Dr Sara MacBride-Stewart / Dr Liz O’Brien
What the paper is about: This paper sets out the social scientific understandings of biosecurity, and reviews the use of biosecurity science for the protection of trees in Aotearoa New Zealand and Cymru Wales, reporting on qualitative interviews and focus groups in both places. Scientific biosecurity has become an important approach for managing the threats to Kauri trees and plant management in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Wales more generally. In this paper we show how the biosecurity system is fragmentated and the consequences this has for indigenous Māori knowledge and for the implementation of biosecurity practices more widely. In addition to reporting on our findings we introduce a rubric that can be used to introduce a range of questions that result from this fragmentation of biosecurity and show the role(s) that social scientists and Pākehā scientists can have in opening spaces for new decolonising biosecurity practices, to emerge
About the speakers
Dr Sara MacBride-Stewart (Reader, Social Sciences, Cardiff University) is the co-lead for the Cardiff University Planetary Health University Research Network. Dr Sara MacBride-Stewart – People – Cardiff University My research explores solutions for Planetary Health that tackle social, economic and cultural demands on the natural world. I explore these issues as a matter of environmental and global (in)justice, as communities and landscapes are varied and wellbeing is unevenly derived. Inequalities in Net Zero, environmental futures and leisure/recreation activities in nature spaces (including kauri forests and National Parks) are key areas for my study.
Dr Liz O’Brien is Head of the Society and Environment Research Group at Forest Research (Liz O’Brien – Forest Research). Her research explores human-forest relationships with a particular focus on the cultural ecosystem benefits of trees and woodlands (Cultural ecosystem services, values and benefits – Forest Research) including a strong focus on the health and wellbeing benefits of engagement with trees and woodlands – physical, mental and social. Her team includes nearly twenty social scientists undertaking research on land manager decision making and behaviours; the social dimensions of tree health; the health and wellbeing benefits of engaging with forests, and the social dimensions of wildlife engagement and management (Social & Economic Research Services – Forest Research).