches. These signs meant one thing; here be leopards.

    With this proof, they set up special cameras, known as camera traps, on either side of the trail, ready to capture the cats on the silver screen.

    They also set up cameras on 5 connecting trails which hadn’t shown any signs of leopard action. These were used to see if they could capture leopards in areas where they had left no signs. As new leopard trails were discovered, the camera traps were moved to snap those too.

    Sampling locations of the camera-traps survey in Gallies Forest (Ayubuia National Park, surrounding Reserved Forest and Guzara Forest), and Murree Forest (Protected, Reserved and Municipal Forest). Country map (top left – green). Study area showing different city boundaries (middle left).
    (Source: From paper)

    A leopard can’t change its spots – a handy identification tool

    You may have heard the proverb that a leopard can’t change its spots. This is supposed to teach us that we all stay true to our nature, even if we pretend we’re different. But it turns out when it comes to leopards it’s 100% true! The coat of a leopard is as unique as our fingerprints. Incredibly useful when you’re a scientist trying to tell the difference between two cats in a grainy photo!

    Their gorgeous spots are a bit like the shape of a rose, giving them the name ‘rosettes’. This means that by matching up the images of the rosettes you can figure out if it’s the same cat. The best place to match things up is on either side of their back legs or the top of their tail.

    Example of an individual being identified using the rosettes on the tail
    (Source: From paper)

    This is trickier than it sounds. The rosettes change shape as the leopard moves. And it can look different depending on the angle it is to the camera. But still, it’s a pretty helpful method to avoid double-counting cats. Double counting would give you a very different population size! You can find out more information on leopard identification techniques here.

    Example of when the spots don’t match up.
    (Source: From paper)

    So, how many are there?

    In 2017 Muhammad estimated there were between 16-24 common leopards in the Gallies and Murree Forest Division. This went down to 7-12 in 2018.

    However, they don’t think the population dropped. In 2018 they got fewer clear images making it harder for them to identify the cats. They think the real number could be closer to 12-18, meaning its range overlaps with the 2017 estimate.

    But, this might not be the case. In 2018, Pakistan was suffering from a drought. Perhaps the leopards had been forced to move out of their territories to look for food. So far there hasn’t been any research on leopard movements in relation to strange weather. This would be an interesting thing for someone to look into (are there any leopard enthusiasts up for the task?).

    Or perhaps this drop is real. Poaching and unreported killings are still huge in Pakistan. Plus, Muhammed and his team did find signs of hunting. So the reason could in fact be nefarious.

    Regardless of the reason, Muhammad estimated there to be 8-12 leopards and 3.5-6.5 leopards per 100 km2 in the Gallies and Murree Forest Division. They also confirmed they lived in the Swat, Dir, and Margalla Hills, even though locals as well as wildlife departments thought they had disappeared.

    These estimates are not 100% accurate. But the team is pretty confident that they are close to the true number. All in all, a great success.

    Mother common leopard and her cub.
    (Source: Daily Pakistan)

    What next?

    Now there’s a basic understanding of how many leopards there are and where they like to hang out, we can start to protect them.

    With this information, we can:

    • Use the leopard hotspots to keep an eye on the population trends and demographic changes over time.
    • Decide on the most important conservation areas. Special attention should be given to the corridors that join areas together to protect the long-term health of the leopard populations.

    For example, Muhammad discovered that 70% of leopards killed for revenge in the Guzara Forest happened outside of the Reserve area, close to the village, and in winter. That tells us we should focus the conservation efforts on the hotspots in the Guzara Forest surrounding the Reserved Forest so that human-leopard conflicts can be reduced.

    There’s still a lot of work ahead for the common leopard in Pakistan. But with Muhammad on the case, their future is looking a little brighter.

    You can read Muhammad’s research in full here: The Un-Common Leopard: presence, distribution and abundance in Gallies and Murree Forest Division, Northern Pakistan

    This article was prepared by Master of International Nature Conservation student Kat Douglas as part of the ECOL608 Research Methods in Ecology course.

    Full citation: Asad M, Waseem M, Ross JG, Paterson AM (2019). The Un-Common Leopard: presence, distribution and abundance in Gallies and Murree Forest Division, Northern Pakistan. Nature Conservation 37. 53-80. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.37.32748

  • Māori environmental values and assessments of ecological effects

    A resprouted pūriri tree. Photo/Paula Godfrey, December 2021

    I never imagined as a small child that growing up I’d be an ecologist, deciding the fate of trees we drove past, and maybe one day, the very trees I climbed. One of my favorite trees is a silver ponga (Cyathea dealbata) near our whare (house). The photograph below shows me as an 8-year-old sitting in my ponga tree. For several months a year, I couldn’t climb the ponga while it grew its new fronds. We were strictly not allowed to cause any tree to die without good reason and a blessing from Papatūānuku. As a child, my whānau and I spent a lot of time up trees and exploring the the lush bush of north Auckland.

    Sitting in my favourite ponga, 2002.

    As an ecologist working in botany, I get asked all the time what my favourite tree/plant is, and the answer changes depending on what’s looking particularly beautiful that week. Are the kōwhai (Sophora spp.) flowering? Have the kauri (Agathis australis) got new growth? Have the māhoe (Melicytus ramiflorus) produced another bumper crop? These are the factors that influence my answer.

    Take for example the pūriri tree (Vitex lucens). Pūriri has significant ecological value in its own right and is often my favorite tree. It produces flowers almost all-year round for tuī to feed on. It allows kereru to eat its berries and it even hosts NZ’s largest moth species (the massive green pūriri moths, Aenetus virescens).

    These trees are impossible to age, as the old specimens have hollow trunks and twisted hard wood, making traditional ageing techniques very difficult. It’s thought that pūriri are the longest living plant in NZ. As part of pūriri tree’s life cycle, they typically start looking sick, fall over and ‘resprout’ by producing roots along their trunk that sink into the ground. By doing so they form large areas of canopy from a single trunk, as now their trunk is prostrate. The photo above shows a pūriri tree which has been cut down and resprouted. The hollow trunk is visible on the right of the photo.

    Pūriri holds ecological values but also holds significant tangata whenua values. For me, as a Ngāpuhi (Northland iwi within the pūriri distribution area), I have a strong emotional connection to pūriri that is intertwined with its ecological value. How can that be?

    Well, pūriri is used as an infusion to wash the bodies of our tūpāpaku (deceased) and adorned with pūriri leaves as they decomposed. The bones are later gathered up and scraped clean, then placed within the pūriri tree in a kete. These days, we simply adorn our tūpāpaku with pūriri and lay them to rest within Papatūānuku. This is what my brothers, myself and Māmā did with our Pāpā. Learn more about this practice here.

    Cutting down a pūriri tree is like digging up a church cemetery without exhuming the bodies first, and in many cases, even today, this would happen without notification to the tīpuna (ancestors) of those who lay there.

    Laying Pāpa to rest. I am middle left. Note the pūriri leaves surrounding the body. Photo/ John Malcom, 2006.

    The issue of Māori values and the environment was brought to media attention (again) last year with the new marina works in Pūtiki bay, Waiheke Island, and the 2020 protests over Ihumātao, the historic stonefields in Auckland en-route to become a major housing development. Although Ihumātao was not a specific environmental issue, environment and ecology is undeniably intertwined.

    As an ecologist working for a private consultancy, or even a government organisation, such as Waka Kotahi, or a local council, you’ll come across new developments (or redevelopments) seeking resource consent. To gain resource consent you need to demonstrate as an ecologist that the environment is not going to be degraded, and that post-development you’ll end up with a ‘net ecological gain’. This is called an Assessment of Environmental Effects (AEE).

    There is a recommendation to include tangata whenua rights in AEE’s (as per the Section 8 of the Resource Management Act 1991). In practice they are kept as separate documents, with no cross-over between cultural effects and environmental effects. How can AEE’s integrate tangata whenua rights as part of an ecological assessment and fulfil the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi?

    A sign at the Ihumātao protests. Photo/ RNZ, Dan Cook, March 2019.

    In 1998 Stuart Waddel thought about the same question. He undertook a study to recognise the indigenous rights in AEE’s and how to integrate them. He found that applicants for resource consents have no statutory requirements to contact tangata whenua when proposing a new development, it is only ‘good practice’ to do so. The AEE’s are used to inform the consenting authority (local councils) on the potential effects that the activity will have on the environment. Therefore, the contact with tangata whenua needs to be prior to the AEE being produced, not after. One good example of intergrating tangata whenua into an AEE is on the MacKays to Peka Peka Project by NZTA.

    Recognition of kaitiakitanga (guardianship) in the AEE’s is when it comes to identification of potential environmental impacts as important for achieving better environmental outcomes for all. The environmental values are interconnected with the mauri (essence/life force) of the area, and links spiritual, genealogical, cultural and physical values. Recognition of kaitiakitanga in AEE’s (because it’s respected within tikanga Māori (cultural practice)), cannot be defined by local councils or government as that would mean they are speaking for kaitiakitanga, which is reserved for tangata whenua to speak to.

    Waddel noted that Pākehā and Māori have long held differing views on the values of our environment, which has lead to contentious issues throughout the colonising history of NZ. Māori value the earth as a precious gift and follow strict rules on kaitiakitanga through kaitiaki (looking after) our environment in order to receive the life giving resources it provides. Māori also value different food sources to Pākehā, such as kahikatea berries. Pākehā tend to view the whenua (land) as a resource ripe for exploitation.
    Ensuring that the proposed development area will be able to be sustainably used for future generations and for mahinga kai (food gathering) is a meaningful environmental outcome that demonstrates that the environment will retain its mauri.

    Shaking the kahikatea berries down for eating, 2005.

    It is more important than ever to carry out pre-project consultation with tangata whenua groups (iwi, hapu, rūnanga) and listen to what they have to say. The real environmental outcomes are achieved when the korero (conversation) is received by the development team with a learning mindset, and tangata whenua recommendations are implemented early in the project. If you’re a bit stuck on where to start, the Bay of Plenty Regional Council has a good resource for iwi engagement on their website.

    Iwi engagement in AEE’s are beneficial for all. If AEE’s are done right, those hundred year-old pūriri trees would be here to stay and not replaced with a car park. If cultural considerations were implemented decades ago, we would have a much more natural environment, greater climate change resilience and many more trees to climb in our neighbourhoods.

    If you want to gain a deeper understanding of kaitiakitanga, I highly recommend reading the book Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer who shares a Native American perspective which is similar to te ao Māori worldviews.

    Citation: Waddel, S. R. (1998). Restoring Kaitiakitanga: evaluating the recognition of indigenous rights in assessment of environmental effects (Doctoral dissertation, Lincoln University).

    The author Paula Godfrey is a postgraduate student in the Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Science taught at Lincoln University. This article was written as an assessment for ECOL 608 Research Methods in Ecology.