Category: university

The University of Waikato has achieved significant results in the latest funding round from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Endeavour Fund.

One research programme, and six Smart Ideas projects have been awarded grants through the highly contested fund.

Tauhokohoko: Indigenising trade policy and enabling mana motuhake through Indigenous trade ($14.9m over 5 years)

Associate Professor of the School of Management and Marketing Operations and Associate Dean Māori Dr Jason Mika (Tūhoe, Ngāti Awa, Whakatōhea, Ngāti Kahungunu) is investigating different ways of doing business to mitigate climate change and environmental harm.

He is head of a Māori-led partnership between Māori practitioners of Indigenous trade at Te Taumata, and Māori, Indigenous, and non-Indigenous researchers at Te Kotahi Research Institute.

On learning about the funding, Dr Mika said:

“Ko te mea tuatahi, he mihi ki te Atua, nana nei ngā mea katoa. Tuarua, ka mihi ki ō tātau mātua tīpuna, nā rātau mā i taea ai te kawe i ngā kaupapa Māori pēnei nā. Tuatoru, ka mihi ki ōku hoa mahi o Te Kotahi me Te Raupapa o te Whare Wānanga o Waikato, te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi, me Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa mō ā koutou nā tautoko, ō pūkenga anō hoki. Tuawhā, he mihi nui ki Te Taumata, nā koutou i taea. Tēnei rā, e tika ka whakanui i te hōnore nui nei. Ae, me kai pihikete me te kapū tī. Nā te mea, hei āpōpō, ka timata te mahi.”

Together the research team will be looking at approaches where business achievement and prosperity are not measured by individual accumulation, but by the extent of the contributions to the wellbeing of others and the environment.  Dr Mika said,

“Everything we now desire in business and society might have been: sustainable and inclusive trade, environmental sustainability, fair and equitable access to opportunity and outcomes. Instead, we’ve been constrained by legacies of believing there was only one right way, and that way was not the Māori way,” says Dr Mika.

Using kaupapa Māori and Indigenous methodologies, the research seeks to transform trade policy to achieve the aspirations shared by Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples — a climate-resilient economy that is equitable and produces high-value goods and services from innovative entrepreneurial activity.

“Imaginethe definition of triple bottom-line performance is mauri (wellbeing).This doesn’t mean Māori entrepreneurs and businesspeople aren’t interested in making a profit – profit is important for enterprise viability. It is why and how they do this and who benefits that can be decidedly different,” he says.

The research aims to create a new Indigenous-based framework for international trade that puts the wellbeing of te taiao (the environment) and ngā tāngata (the people) at the centre.

“We want pragmatic outcomes from our research. For example, new frameworks, standards, guidance, and practices for trade policy, using the Aotearoa variant of indigeneity found in the notion of te ao Māori and te Tiriti o Waitangi.”

It is anticipated that the framework will have multiple positive outcomes.

“By amplifying the role of Indigenous knowledge of environmentally responsible trade policy our framework will normalise Indigenous perspectives and support the transition to a low-emissions, climate-resilient economy.”

Smart Ideas (each funded for $1m over 3 years)

Physically plausible record-shattering drought events in a warming Aotearoa 

Climate change scientist Dr Luke Harrington will look atdata from climate models, coupled with guidance from historical observations and mātauranga Māori, to identify drought events capable of occurring over Aotearoa within the next three decades. In a country reliant on primary industries the research is a crucial step towards ensuring our economy remains resilient to a rapidly warming climate.

Safe, solid-state hydrogen storage technology – Enabling New Zealand’s zero-carbon emissions target 

Dr Fei Yang Associate Professor of Engineering will lead a team to deliver optimised high-entropy alloy hydrogen storage materials and technologies that meet weight, volume, thermodynamic, kinetic, and safety requirements. This research will enable the use of hydrogen for transportation and stationary energy storage uses, to help establish a working low-carbon economy.

High-capacity, responsive thermal storage for coupling mismatched energy supply and demand 

Dr Fei Yang and Dr Murray McCurdy (GNS Science) will work together to lead a team to develop a new thermal energy storage technology to couple renewable heat sources, such as geothermal, biomass and solar, to heat demand in process heat and electricity generation. This will reduce the need for fossil fuels in our primary processing sectors, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It will also mean carbon charges can be avoided so increases to the cost of electricity and food products will also be avoided.

Probiotic Inoculants for Seaweed Hatcheries and Aquaculture 

Associate Professor of Marine Science and Aquaculture, Dr Marie Magnusson will identify and assess seaweed microbiomes that stimulate growth and development and/or disease resistance in seaweeds. The aim is to select seaweed probiotics to improve the performance of seaweed produced in hatcheries for aquaculture.

Microwave Brain Scanner for Early Alzheimer’s Disease Detection

Professor of Engineering and biomedical imaging expert, Dr Yifan Chen will lead a highly skilled, multi-disciplinary team that is developing a novel, non-invasive, low-cost microwave scanner to aid ‘point of care’ testing for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). AD is the most common cause of dementia, the seventh leading cause of death among diseases worldwide.

Smart-antigens for ovine antiviral hyperimmune milk production

Applied immunologist Dr William Kelton, in collaboration with structural biologist Dr Adele Williamson, and biotech innovators Ruakura Technologies will develop milk with enhanced immune protection against norovirus. The science mimics nature and can be compared to the way a mother’s milk protects a newborn baby from disease causing pathogens.

University of Waikato Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research, Professor Bryony James, says these results are fantastic for Waikato, in what is a notoriously competitive research funding environment.

“The work that goes into preparing and submitting high quality applications is significant and I would like to acknowledge all those involved.”

The most recent protest by the Restore Passenger Rail climate protest group, in which a Wellington car dealership was defaced with red paint, is not just the latest in a local movement – it’s part of a global trend.

Airline bosses have been hit with cream pies, Just Stop Oil protesters have glued themselves to iconic pieces of art in famous galleries, school students are skipping school to march for climate justice, and airport runways have been invaded. Everywhere, including in New Zealand, roads and highways have been blocked.

It’s entirely likely such protests will continue and escalate in their impact as the climate emergency worsens, and frustration grows with a perceived lack of meaningful government action.

Groups such Extinction Rebellion view “non-violent direct action and civil disobedience” as not only justifiable but crucial in the face of what they see as an urgent existential threat.

But for every climate action there has been a political and legal reaction. From Europe to Australia there have been crackdowns. New laws have been drafted in Britain to create specific offences such as obstructing major transport works, interfering with key national infrastructure, and causing serious disruption by tunnelling.

Earlier this year, a New Zealander living in Britain was given a “draconian” three-year prison sentence for his role in a protest that shut down a busy road in London.

With the stakes rising, it’s important that governments and legal systems find ways to adapt, without risking a climate protest arms race that may only encourage increasingly unreasonable impacts on the general public.

Rights and freedoms

In New Zealand, a trend towards authorities reaching for harsher penalties is also evident.

The traditional sentence for obstructing a public road without consent is a fine of up to NZ$1,000. Such penalties are now being augmented with potential charges of criminal nuisance, and police have warned that protesters could face up to 14 years in jail for endangering transport.

That is longer than many serious crimes, including the maximum ten years under proposed law changes for ram-raiding.

At the same time, protest is a critical part of free and democratic societies, and has been used (often in novel ways) to achieve change we now take for granted.

Although there is no specific right to protest in law, protesting is a manifestation of the rights to freedom of movement, association and peaceful assembly in most liberal societies.

Globally, such rights are protected by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the related framework of human rights treaties. In Aotearoa New Zealand, the Bill of Rights Act 1990 guarantees those rights.

No absolute right to protest

And yet, the right to protest is not absolute. As with most rights, it can be subject to such reasonable legal limits as can be justified in a free and democratic society.

In practice, this means not all forms of protest may be permissible, such as disorderly acts or ones that risk violence or public safety. Tolerance of protest and some levels of inconvenience should be expected in liberal democracies. But intentional and serious disruption to ordinary life may be illegal if it is done unreasonably.

Determining what is reasonable is the hard part. It involves assessing the scale and impact of the inconvenience, and the rights and freedoms of others affected.

So, peaceful protests that cause temporary inconvenience and limited obstruction might be permissible. But repeatedly blocking people from going about their business for prolonged periods may not be.

Climate protests exist at a moral and legal intersection. Reducing carbon emissions means targeting roads, highways and fossil fuel-powered vehicles by creating blockades and choke-points. But for centuries, authorities have been charged with keeping those vital routes open for citizens.

Worlds collide

The challenge is to find the balance between two world views that are colliding. It’s wrong to try to silence legitimate dissent, but how do governments and other authorities make room for, and even facilitate, a protest movement aimed at altering fundamental behaviours?

One response might be to designate new areas where such protests can be held (including on roads) as a way to help those messages be heard and seen. These must be authorised and conducted in ways that don’t unreasonably hinder the rights of other citizens.

But it is unlikely to be enough for more radical ends of the protest movement, which clearly view direct and increasingly disruptive actions as the only effective method.

There may be no simple answer. But New Zealand’s next government should review the current legal frameworks to ensure they are fit for purpose. People are equal before the law, and breaking the rules means being held to account. But the penalties must not be disproportionate.

Law and policy already acknowledge the climate crisis will demand enormous effort and change. They cannot also become blunt tools for repressing social movements dedicated to holding those same powers to account.

Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The CBIKS centre is about connecting Indigenous knowledge with mainstream Western sciences to create new ways to address some of the most pressing issues of our time: climate change, including impacts on ecosystems; the threat to irreplaceable archaeological sites, sacred places, and cultural heritage; and the issues around changing food systems, all of which disproportionately affect Indigenous communities. The research team brings together the world’s leading Indigenous natural, environmental, and social scientists, representing Native American, First Nations, Métis, Native Hawaiian, Alaska Native, Māori and Aboriginal Australian peoples.

Community-based research and place-based studies will be done in partnership with Indigenous communities in eight international “hubs.” Director of Te Kotahi Research Institute Associate Professor Maui Hudson (Te Whakatōhea, Ngāruahine, and Te Māhurehure) and Senior Lecturer Dr Haki Tuaupiki (Waikato, Ngāti Tūwharetoa) at Te Pua Wānanga ki te Ao – Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Studies will work as part of the Aotearoa New Zealand contingent based at the Pacific Hub.

“Combining Indigenous and mainstream Western sciences to address complex global problems is an important step towards more equitable partnerships with Indigenous communities, the co-production of knowledge, and the development of place-based, community-centred solutions,” Associate Professor Hudson says.

Dr Tuaupiki adds: “Indigenous ancestral knowledge, with thousands of years of articulation and practice, has always been important and extremely valuable, never more so than now. This international collaboration of Indigenous leaders and experts will see us utilise Indigenous ancestral wisdom in an ethical and culturally grounded way with the best of Western science to find solutions to climate change for our communities and the world.”

Dr Tuaupiki is Co-Director of the Pacific Hub alongside Kelley Uyeoka from the cultural resource management non-profit Huliauapa’a in Hawai’i. Dr Tuaupiki says, “Our work will focus on   food sovereignty, traditional food restoration, wāhi kupuna (ancestral spaces) stewardship, and voyaging and navigation responses to climate change.”

Associate Professor Hudson will co-lead the Indigenous Data Sovereignty Working Group. He says that “this work is primarily about developing approaches and processes that enable the hubs and different studies to share traditional knowledge in the context of the different research activities while protecting that knowledge and ensuring it is not misappropriated.”

Alongside research, CBIKS has an important educational mission. The centre will train postdoctoral researchers and graduate research assistants. Workshops and camps for young people and government agencies will share knowledge and processes for ‘braiding’ Indigenous knowledge. Associate Professor Hudson says that as part of the CBIKS Indigenous Science Study Abroad Program, the University of Waikato will also host students travelling from U.S.-based CBIKS Hub institutions.

The United States National Science Fund has invested over US $ 30 million (NZ $50 million) into CBIKS for five years, after which it will be eligible for further funding.

Despite countries pouring billions of dollars into “protecting” communities, flood-related disasters are becoming more frequent and are projected to become even more severe as the climate crisis worsens.

In fact, many areas that flooded during recent extreme weather events, from Auckland to Henan in China, were deemed to be relatively safe. This should raise an obvious question: to what extent is our existing approach fit for purpose in a changing climate?

Traditionally, managing flooding has relied heavily on building higher levees or increasing the capacity of drainage systems. But this can be a mixed blessing. While they contain water most of the time, when levees or drains exceed their original design capacity, we experience damaging floods.

These technical solutions have tended to operate on a flawed assumption that future flooding can be reliably predicted based on decades of historical flood data. They also create the “levee effect” – a false sense of security that encourages development in still risk-prone areas.

As climate change brings unpredictable rainfall patterns and higher intensities, these historic design assumptions are falling well short of the realities. And it means there remains a “residual risk”, even when infrastructure improvements have been made or planned for.

Red tape and risk

We can use the analogy of wearing a seat-belt to understand residual risk. The belt will reduce harm in case of an accident, but it does not mean you are entirely protected from injury.

Now imagine road conditions and weather are gradually worsening, and traffic volumes increasing. Some might look at the new risk and decide not to drive, but for those already on the road it is too late.

Most countries are still managing floods just like this: sometimes building higher levees or installing bigger pipes. But development often occurs incrementally, without the strategic investment needed or the room to safely store excess water volumes in urban areas when failure occurs.

Housing development is needed, but too often current (let alone future) flood risk is not adequately considered. Planning controls, or additional infrastructure costs, are routinely referred to as “red tape” that raises costs. As a result, recovery costs are ongoing and residual risk gradually rises.

Weather-related disasters in 2023, including Cyclone Gabrielle in New Zealand and wildfires in the northern hemisphere, have led to a new focus on understanding how residual risk is managed. But whether it is even acknowledged or incorporated in planning policy varies from country to country.

National strategy missing

Our research team from the University of Waikato recently undertook a survey with flood risk practitioners in New Zealand to shed some light on this.

New Zealand has little in the way of national-level guidance on managing flood risk. Despite this, survey responses suggest flood risk professionals are aware of the issue. They agree residual flood risk is increasing, mainly due to climate change and ongoing development in flood-prone areas currently designated as “protected”.

They also agree the current practice of flood risk management needs improving. But there are several barriers, with the lack of a clear national directive on managing flood risk being the most notable in our survey.

Several respondents noted that changing risk management practice is difficult, given the existing institutional framework. This includes the “build more levees” approach to flood planning.

Local governments also vary in their capacity and resources. Many small councils lack quality flood risk information, such as the likely impact of climate change, which is critical for making wise land-use decisions.

As a result, housing and other developments are continuing in risky places. And to keep development costs down, infrastructure is not being systematically upgraded.

Planning for residual risk

We expect the New Zealand experience reflects similar trends elsewhere. Practitioners are aware of the growing threat of residual risk and would like more power to manage it. But there is a lack of urgency and resources to upgrade infrastructure. And there is political pressure to enable more housing and reduce red tape.

If these patterns persist, not only will the impacts from future floods become more frequent and expensive, but the insurance sector will retreat further from offering flood policies.

This will eventually leave central governments as de facto insurers-of-last-resort for flooding events. And they will be picking up an increasingly big bill, as already evidenced by the US$20.5 billion deficit faced by the United States National Flood Insurance Program.

Internationally and in New Zealand, attention is shifting to the need to build “sponge cities” or create more “room for water” in flood risk management. But we argue that acknowledging and managing the growing residual risk from climate change is missing from the debate.

A better-informed approach would see stronger guidelines against ill-advised development in flood-prone areas unless the infrastructure investment reduces that residual risk. Development on floodplains can still happen. But land use and investment must account for an uncertain future and lower the overall risk profile, rather than increase it.

The reality of more frequent flooding demands a multi-faceted response that makes cities, towns and rural areas more resilient – and prepared for inevitable infrastructure failure. Residual risk needs to be central to planning if we are to avoid an endless cycle of mopping up, rebuilding and compensating for financial loss.

Xinyu Fu, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Planning, University of Waikato; Iain White, Professor of Environmental Planning, University of Waikato; Rob Bell, Teaching Fellow, Environmental Planning Programme, University of Waikato, and Silvia Serrao-Neumann, Associate Professor of Environmental Planning, University of Waikato

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A month after the coup in Niger that toppled the democratically elected civilian government of Mohamed Bazoum, the country’s neighbours are still debating the possibility of military intervention.

The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) – a coalition of west African countries, which includes Niger – has said it intends to send in a taskforce to topple the military junta led by General Abdourahamane Tchiani, which ousted Bazoum on July 26.

But the plan to intervene is not without controversy. Niger, a landlocked nation, shares borders with Mali, Algeria, Libya, Chad, Benin and Burkina Faso. These countries have expressed solidarity with the military junta and have committed to oppose any potential Ecowas intervention.

France, which occupied Niger from 1890 until independence in 1960, has also considered intervention – it has a small contingent of troops in the country ostensibly to combat jihadi insurgency in the Sahel region – which the junta has given them notice to withdraw. Algeria has also denied France permission to fly over the country.

For now, the situation remains fluid and uncertain. But beneath the surface of daily news headlines is an intricate web of geopolitical competition and strategic agendas that have profound consequences for the Nigerien people.

The recent coup underscores a geopolitical rivalry deeply rooted in colonial and neo-colonial legacies and intensified by some western nations’ drive for the control of Niger’s resources.

Although Niger grapples with extreme poverty, leading to widespread malnutrition and hunger among its citizens, it is the world’s seventh-biggest producer of uranium. This juxtaposition of mineral wealth and societal poverty underscores the irony of a nation abundant in resources yet plagued by profound economic hardships.

First discovered in 1957 at Azelik by a French colonial expedition looking for copper deposits, Uranium now ranks as Niger’s second-largest export in monetary value – surpassed only by gold. The country is a principal supplier of uranium to the European Union (EU) and contributes between 15% and 17% of the uranium fuelling France’s electricity generation.

Meanwhile, the country struggles to produce its own electricity because Nigeria recently terminated its power supply to the nation as a sanction against the military junta, leaving much of the country in darkness.

Western exploitation

Given its abundant natural resources, it seems counterintuitive for Niger to rank among the world’s poorest nations. Yet its economic and political struggles have deep roots in historical foreign interventions, exploitation and resource extraction. This situation has, for decades, been further compounded by misguided and ineffective leadership, often conniving in exploitation by foreign interests.

While some Ecowas members oppose the coup in Niger and have threatened military intervention against the coup leaders, some western countries are manoeuvring to uphold their interests. The Nigerian senate opposes military intervention, with one of its members alleging that Ecowas would merely be doing France and America’s bidding. Senator Orji Uzor Kalu suggested that if there is to be military action, it should be carried out by French and US troops.

Colonial powers and other major geopolitical actors have profoundly influenced Niger’s contemporary situation. France, referred to by the New York Times recently as the “Former Coloniser that Stayed”, has already warned that any attack on its interests in Niger will be met with retaliation. Meanwhile the reported presence of Wagner Group mercenaries in the country, after a request from the coup leaders, is a proxy for Russian interests in Niger.

But following the reported death of Wagner Group boss, Yevgeny Progozhin, after his private jet is understood to have crashed on a trip from St Petersburg to Moscow on August 23, the status of the Wagner Group activities in Niger – and Africa generally – is uncertain. However, their operations may come under the direct control of Russia’s military.

African resources, western interests

Another important resource issue threatened by instability in Niger is the trans-Saharan gas pipeline (TSGP), designed to transport natural gas from Nigeria through Niger and on to Algeria and then to Europe. One of the drivers of this project in the past two years has been the European need to wean itself off Russian gas supplies in light of the war in Ukraine.

Yet again, western resource needs are dictating events in supposedly independent and sovereign African countries.

The dominant narrative in west Africa frequently presents foreign interventions as benevolent efforts to stabilise the Sahel region, in particular, against the threat of jihadi insurgency. Yet a deeper examination uncovers a more intricate reality. As western powers strive to shape political dynamics in Niger – driven not just by a desire for stability but also to preserve their dominance and control over resource allocation – they portray Niger, and by extension, Africa, as mere markets within the global economy. This ignores the potential humanitarian consequences of such interventions for the people of Niger and west Africa in general.

As Niger faces political instability and possible violent conflict, there’s a pressing need to critically evaluate the motives and repercussions of foreign intervention.

Beyond the veneer of the quest for democracy and stability, the various players’ deeper strategic intentions must be scrutinised. This is the key to understanding the multifaceted dynamics in the Sahel region and their broader global implications.

Francis Okpaleke, PhD Candidate, Politics and International Security, University of Waikato and Olumba E. Ezenwa, Doctoral Research Fellow, Conflict, Violence, & Terrorism Research Centre, Royal Holloway University of London

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.