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Hosted by Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research, the Challenge – also known as BioHeritage – was a national partnership bringing together biodiversity and biosecurity research towards reversing the decline of biological heritage by protecting and managing biodiversity, improving biosecurity, and enhancing resilience to harmful organisms.
BioHeritage brought together teams across 18 partner CRIs, universities, government agencies and independent research organisations, along with a network of communities and partners spanning the research and innovation sector, communities, NGOs, iwi/hapū, business, industry, and the public. BioHeritage has fostered a multitude of relationships, many of which would not have been established if not for National Science Challenges, and the BioHeritage mantra of ‘doing science differently’.
BioHeritage has stimulated and accelerated progress on:
- Revolutionising pest control, pioneering RNAi technology targeting the varroa mite, and providing insights to address legacy threats, such as wasps and myrtle rust.
- Creating biosecurity surveillance tools, with new advanced light traps, AI and remote sensing, kauri dieback Phytophthora agathidicida detection, empowering proactive surveillance, while respecting data sovereignty.
- Empowering people and decision-making, with user-friendly tools, like Eco-index and Find-A-Pest, enabling informed decisions for biodiversity investment, efficient predator control, and plant pathogen surveillance.
- Enhancing prediction and management of emerging threats with new frameworks for risk assessment and communication, proof of absence validation, and solutions to enhance New Zealand’s biosecurity system.
- Building capability and capacity strengthening strategic, impact-oriented progress in biodiversity and biosecurity.
- Championing traditional knowledge, spearheading rongoā for kauri ora, with purpose-built facilities for development and training, and honouring mātauranga Māori solutions for biodiversity.
- Producing evidence-based governance and policy tools aligned to Te Tiriti o Waitangi guiding decisions and actions for a flourishing environment.
- Developing conservation strategies and practices to preserve at-risk flora and fauna ensuring the long-term conservation of New Zealand's biodiversity.
BioHeritage leaves an enduring legacy of achievement, partnerships, and capability-boosting, as well as new tools and technologies.
More information and data
There’s more information on the Challenge at Biological Heritage NZ (bioheritage.nz), with reports, data and links to papers held at the data repository (https://data.bioheritage.nz/)