The ‘Integrated Surveillance’ team is elevating the status of the environment into Aotearoa New Zealand’s biosecurity surveillance system.
The environment-centric surveillance framework focuses on ensuring that the state and health of taonga and ngahere are included in any surveillance response. It does this using kauri dieback and myrtle rust as case studies to test the framework and model ‘proof of disease freedom’.
It also provides the basis for the assimilation of up-to-date and accurate data regarding the extent of kauri dieback and myrtle rust, and the state of native bioheritage affected by the pathogens. Click ‘play’ to view what they’ve been up to in the first three years of the programme. This programme is funded by Ngā Rākau Taketake, which is administered by New Zealand’s Biological Heritage National Science Challenge | Ngā Koiora Tuku Iho.