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13-15 February 2018 – We invited our NZ Sustainability Dashboard colleagues to review our biodiversity tool developments to-date in preparation for our upcoming stakeholder workshop. Drawing on the wider NZSD team’s experience in building and implementing sustainability assessment tools for a range of sectors, we also started to scope potential governance strategies to optimise tool uptake and resilience.
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12 February 2018 – We shared our ideas for developing evidence-based tools at a ‘Future Challenge Research and Funding’ Roadshow for Our Land & Water National Science Challenge in Dunedin. Our presentation highlighted how our proof-of-concept approach to developing a biodiversity assessment tool can be adapted to address other environmental issues.
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7 February 2018 - We are busy preparing for our upcoming prioritisation workshop on 26 Feb 2018. Sixteen members of our stakeholder advisory panel have confirmed they will attend. At this workshop, hosted by the Ministry for Environment, we will complete the first step in developing a prototype biodiversity assessment tool for NZ farms. We are looking forward to a lively discussion with our stakeholder advisors who work across 12 different organisations including various industry bodies, NGOs, consultants and government agencies.
26 January 2018 - The NZ Sustainability Dashboard team are invited to attend the ‘Cool Farm Alliance Annual Meeting 2018’ at Cambridge University in the UK (19-20 April). At this meeting, we will provide the Cool Farm Alliance and its members (which include a wide range of international multi-corporate organisations, consultants and NGOs) with an update on our biodiversity assessment tool development for NZ farms. It will be also be an opportunity to learn about related Cool Farm Tool developments and how our tool development can benefit from lessons learnt.
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19 January 2018 - We hosted an online meeting with the Conservation Evidence team based at Cambridge University. Their researchers are helping us to plan the next step in our tool development process: working with a specialist panel to quantify the expected biodiversity benefits of different management actions based on a combination of judgement and evidence evaluation.
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13 December 2017 - We are delighted to announce that Ministry for Environment will host our upcoming prioritisation workshop on 26 Feb 2018. At this workshop, our stakeholders will help us decide what goes into our prototype tool.
11 December 2017 - Twenty organisations involved in our online prioritisation exercise are invited to review our prioritised suite of biodiversity and management action groups for inclusion in the prototype tool. These preliminary priorities will be discussed and finalised with a panel of stakeholder advisors at workshop in February 2018; the priorities were identified on the basis of an online prioritisation exercise involving 20 organisations that covered a broad range of stakeholder roles (industry, government, non-government and consultants) as well as a shorter online survey of over 200 farmers/growers and other interested parties.
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23 November 2017 - THANK YOU TO ALL OUR SURVEY PARTICIPANTS TO-DATE! Over 140 people have taken part in our 'biodiversity tool survey' so far - representing a wide range of sectors, regions and perspectives. At the same time, another 20 biodiversity managers, advisors and consultants across New Zealand have completed a more detailed survey, ranking comprehensive lists of biodiversity groups and actions according to their usefulness and relevance. We are busy analysing your responses to inform the next stage in the tool development process - deciding which biodiversity groups and management actions to prioritise for inclusion in the tool.
What would be useful to you? |
30 October 2017 - Our biodiversity tool webpage is launched, with an invitation to stakeholders to help us initiate the biodiversity tool development starting with our online survey!
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3 October 2017– We have developed an online survey for stakeholders to determine what to include in a farm biodiversity tool for NZ. Farmers, growers, industry bodies, biodiversity managers, advisors and consultants can take this survey to help prioritise which species and management actions are included in the tool, as well as their preferences for how farm data are stored and re-used in reporting.
19 September 2017 – We have completed the process of scoping candidate lists of species groups and farm management actions to include in the tool.
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31 August 2017 – We attended a Beef + Lamb New Zealand workshop in Wellington where we introduced the biodiversity tool idea and how members could be involved in co-designing the tool. We discussed preliminary results of a recent survey of Beef + Lamb New Zealand farmers, staff, directors and associates, which explored their biodiversity interests and comfort with different data sharing strategies, as well as insights into the types of management actions currently implemented on sheep and beef farms. Overall there was strong interest in the evidence-based tool concept and support for its development.
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31 August 2017 – We presented an introduction to the biodiversity tool idea and research process to the Te Ao Tūroa (Dunedin Environmental Strategy) Partnership in Dunedin. This talk also highlighted how the tool could support their strategy and how they could contribute directly to support the tool development to help ensure it meets their needs. The partnership indicated their support for the tool development including facilitating stakeholder input via their local networks.
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26-28 June 2017 – We presented an introduction to the biodiversity tool idea to the Organic Winegrowers Conference in Blenheim and explained how winegrowers could participate in the tool’s development. Watch the presentation on Youtube.
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16-17 March 2017 – We attended the Cool Farm Alliance annual general meeting in Oxford, UK, to represent the NZ Sustainability Dashboard (a new member of CFA) and gain insight into developments within the Cool Farm Tool modules for sustainability assessment. We learned how the Tool is being used by local businesses and international corporations (e.g. Tescos, Unilever) and integrated into other sustainability assessment platforms (e.g. Sustainable Agriculture Initiative). The CFA meeting enabled us to begin exploring opportunities to adapt the industry platform for sustainable agriculture metric development and use for NZ farming sectors. We also participated in a workshop on data ethics, ownership and use.
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23 February 2017 – We ran a workshop for the Regional Council Biodiversity Working Group and Queen Elizabeth II National Trust in Wellington to introduce the evidence-based biodiversity tool idea and how it can be developed through a co-design process with stakeholders, similarly to the Cool Farm Biodiversity Tool. Regional council and Queen Elizabeth II National Trust representatives expressed a high level of interest in an online evidence-based calculator that would allow NZ farmers to self-assess the management actions they take to enhance biodiversity. They also agreed on the need for an evidence database (akin to the Cambridge Conservation Evidence Database) that is relevant to NZ.