Latest news and updates
Cawthron celebrates 2023 Endeavour funding success
September 2023: Cawthron Institute is celebrating the announcement that five of its bids for the 2023 MBIE Endeavour Fund round have been successful. Two Research Programme bids and three Smart Ideas proposals were awarded, making this Cawthron’s most successful contestable funding round to date.
Cawthron Institute’s Chief Executive Volker Kuntzsch says these results will enable science that has a significant real-world impact against some of the biggest challenges facing Aotearoa New Zealand’s environment, economy, and society.
“In a competitive funding environment where there are so many strong bids submitted, this result speaks to the innovation, collaboration. and hard work of our researchers, and I am thrilled for them,” says Volker.
“Our vision is to create a better future where ecosystems are healthy, communities are thriving, and we have a prosperous blue economy, and all of these successful bids enable research that supports those outcomes.”
Shellfish researchers at Cawthron Aquaculture Park. Photo: Cawthron Institute.
Aqualinc: Time for a back-to-basics approach to water consents
September 2023: In the September issue of Canterbury Farming Newspaper, Aqualinc's Dr John Bright talks about "Time for a back-to-basics approach to water consents".
John writes that getting water consents and complying with their conditions is a major headache for most farmers who irrigate. Going "back to basics" could simplify the process.
Simplifying water consents would make them easier to manage, for everyone, reducing costs; reduce uncertainty about what you can and cannot do and provide greater clarity about compliance; and enable longer-term consents, reducing costs for all parties.
"Under the Resource Management Act, you can’t take water and you can’t use water unless you have the necessary consents (unless the activity is permitted in some other way). Current practice for almost all regional authorities is to bundle everything up into a water 'take and use' consent.
"As pressure on rivers and aquifers has increased, so too has the complexity of the conditions included in each “take and use” consent."
Aquafer tests reveal local-scale impacts of water takes. Photo: Aqualinc.