Tackling kauri dieback an ethical way
Friday, 30 August 2019
OPINION: I visited Tāne Mahuta on my first trip to Aotearoa New Zealand. I was in Northland to meet my prospective in-laws and see the sights.
I remember standing in awe of the ginormous tree, contemplating what the world was like over 1000 years ago when Tāne Mahuta was just a sapling.
Twenty years later, and kauri is officially one of the most endangered plants on the planet thanks in part to kauri dieback disease.
Kauri dieback is caused by a weird microbe called Phytophthera agathidicida which looks and behaves a bit like a fungus but makes multiples types of spores, including swimming zoospores that spread the disease between trees.
**READ MORE:
* Kānuka could halt kauri dieback disease, study finds**
*** How an engineer and a biologist could help with kauri dieback and myrtle rust
* Kauri dieback turning 1000-year-old trees into 'big skeletons'
* Lord of the forest: New Zealand's most sacred tree is under threat
* Kauri dieback can live in pine trees and pasture, study finds
* Tāne Mahuta could soon be infected with fatal Kauri dieback disease**
Unfortunately, there are very limited chemicals available to treat kauri dieback.
That's something Dr Monica Gerth from Victoria University of Wellington is trying to solve. As part of her MBIE Smart Ideas grant, she and her colleagues partnered with Chris Pairama (Te Taou, Ngati Whaatua) and Ian Mitchell of Te Uri Taniwha, Ngāpuhi, Waima, to explore whether Māori knowledge of forest health can identify native plants that produce anti-Phytophthora compounds.
Using mātauranga that descends from Te Whare Wananga o Ngāpuhi – the sacred house of learning of Ngāpuhi – four plants were selected for testing: kānuka, karamu, kawakawa, and nīkau.
The partnership has been a great success. The team found that leaves from one species of kānuka, Kunzea robusta, produced compounds that stopped zoospores swimming and germinating, at least in the lab.
This suggests that planting kānuka next to kauri or developing sprays or soil drenches from these compounds might be an effective way to stop the spread of kauri dieback, though there is still more research needed.
The work is a wonderful example of how research should be done.
For too long, advances have been made using the exploitative Western model of 'helicopter science'. Researchers drop into an indigenous community, take the samples or knowledge they want, and then leave, and the community never hear from them again.
Scientists everywhere need to recognise that indigenous communities, and the plants and animals that are their taonga, are not simply resources to be exploited.
Instead, ethical collaborations like this are the key to success.
Dr Siouxsie Wiles MNZM is an associate professor at the University of Auckland and a deputy director of Te Pūnaha Matatini, a New Zealand Centre of Research Excellence.