Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro launches research centre

The Rt Hon Dame Cindy Kiro, the Governor-General, has urged researchers to continue to ask courageous questions. She was speaking at the public launch of Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland research centre Ngā Ara Whetū, the Centre for Climate, Biodiversity and Society.

The Governor-General and the Minister for Climate Change, the Hon Simon Watts, were special guests at the launch, at the University Fale on 14 February, which celebrated the formation of the Centre as the University’s first cross-faculty research centre tackling climate, biodiversity and societal challenges.

Dame Cindy said the aims of the centre aligned with those of her office: stewardship of the natural world, applying the value of knowledge and understanding and celebrating the diversity and the commonalities of Aotearoa New Zealand, and that informed decision making was vital to meet these shared aspirations.

“We aspire to have a healthy mental and social environment. We want our communities to flourish and to be resilient.”

“In an era when misinformation and disinformation are so easily disseminated, it is too easy to suggest simple answers to complex questions,” she said.

“I have always deeply felt that the limits of our learnings are only constrained by our willingness to be able to look at other people’s knowledge and to be able to make sense of the world alongside them.”

University of Auckland Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research, Professor Frank Bloomfield said the country and world faced major challenges in each of the areas of climate, biodiversity and society.

“Some might see them as separate challenges, but clearly they are interwoven and interconnected and critical to our way of life and the future of our tamariki.”

Ngā Ara Whetū co-director Professor Jacqueline Beggs, an ecologist, said climate change was much more than a scientific or technical problem.

“Climate change involves values, beliefs, cultures and worldviews and can lead to passionate responses and often exacerbates existing inequalities and injustices.”

Ngā Ara Whetū can be translated as ‘Star paths,’ a metaphor acknowledging the knowledge of the Pacific people who navigated to Aotearoa, to inspire today’s pathfinders. The centre aims to connect the diverse pockets of expertise in climate, biodiversity and society, creating transdisciplinary research to respond to persistent societal challenges. It has brought together more than 130 researchers from eight faculties, including engineers, architects, biologists and social scientists.

Professor Beggs noted two initiatives, Huri Rawa, Huri Rauna, research led by Professor Saeid Baroutian, a chemical and material engineer, who is collaborating with iwi to develop a circular economy in the Whareponga valley in Ruatoria based on earlier success to extract a distinctive food flavouring and preservative from kanuka roots and leaves.

A second project is looking at transforming Auckland’s industrial zones from ecological wastelands by revising natural ecosystems to benefit those who live and work there along with the flora and fauna and waterways that once thrived.

At the launch, the Governor-General presented Bachelor of Design and Environmental science student Marco de Krester with first place prize of $1,000 for a student contest asking for a response to redefining beauty and success.