Living Labs

The AUT Living Laboratories programme is a ‘spin-off’ project from the BioH NSC Tranche 1 “Farming and Nature Conservation” NSC project. Here, the team are addressing science and social science questions raised by that previous project by establishing three, long-term experimental restoration sites to demonstrate the value of, and to inform best practice of, Nature-based Solutions (NbS) on retired farmland.

The sites are located at:
1. Pourewa in partnership with Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei
2. Te Muri Regional Park in partnership with Ngāti Manuhiri and Auckland Council, and
3. Pūkorokoro/Miranda in partnership with Ngāti Pāoa and Te Whangai Trust.

Each site is intensively monitored to generate new knowledge about the wider ecosystem effects of revegetation, such as biodiversity improvements, carbon sequestration, soil and water quality, and more.

The teams long-term vision is to build a legacy resource in the form of an open-access teaching and research platform used by students from primary schools up to post-graduate and for people interested in research on ecological/environmental (restoration ecology, ecosystem monitoring indicators) or social science (productive partnerships for landowners, community engagement, NbS for climate change).

Lead:

Bradley Case (Auckland University of Technology)