00:06 Deborah Daley
Hello and welcome to Changemakers, a podcast series brought to you by Nature, where we shine a light on fascinating and extraordinary scientists.
I’m Deborah Daley, global chair of Springer Nature’s Black Employee Network. And I’m very proud to present this series.
We wanted to talk about how some groups feel excluded from science, and how some researchers have found new ways to make their practice of science more inclusive.
In episode one, we meet a soil chemist in New Zealand who collaborates with local Indigenous Māori people on environmental projects that directly affect their ancestral land.
Amanda Black 00:52
My name is Amanda Black, and I’m currently a professor and director of Bioprotection Aotearoa, which is a National Centre of Excellence based in New Zealand.
We focus on training early career researchers to address biological threats in the environment. These biological threats are usually pests, and pathogens and weeds.
Our mission is to sort of develop these innovative solutions for communities to protect both the natural and our food-producing ecosystems.
In this challenging environment we have a lot of global challenges coming up, such as climate change and biosecurity, but my own research area, it focuses on understanding what makes forest ecosystems resilient.
And when faced with disturbances like key species removal. So your loss of your your big animals and invasive pests.
So what happens when invasive weeds and pathogens, diseases come into these systems.
And extreme weather events. So we have, particularly in the southern hemisphere, with climate change, we have a lot of droughts, followed by a lot of floods, and how these ecosystems sort of rebound or respond to this.
And particularly, I look at soil ecosystems, so what’s in the soils, because they support plant life.
Amanda Black 02:10
I grew up in a small rural community in New Zealand in East Coast Bay of Plenty, So very, very far away from academic life or industry.
I was lucky to grow up in my tribal area. So I am an Indigenous person. I am a scientist as well.
You know, we had a lot of nature as our playgrounds. So there was the ocean, there were the rivers, there were the lakes that you could play in.
There was also our native forests, primary growth forests, which means that that’s how they’ve been for probably at least 1000 years, and that’s what’s there, their remnants.
And so I was lucky that I was exposed to a lot of nature. And because it was my playground, I was curious about it, and I liked it.
So I had an interest in nature and preserving what was there, and harvesting from nature as well.
And also having the privilege of growing up in my tribal area, which means I was exposed to a lot of that kind of thinking and value systems around sustainability and protecting the environment.
And once I got more into soils, I realized how fascinating that ecosystem was. It’s like literally has the highest biodiversity, which means the amount of organisms you can find in a teaspoon of soil. It’s huge.
Most of the stuff you can’t see, microorganisms, but they have, they play a massive role. And every, in all the kind of functions of our forests and our growing lands that do, they sequester carbon.
So they store carbon, they recycle other nutrients, and make sure that plants grow. And if we have plants grow, then you know, we can essentially live on earth. And people live on the land, and that’s what links me back to working with communities. and Indigenous communities.
Because they are the caretakers of the land, and they have their own ideas about what’s been working, what hasn’t.
And really fascinating, I think, working with communities and understanding their priorities and coming together, you know, being trained in science and helping find those sweet spots where we can work together and develop ideas to help protect or promote, you know, healthy, healthy management of land.
The Indigenous values that I am bringing into, you know, the research platform that I manage, as well as my own research conduct, is really around, one of them is called te pono.
And te pono stands for truth, honesty and integrity.
And I think a lot of the Indigenous values that I’ll introduce, they make sense. And they’re familiar because they are, I think they’re universal codes of conduct. You know, ethical behavior around how you how you should always conduct yourself. You know, whether it’s a small group or a large group.
Much of the research that we do, and I’m pretty sure that it’s commonplace, if you look to other countries, it’s just all about doing the science and getting the results and getting them out there and doing more science and getting the results, and getting money, obviously.
We are the product of the funding political environment that has created, I guess, a culture of this treadmill-style research and doing things and not really considering, I guess, the impact that you might have for people that you want to take on the journey.
Is your science going to land in a place that’s going to have impact? Is that even something you should consider?
And of course, there’s, you know, differences and speeds of groups, and I guess resourcing and privilege that comes with that.
And some groups will speed far ahead, and they’ll get massive technical gains, but they wouldn’t have taken anyone else on their journey.
And there’s also fostering this competitive attitude. I’m speaking from New Zealand, where people don’t really work collegially anymore. And so they are very much stuck in their groups and their silos.
There’s not really much collegiality happening across systems, and part of that was bringing in these, I guess, ethical or code of conducts. It’s like, if we base it on Indigenous, Indigenous values, or Māori values, in particular.
So te pono, which is, you know, really around that integrity, that honesty.
We have te aroha. And te aroha is about respect and reciprocity when we’re talking about partnerships.
Another Māori value is te tika. And te tika stands for what’s doing, what is right in the right way, for the right reasons.
And I guess many people can read into that what that might look like.
But for us, we’ve stated that quite clearly. And the research that we manage is like being honest about what you’re doing and what you’re going to get out of it and who’s going to benefit. I think.
Many, many researchers talk up research, then it’s it’s quite fanciful, and it’s like we know that most research isn’t going to land and have that impact. And so be honest that you think these are the outcomes, and manage expectations.
But also, I think one of the important things when we got together as a group, I’m talking about four years ago, is like, the first thing I focused on the first year was really about building us as a group, trusting each other as a group, getting to know one another so that we’re at least on the same page.
Because if you don’t understand each other and you don’t trust each other, it’s very difficult to have those kind of impacts.
And it’s also when you go out to groups, whether it’s, you know, government groups, it’s industry groups, it’s community groups, they can pick up on those vibes, right?
They can pick up where this group is working. They’ve got each other’s back. And they usually put off (unless their relationship is is truly transactionary), they are usually put off by working with these groups because they they’re going to fall apart. You know, it’s not going to last, this group. So I had the intention of making sure this group lasted through these values.
Amanda Black 08:09
There aren’t many Māori researchers in science, and so most people aren’t Māori. But we have a lot of what we call allies, and we bring them together in neutral settings, which is marae. So it’s traditional Māori meeting houses and areas, and we have them stay for a couple of nights.
We get people to talk about their research, and then we bring in members of the community. So researchers have to explain to members of the community why they should care.
Why should we care? Why, why does the government fund this instead of this?
And then I guess that it’s quite confronting. You know, when you get outside of your bubble, your echo chamber, it’s like no one really cares what you do.
So explaining that to groups, where in your proposals you write that they’re going to benefit from whatever you’re doing, is quite confronting.
But we also do it in a way that, you know, that’s a safe space. So people can air their views. We have whole variety of opinions on lots of things.
And I think that’s okay. You know, the many voices adds to solutions. And that’s partly where your diversity, equity and inclusion comes in.
And I think being able to be heard and respected and come together and work.
So you can agree to disagree, but I think if you agree on your mission and who you’re working for and the benefits and the impacts from that, that’s what we’re trying to get at.
And I do that by using Indigenous values as a system. Now you can use anything else, but I’ve chosen to do that because a key thing about Māori values is intergenerational.
It’s not one of those corporate speaks, but it’s more than that. It’s how Māori have operated over hundreds of years. It’s how other Indigenous groups, I’m sure, have operated over hundreds of years, because it transcends law.
You know, you got told you have to do it because it’s law. You don’t want to do it, but you have to do it because of the repercussions. But here, I guess we want people to want to do it, and that’s what I’ve tried to instill.
Amanda Black 10:24
We take our researchers on a noho marae. They’re a key part of our cultural journey. They’re housed at traditional meeting houses on traditional lands, and so everyone is called in.
You are sacred until your sacristy is lifted, and that you are there for the whole duration, and so you are part of that system, that meeting house and that land. And until you leave, that is very much your home.
And this is the cultural journey we talk about. And because it will be many researchers’ introductions to Māori culture, they’re also learning that as the same as sharing their views and ideas.
And because we have rules inside these meeting houses, about who speaks and whose turn, and being respectful about listening to other people’s opinions, I guess no one feels that they might be attacked.
And that’s the beauty of this. They’re learning culturally what our values are and how we live them, particularly on the land, but they’re also provided with a set of in-house rules about how to guide their discussions around research and outcomes and working with communities.
I guess that’s the beauty of having these, as everyone’s on neutral ground.
Everyone feels awkward all at the same time. They’re all feeling uncomfortable.
But my experience was taking groups for this at the end of it, they well, one person said to me last year, it was a career-defining moment, because she could understand now what we’re talking about when we say we live these values.
We want you to experience these values and integrate them in the way that you work in your research.
And so I think that we feel like you have a win when you you’ve got these moments with researchers.
And a lot of our researchers aren’t New Zealanders. They come from mostly the northern hemisphere. And it’s interesting. I think for them, it’s special, because a lot of them, they won’t get that opportunity to experience that. And so they experience that in their work as well.
And they go away having that more of a sense of camaraderie, I guess, a sense of belonging, which is another thing we’re trying to instill in. A pride in what they’re trying to do.
And they can see that line of sight with their research. Even if you’re lab-based and you’re working on CRISPR, you know, technologies like that, they can still see where that could go.
And that’s the beauty of that. We’re providing that context.
So the research isn’t conducted in a vacuum. You know, there are recipients somewhere out there, and they have faces and they have names and they have lands. And this is what part of those noho marae do, they, they identify that, and they ground researchers and have the sense of belonging.
Amanda Black 13:11
I guess the other key issue is really around Indigenous data, or basically sovereignty. And so many Indigenous communities around the world, constantly struggling for autonomy and decision-making around anything that pertains to them and their culture and their identity. And that’s, you know, exactly the same for New Zealand.
And so our researchers, particularly when they deal with any species or any samples or any data that talks to Indigenous cultures, their nationhood, anything that they see as treasured, we have words for it.
It’s called taonga, so it’s treasured. It’s an integral part of their culture that is talked about in oral history, and we have to work with that in a way that manages the data that comes from that and so that they still retain ownership.
And we’re avoiding continuing that exploitation of Indigenous communities. And that’s something we do talk about.
We have developed protocols around dealing with that, so that when you do want to work with Indigenous communities, and you come to them, we have these protocols in place that make them feel that they’re safe to work with us, that we’re not going to exploit them, their data, their resources, anything that’s special to them
And they will have that ability to make decisions over where that data goes.
When we go to a community, say, in that particular area that they have jurisdiction over, we go through the right way, so we meet them on their own grounds.
We go through what we call pōwhiri, so a traditional welcome, and then we introduce ourselves and what we’re doing they, and they introduce themselves and who they are.
And it’s really an opportunity to get to know each other, so they can put a face to the name, to the emails, the phone calls, anything else. And they can get a feel for who they are and start to develop those relationships.
So I guess I’m all about developing meaningful relationships where it’s going to last longer than the three-year funding cycle that we typically have.
And so that’s another pathway of how I bring sort of the Indigenous values into research as well. It’s making sure that the Indigenous communities that we want to work with or do work with feel safe to work with us. And there’s some safety mechanisms in place.
Co-creating projects with Indigenous communities comes about after the relationship has been built.
So once they’re assured that, you know, they would have done their homework, that you know that you’re a trustworthy group, you don’t have a, you know, a record of exploitation of, you know, running away and developing IP and making money off that, so on and so forth.
And New Zealand is a small place, and so you can easily find these things out. And then we start to talk about, okay, what are your needs?
Here’s our skills. This is what we think we can offer. And we think the problem is. What do you think the problem is? And what do you need?
And we come together on projects like that. So we don’t come with the project mostly developed and get their little bit of input, you know, tweak, tweak some of the wording, or something like that, which is what a lot of people still do.
We come to them as like: here’s what we can offer, we know that there’s a problem, we’d like your input. I mean, because, again, it provides that context to why we’re doing what we’re doing.
One of the areas I work in, which is conservation, there is no money, you know, there’s no economic gains to protect any sort of native species. It’s just we do that because that’s our role, right? And so you have to work with communities to get that buy-in, to make sure that what you’re going to do is going to go somewhere.
And another thing is working on what we call biocontrol.
New Zealand has a lot of pests. It has a lot of weeds. It has a lot of pest plants. Has a lot of pest insects, pest animals.
And so we work again with communities to figure out new ways to control populations, to get them down to a certain number.
Like there’s so many pests, particularly deer. We’ve got feral deer and goats that have eaten out the understories in our forests.
And so when we have all these extreme weather events, like cyclones, we get massive landslides that smother, basically, houses and small parts of settlements.
And so again, that’s driven mostly by there’s too many pests in the forest. And so that’s an example of where we work with communities as well.
And another one that I’m working on is looking at population control of invasive wasp species, originally from Europe.
We go through a lot of developing toxins, but also looking at whether you can develop a gene drive, and what this might look like.
Gene editing, gene edit modification, all wrap up into this technology. I mean, they’re all very different, but to people that aren’t in the know, it all sounds very scary. And of course, ability to change life.
And I think you’ve got to work with communities to understand that, and that they have a say into how this is developed.
If it’s successful, what are the outcomes they want to see? And are there any controls, like, how do we mitigate their risks? What are the risks? And how do we mitigate them?
So I know people say, but having Indigenous communities in there and letting them bring their Indigenous knowledge, maybe with co-creation in research, it’s going to dilute the science.
It really doesn’t. Science is big. It’s a global phenomena. It’s always going to have majority of the voice and majority of the platform. Allowing Indigenous voices and their Indigenous to help manage their own areas is just common sense. I mean, it’s another knowledge system.
I think, knowledge generated doesn’t really matter how it’s generated, if it’s generated, I think it’s something you should always consider in science. It isn’t something that’s borne out of a single organization.
It’s accumulation of knowledge over millennia so I think at the moment, we’ve got a very short-sighted view of what science is, or a very sort of weird, purist view of what science is.
And I think science as a body of knowledges combined, is always evolving. Not only that, but it’s also if you bring on people who are typically marginalized to the system, you actually enable science to sustain itself, otherwise you’re just going to get the same sort of people trying to solve very complex global problems.
And we haven’t got very far with that. I think it’s beneficial that we include other knowledge systems in here, and I think that leads to better science outcomes. I’m not actually, I don’t think. I know it does.
Amanda Black 20:04
Yeah, Māori and Indigenous people have to live with the land. Like there’s nowhere else to go, right? So they can’t trash it.
It can for short, economic gains, like much of the commercial production that happens. So they have most you look at Australian Indigenous communities, Canadian, New Zealand, even Scandinavia, it’s very much an intergenerational viewpoint, and I think that’s what I introduce here. It’s an intergenerational viewpoint, and they typically have strategies that go 500 years, right?
And so that’s the key here. It’s like you are doing this for your grandchildren and their grandchildren. You might not see the immediate benefits, but your goal is to sustain it for your culture and your people, because we can’t go anywhere else.
And many cultures have very similar proverbs. They talk about the land and the people, you can’t separate them, because people need the land to survive. And we help nurture the land.
And that’s that reciprocity that I referred to.
And not only is it a reciprocity between people. It’s a reciprocity between you and the living Earth, and we are part of it. And so it goes on a tangent here, when many people look at ecology and they do biodiversity assessments, they don’t consider people, and people have a huge influence on that.
I think, in New Zealand, because we are so far away, that no one’s coming to help us. And so we have to search within for our own solutions, and we’ll use whatever means possible, and that includes incorporating Indigenous knowledge, working with Indigenous communities, working with communities. Because unlike government, they’re there to stay.
You know, if you kind of chase a minister, government officials, and things like that, and you know, you find that they’re gone the next day, it’s revolving doors.
And so we kind of cut out that middle person, if you like, and we work directly with communities, because they’re the ones that really are there for the right reasons, and they care.
And so if we work with them, that we can understand their needs and that what we do will get taken up.
22:22 Deborah Daley
In the next episode, we meet a Palestinian researcher who works alongside Syrian refugees on the effects and inheritability of the trauma caused by war.
