Tēnā koe,
This pānui contains important news about research funding for Māori. Please forward it on to your whānau, hapū, iwi and other pākihi or rōpū Māori you're connected with. Invite them to join the Deep South Challenge mailing list! We want to make sure that all communities eligible for this research funding know about it. We need your help to make sure this happens.
He nui ngā mihi,
The Director, the Kāhui Māori and the Engagement Team of the Deep South Challenge: Changing with our Climate
Kia hiwa rā, kia hiwa rā! Today we open two new funds for climate research: Te Taura and Te Aho (totalling $1.45M).
These two funding streams encourage uniquely indigenous responses to the impacts of climate change. Our Te Aho stream encourages community-led action research, with or without the participation of academic institutions. Our Te Taura stream supports larger scale research projects that may involve multiple research partners.
Our application form is available in te reo Māori and in English, and we strongly encourage research that enables authentic knowledge creation and exchange. We are also beginning an intensive programme of engagement, in which our Kaitakawaenga, with the support of members of our Kāhui Māori, will be visiting as many rohe as we can, in order to meet with potential community researchers kānohi ki te kānohi.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to our Kaitakawaenga Nadine Hura.
Back in March, we submitted on the Climate Change Commission's draft plan. We've now made our submission available online. We strongly encouraged the Climate Change Commission to consider both mitigation and adaptation at the same time. We began by noting that it's unclear whether the emission costs of adaptation were considered in the report's budgets. A failure to reduce emissions will undoubtedly increase adaptation costs (and make adaptation far more challenging). At the same time, the proactive adaptation Aotearoa needs may cause an initial increase in emissions (for example, from the construction of climate-resilient infrastructure). Read our submission here, which fills in some gaps about the adaptation research and policy landscape.
Somewhat ironically given the weather, yesterday we held final event in "Growing Kai under Increasing Dry: A rolling symposium on Drought and Climate Change." This symposium has been a collaboration with Resilience to Nature's Challenges and Our Land and Water National Science Challenge, and involved three background research webinars in the lead-up to yesterday's full-day event at Te Papa and online. All three webinars are available on our YouTube channel (or you can watch the first webinar below without leaving this newsletter). Over the next few weeks, we'll be compiling a report of the full symposium, drawing together ideas and recommendations raised throughout the series, for researchers, policy makers and industry people alike. In the meantime, please check out this section of our new website, which gathers together relevant climate adaptation tools relating to farms, whenua, and awa.
New research by the Deep South Challenge and Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research, with the support of Motu Economic and Public Policy Research, finds a strong relationship between more intense future drought and drops in farm profit. Research co-lead Dr Kendon Bell notes that one potential use of these results is to better understand how climate change might encourage farmers and growers to implement adaptation measures, or even to change what they farm and where. Due to large capital investments, it’s difficult for farmers to change the way they use their land. And the creeping pace of climate change will not likely force land-use change in the near future. Yet this research suggests that land-use change should at least be on the cards in some places. Read about the research here. Or you can watch a webinar with Kenny Bell on YouTube here (part of our rolling symposium on drought & climate change).
Mana Ake