NUWAO - Nature-based Urban design for Wellbeing and Adaptation in Oceania

This out today - NUWAO researchers on the team.

Vital green spaces are disappearing in NZ cities – what can central and local government do? It’s not enough to have parks in city outskirts or urban green belts. Green spaces must be accessible for residents and placed to provide effective flood protection for cities.

https://iucn.org/story/202405/oceania-nature-based-solutions-guided-iucn-global-standard-mr-singh-sheds-light

Good to see mention of the NUWAO NbS guide here!

Oceania Nature-based Solutions guided by IUCN Global Standard: Mr. Singh sheds light Facing environmental challenges head-on, Pacific Island nations are embracing a resilient approach: Nature-based Solutions (NbS). This strategy uses the power of nature itself to address pressing issues like climate change and biodiversity loss. But how can these solutions be implemented effectively...

NUWAO Nature-based Solutions Design guide for Oceania out now. NUWAO update - https://mailchi.mp/16c067feb19e/nbsguide

The Greet Barrier Reef team are seeking a Program Manager to join their small Pacific Program team at the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. Please see below for a brief description of the role and a link to the application platform.

'While the role is located in Australia, preference will be given to applicants that identify as a Pacific Islander and/or have lived and worked in the Pacific Region.

Program Manager - Resilient Reefs Initiative (Pacific-focused) - Brisbane / Cairns / Townsville

The Program Manager RRI role is a permanent full time role which sits within the Projects and Partnership’s Resilient Reefs Initiative (RRI) team. This role will support administration, reporting, monitoring & evaluation, communications and engagement for the second phase of GBRF’s Resilient Reefs Initiative (RRI) that will focus on the Pacific Islands Region. In its second phase, the Initiative will accelerate adaptation of reef ecosystems and coastal communities across three-quarters of Pacific Island Countries and Territories by strengthening capacity of more than 1000 project owners and partners, connecting the region to dozens of global tools, building a pipeline of resilience projects that improve key habitats and communities, and connecting capital to the people and places that need it most.

Job Advertisement: "www.ethicaljobs.com.au" Program Manager - Resilient Reefs Initiative (Pacific-focused) - Brisbane / Cairns / Townsville - Job in Brisbane & Gold Coast - Great Barrier Reef Foundation (ethicaljobs.com.au)'

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/520846/easter-island-ecocide-theory-challenged-by-new-evidence-of-traditional-practices

Easter Island 'ecocide' theory challenged by new evidence of traditional practices New clues found on Easter Island Rapa Nui challenge the idea that warfare and stripped resources led to a cataclysmic population crash.

Great to see some interesting work out of Parsons School of Design . This from Sydney Moss - .

Future Interiority: MFA Thesis Salons 🌳Week 2. Care + Environment🌳 The Far Away 🌳Work by MFAID’24 Sydney Moss (@sydleemoss) Retreat is a state of mind more than a physical location. It is a refuge, a haven, an act of resistance, and a paradox of usefulness. Expanding the limits of a construct, like a retreat, into the physical world takes quite a bit of experimentation, imaginative thinking, and a profound connection to temporality. Physical restraints, however, can be seen as features rather than hindrances. Design can utilize and play with the limits of materiality and edifice to create immersive and unprecedented sites for personal exploration. By engaging with local topography through bioregional and biophilic elements, an emphasis on craft and handiwork, and harvesting found or pre-used materials to promote an anti-consumerist program, the physical parameters of a retreat can embody and facilitate a frame of mind one can reference again and again even when the body has returned home. 1: Exploration of Maine Topography 2: Urbanites often seek out rural landscapes to “get away from it all” but the relationship between urban and rural landscapes is deeply linked as one cannot define one without the other. 3: Maine has a long history as a tourist destination. The site I have chosen is located in Boothbay and used to be run as a wellness center by Gymnast Walter Buzzel in the 1940s-1960s 4: Site analysis through the craft of embroidery 5: a study of time: this piece has taken over a year and is still in the works. “Do Less Harm” borrows from harm reductionist aphorism, essentially saying we should not let perfect be the enemy of the good. The piece is made from threads left over from other projects and the scraps of a curtain I once hemmed. #parsonsinteriordesign #parsonsmfa #parsonsMFAInteriordesign #interior #design #research #workinprogress

The 4th Pacific Ocean Pacific Climate Change Conference 2024 (POPCCC 2024) is holding a pre-conference Talanoa/workshop on Nature-based Solutions (NbS) for climate adaptation and resilience in Oceania.

The aims of the workshop are:

1: To review and discuss recent progress on NbS for climate adaptation and resilience in Oceania:

a) discuss the context for Oceania-based NbS work in relation to other international approaches and programmes;
b) summarise and discuss new and recent Oceania-based NbS guides, standards and projects.

2: To discuss strategic themes and next steps for the future development, mainstreaming, and implementation of NbS in Oceania; and

3: To meet and network among Oceania-based NbS practitioners and researchers.

Details:

Time: Monday 20 May, 2024, 1300-1600 West Samoa (WST) time
Venue: Niule’a Seminar Room, National University of Samoa, Le Papaigalagala Campus, To’omatagi, Samoa

Registration: https://popccc.nus.edu.ws/page/Homepage

Sponsored by: Nature-based Urban Design for Wellbeing and Adaptation in Oceania (NUWAO), International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Oceania (IUCN Oceania), and Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) - Technical Assistance from the Kiwa Initiative.

Further enquiries to the workshop organisers are welcomed.

Please contact Dr Paul Blaschke (NUWAO); [email protected]; or Vinay Singh (IUCN); [email protected] or Mathilde Kraft (SPREP); [email protected].

For further information on the 4th Pacific Ocean Pacific Climate Change Conference 2024 and pre/post conference workshops (20-24 May, Apia, Samoa), visit https://nus.edu.ws/4th-popccc/.

popccc.nus.edu.ws

NUWAO has recently published its article "Centring localised indigenous concepts of wellbeing in urban nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation: case-studies from Aotearoa New Zealand and the Cook Islands" in Frontiers.

Abstract: "Nature-based solutions (NbS) offer significant potential for climate change adaptation and resilience. NbS strengthen biodiversity and ecosystems, and premise approaches that centre human wellbeing. But understandings and models of wellbeing differ and continue to evolve. This paper reviews wellbeing models and thinking from Aotearoa New Zealand, with focus on Te Ao Māori (the Māori world and worldview) as well as other Indigenous models of wellbeing from wider Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa Oceania. We highlight how holistic understandings of human-ecology-climate connections are fundamental for the wellbeing of Indigenous peoples of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa Oceania and that they should underpin NbS approaches in the region. We profile case study experience from Aotearoa New Zealand and the Cook Islands emerging out of the Nature-based Urban design for Wellbeing and Adaptation in Oceania (NUWAO) research project, that aims to develop nature-based urban design solutions, rooted in Indigenous knowledges that support climate change adaptation and wellbeing. We show that there is great potential for nature-based urban adaptation agendas to be more effective if linked closely to Indigenous ecological knowledge and understandings of wellbeing."

Please see link below for the full article.

Centring localised indigenous concepts of wellbeing in urban nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation: case-studies from Aotearoa New Zealand and the Cook Islands Nature-based solutions (NbS) offer significant potential for climate change adaptation and resilience. NbS strengthen biodiversity and ecosystems, and premise approaches that centre human wellbeing. But understandings and models of wellbeing differ and continue to evolve. This paper reviews wellbein...

NUWAO's Maija Stephens recently appeared on Waatea News to discuss a podcast series she has been working on about the development of nature-based urban solutions in Aotearoa and beyond.

Please find the link to the kōrero below.

"The podcast invites you to join Maija Stephens (Ngāti Kahungunu, Rongomaiwahine, Ngāti Rangi, Pākehā) and Mercia Abbott (Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāi Tahu) as they share kōrero with awesome people doing important mahi in their fields of expertise, all working towards today’s climate issues and how we can respond with nature-based solutions together with local cultural identities."

Maija Stevens | NUWAO Podcast Host The AUT-led Nature-based Urban design for Wellbeing and Adaptation in Oceania (NUWAO) project has released a series of podcasts discussing the development of nature-based urban design solutions in Aotearoa and beyond.

🌊 Call for Abstracts: 4th Pacific Climate Change Conference

The Fourth Pacific Climate Change Conference invites community representatives, researchers, scientists, policymakers, experts from any discipline and any concerned citizen (be they from the arts, business sector or faith-based organisations or other civil society groups) to submit abstracts for the parallel sessions and poster presentations.

Abstracts of 300-500 words maximum are welcome. Abstracts should provide a concise summary of the presentation’s objectives, methods, and implications and should be submitted in Word format. Submission should also include the title, affiliations of the presenter(s) and 3-5 keywords. Those interested in presenting at a poster session should indicate so clearly in their submission.

Topics include (but are not limited to):

- Climate science and impacts on diverse ecosystems
- Technical, economic, legal, and social responses to climate change
- Climate change, health and well-being
- Adaptation and resilience
- Climate change impact on indigenous knowledge and traditions
- Natural resources and biodiversity in a warming world
- Responses from various sectors (including arts, faith, and humanity)

Please submit your abstract via the conference email: [email protected]

📆 Important Dates:

Submission Deadline: January 15, 2024
Acceptance Notifications: Rolling basis
Conference: May 21-23, 2024

Please see https://nus.edu.ws/4th-popccc/ for further information.

4th POPCCC 2024 – National University of Samoa Call For Abstracts Menu Call For Abstracts Save the date 21 - 23 May 2024, Venue-NUS Samoa. Call for Abstracts “Our Ocean, Our Home: Climate Resilience for a Blue Pacific”Fourth Pacific Climate Change ConferenceOrganised byNational University of Samoa, Pacific Climate Change Centre hosted at the...

Seeking a person to join NUWAO to work with Kāti Huirapa Rūnaka ki Puketeraki - https://mailchi.mp/a4b4b0dee555/puketeraki-role

The AUT-led Nature-based Urban design for Wellbeing and Adaptation in Oceania (NUWAO) project has released a series of podcasts discussing the development of nature-based urban design solutions in Aotearoa and beyond.

Hosted by Maija Stephens and Mercia Abbott, each episode features informative kōrero with people doing important mahi in their fields of expertise, that respond to the changing climate with nature-based solutions rooted in local indigenous knowledges.

Interviewees across the 10 episodes include AUT’s Professor Albert Refiti (School of Art & Design) and School of Future Environments Associate Professors Amanda Yates and Fleur Palmer, and lecturer Sibyl Bloomfield.

See the link below for more information!

Indigenous knowledge for climate change - AUT News - AUT A new podcast features AUT research into nature-based solutions to climate change rooted in indigenous knowledges.