title: Māori and indigenous views on R and R: Resistance and Resilience

authors: Penehira, Mera

subjects: resilience

abstract: This article explores the development of Mäori and Indigenous frameworks of resilience, considering the impact of engaging with largely State- led notions of resilience on Mäori development. We highlight the closely linked notion of resistance, asserting the necessity of a fi rm political analysis from Indigenous researchers engaged in this discourse. One of the Indigenous criticisms of resilience theories is that by defi nition they assume an acceptance of responsibility for our position as disadvantaged individuals. That is, by examining and developing theories and models of resilience we buy into the idea that this is the way it is and we need simply to get better at bouncing back and being resilient. Resistance, however, represents an approach of collective fi ght- back, exposing the inequitable distribution of power, and actively opposing negative social, political and economic infl uences. This article represents a Mäori Indigenous political response to the resilience discourse.

text: Māori and indigenous views on R and R: Resistance and Resilience This article explores the development of Mäori and Indigenous frameworks of resilience, considering the impact of engaging with largely State- led notions of resilience on Mäori development. We highlight the closely linked notion of resistance, asserting the necessity of a fi rm political analysis from Indigenous researchers engaged in this discourse. One of the Indigenous criticisms of resilience theories is that by defi nition they assume an acceptance of responsibility for our position as disadvantaged individuals. That is, by examining and developing theories and models of resilience we buy into the idea that this is the way it is and we need simply to get better at bouncing back and being resilient. Resistance, however, represents an approach of collective fi ght- back, exposing the inequitable distribution of power, and actively opposing negative social, political and economic infl uences. This article represents a Mäori Indigenous political response to the resilience discourse.

year: 2014

title: Ghost Town

authors: Wrigley, David

abstract: Abstract

A hometown is a thing full of horrors.
Ghosts line the footpaths like spectators at an ANZAC Day parade. They leap from thickets and pounce from suburban ranch sliders like tom cats. 
These ghosts have been waiting for you. There are things they need you to remember. 
When David Wrigley returns to Cambridge, a town he thought he’d left behind him forever, he finds the ghosts are out in force. He stumbles on a note in his mother’s garage, tightly folded and hot to the touch, that sets him off in pursuit of the memory of Jacob Avonlea, a friend from the past who he has never been able to leave behind.
But the currents of memory are unpredictable, and the waters and riverbanks are crowded with the dead. David and Jacob’s friendship, which crackled with a boyish intensity and a surfeit of secrets, was just the first of many stories tussling for attention.
 There is a family history – a fifty year old cataclysm that destroyed his brother. 
The grotesque origins of the school that nurtured David and murdered Jacob. The eccentric founder who brought with him from the mill towns of Manchester a fear of women and a predilection for young boys. 
And then there is the land – the meanders of the Waikato and the eruptions that diverted it from one coast to another, leaving forgotten oxbows in its wake. The roaming forests of kahikateas that followed the river and the wetlands, and once dominated these landscapes but have now all but disappeared. The rich farmland that has usurped the forests and slowly leaks poison into the soil and the waterways.
Ghost Town is a psychogeographer’s novel. A novel in which the landscape and the people that live and act upon it are inseparable, the ghosts of one haunting the present of the other.  It is a story of colonial men, locked into cycles of violence and destruction. The story of the silence they have inflicted upon themselves and on their children, and ultimately on the landscape itself, as the forests retreat, the birdsong hushed.
As we drift downstream, at every bend of the river we can see through the ever-widening gaps in the trees, glimpses of lost futures– that different species of ghost. 
A free and autonomous Māori Waikato. 
A spring-fed lake full of eels and koura. 
Five hundred year old kahikateas growing arrow-straight into the distant blueness.
An egalitarian, socialist Aotearoa. 
A family man gathering his sons into his arms.
A man of forty six raising his eyes towards the swaying tree-tops and starting to sing.

text: Ghost Town Abstract

A hometown is a thing full of horrors.
Ghosts line the footpaths like spectators at an ANZAC Day parade. They leap from thickets and pounce from suburban ranch sliders like tom cats. 
These ghosts have been waiting for you. There are things they need you to remember. 
When David Wrigley returns to Cambridge, a town he thought he’d left behind him forever, he finds the ghosts are out in force. He stumbles on a note in his mother’s garage, tightly folded and hot to the touch, that sets him off in pursuit of the memory of Jacob Avonlea, a friend from the past who he has never been able to leave behind.
But the currents of memory are unpredictable, and the waters and riverbanks are crowded with the dead. David and Jacob’s friendship, which crackled with a boyish intensity and a surfeit of secrets, was just the first of many stories tussling for attention.
 There is a family history – a fifty year old cataclysm that destroyed his brother. 
The grotesque origins of the school that nurtured David and murdered Jacob. The eccentric founder who brought with him from the mill towns of Manchester a fear of women and a predilection for young boys. 
And then there is the land – the meanders of the Waikato and the eruptions that diverted it from one coast to another, leaving forgotten oxbows in its wake. The roaming forests of kahikateas that followed the river and the wetlands, and once dominated these landscapes but have now all but disappeared. The rich farmland that has usurped the forests and slowly leaks poison into the soil and the waterways.
Ghost Town is a psychogeographer’s novel. A novel in which the landscape and the people that live and act upon it are inseparable, the ghosts of one haunting the present of the other.  It is a story of colonial men, locked into cycles of violence and destruction. The story of the silence they have inflicted upon themselves and on their children, and ultimately on the landscape itself, as the forests retreat, the birdsong hushed.
As we drift downstream, at every bend of the river we can see through the ever-widening gaps in the trees, glimpses of lost futures– that different species of ghost. 
A free and autonomous Māori Waikato. 
A spring-fed lake full of eels and koura. 
Five hundred year old kahikateas growing arrow-straight into the distant blueness.
An egalitarian, socialist Aotearoa. 
A family man gathering his sons into his arms.
A man of forty six raising his eyes towards the swaying tree-tops and starting to sing.

year: 2023

title: Canine (Canis familiaris) scent detection of invasive brown bullhead catfish (Ameiurus nebulosus) in water samples, and the effects of sample preservation

authors: Denby, Renee

abstract: Brown bullhead catfish (Ameiurus nebulosus) are an invasive freshwater fish widely recognised as a threat to New Zealand’s aquatic ecosystems. Early detection of new incursions increases the chances of eradication or control, but current survey methods such as netting and electrofishing are expensive and time consuming when fish are at low abundances. Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) have previously demonstrated the ability to detect the presence of catfish in laboratory water samples, while discriminating against non-target species. The aim of this research was to investigate whether scent detection dogs could plausibly be employed in aquatic biosecurity programmes. The first experiment used a probe design to determine the scent-detection limits for catfish biomass under laboratory conditions. Water samples taken from tanks containing a standard catfish biomass concentration of 15.5 g/L (equivalent to 38,700 kg/ha) were assessed by the dogs and progressively diluted following the successful attainment of identification and discrimination criteria. All three participating dogs were able to detect the presence of catfish at biomass concentrations ≤12.6 kg/ha, with one dog achieving 4.6 kg/ha. Concurrently, the dogs were also able to successfully discriminate against a goldfish (Carassius auratus) distractor scent indicating that they are able to distinguish specific species of fish in the environment. The effects of sample preservation on dogs’ ability to identify and discriminate target scents have rarely been investigated. In practice, field samples from the environment would likely necessitate the preservation of samples prior to assessment by dogs. A second study used a repeated-measures reversal design to investigate dogs’ abilities to detect catfish at a standard biomass concentration of 310 kg/ha which had been refrigerated or frozen for up to 1-week. No statistically significant difference in hit rates between unpreserved (baseline 1: 93%, baseline 2: 98%), refrigerated (97%), and frozen (96%) samples was apparent; (F(3, 6) = 2.061502, p = 0.2069). These results indicate that dogs are capable of detecting and discriminating the scent of catfish at biomass concentrations typical of many freshwater ecosystems in the Waikato region. Further, limited periods of freezing or refrigeration appear to have no significant effect on the scent-detection abilities of dogs. Future research needs to be conducted with field samples from lakes and could explore the effects of preservation on low biomass concentrations. The results from this study are promising for the potential future employment of scent detection dogs in aquatic biosecurity monitoring.

text: Canine (Canis familiaris) scent detection of invasive brown bullhead catfish (Ameiurus nebulosus) in water samples, and the effects of sample preservation Brown bullhead catfish (Ameiurus nebulosus) are an invasive freshwater fish widely recognised as a threat to New Zealand’s aquatic ecosystems. Early detection of new incursions increases the chances of eradication or control, but current survey methods such as netting and electrofishing are expensive and time consuming when fish are at low abundances. Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) have previously demonstrated the ability to detect the presence of catfish in laboratory water samples, while discriminating against non-target species. The aim of this research was to investigate whether scent detection dogs could plausibly be employed in aquatic biosecurity programmes. The first experiment used a probe design to determine the scent-detection limits for catfish biomass under laboratory conditions. Water samples taken from tanks containing a standard catfish biomass concentration of 15.5 g/L (equivalent to 38,700 kg/ha) were assessed by the dogs and progressively diluted following the successful attainment of identification and discrimination criteria. All three participating dogs were able to detect the presence of catfish at biomass concentrations ≤12.6 kg/ha, with one dog achieving 4.6 kg/ha. Concurrently, the dogs were also able to successfully discriminate against a goldfish (Carassius auratus) distractor scent indicating that they are able to distinguish specific species of fish in the environment. The effects of sample preservation on dogs’ ability to identify and discriminate target scents have rarely been investigated. In practice, field samples from the environment would likely necessitate the preservation of samples prior to assessment by dogs. A second study used a repeated-measures reversal design to investigate dogs’ abilities to detect catfish at a standard biomass concentration of 310 kg/ha which had been refrigerated or frozen for up to 1-week. No statistically significant difference in hit rates between unpreserved (baseline 1: 93%, baseline 2: 98%), refrigerated (97%), and frozen (96%) samples was apparent; (F(3, 6) = 2.061502, p = 0.2069). These results indicate that dogs are capable of detecting and discriminating the scent of catfish at biomass concentrations typical of many freshwater ecosystems in the Waikato region. Further, limited periods of freezing or refrigeration appear to have no significant effect on the scent-detection abilities of dogs. Future research needs to be conducted with field samples from lakes and could explore the effects of preservation on low biomass concentrations. The results from this study are promising for the potential future employment of scent detection dogs in aquatic biosecurity monitoring.

year: 2021