AUT’s kaupapa moana in the blue economy
AUT is one of the leading research partners in the Blue Economy Cooperative Research Centre (Blue Economy CRC), which the Australian Federal Government funds to research and address the challenges facing blue economy industries. Other key New Zealand partners include the Institute for Plant and Food Research, the Cawthron Insitute and New Zealand King Salmon.
Blue Economy CRC is paving the way for innovative, commercially viable, and sustainable offshore developments and new capabilities that will significantly increase renewable energy output, seafood production, and jobs that will transform the future of New Zealand’s and Australia’s traditional blue economy industries.
Two of the projects the Blue Economy CRC funds at AUT sit in AUT’s School of Science.
Measuring the depositional footprint of the Blue Economy
Associate Professor Kay Vopel leads one of these projects, entitled “A novel approach to measuring the depositional footprint of the Blue Economy”, an AUD$2.7m project that has been running since 2021. It combines expertise from the Tassal Group, the East China Sea Fisheries Research Institute, and the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences.
Associate Professor Vopel and his team of international experts from nine partner organisations, three universities, three research institutions, two fish farming companies, and a representative from the Australian EPA are working towards developing tools that accurately measure and predict the environmental performance of production facilities, especially the depositional footprint offshore fish and marine farms make in the seafloor ecosystem. These tools will be helpful for businesses as more want to expand aquaculture into deeper and more dynamic offshore waters without the intensive impact on the seafloor ecosystem.
Working with Vopel on this project is a PhD candidate from the School of Science, Elianna Zoura. Greek by origin, Elianna received her BSc and MSc in Marine Science and whose past research focused on how seafloor perturbations affect the interactions between heart urchins and benthic diatoms.
“My contribution to this project is to investigate how animal–sentiment interactions determine the capacity of the seafloor ecosystem to mineralise organic fish farm waste. Defining this capacity is crucial for predicting the offshore seafloor ecosystem’s response to organic enrichment. Enhancing our ability to measure and predict the ecosystem’s response will further inform the sustainability of adaptive farm management strategies supporting offshore aquaculture,” said Elianna.
Farming bull kelp in Australia and New Zealand
The other Blue Economy CRC -funded project in the School of Science investigates the possibility of farming bull kelp in Australia and New Zealand. This project funds the PhD student Jessica Roach, a New Zealand Māori from Opunake in Taranaki with local ties to the Ngāti Kahumate hapu of Taranaki iwi. She completed her Bachelor of Science in 2020, majoring in Marine Biology, then started her Master of Science and converted it to a PhD fully funded by the CRC.
Jessica, under the supervision of Professor Lindsey White and Associate Professor Armagan Sabetian, alongside Dr Paul South from the Cawthron Institute, is studying the Durvillaea poha and D. antarctica because of their potential to be commercialised and, therefore, create job opportunities that will integrate and include indigenous knowledge, as these seaweeds are tāonga species that Māori has utilised for hundreds of years.
“Being able to conduct this research as a New Zealand Māori wāhine has been an amazing opportunity and is allowing me to further spread awareness on integrating Western science with indigenous knowledge and values and how it benefits all communities. I am very grateful to have been granted these awards as it means that I’m doing something right and that people are recognising the possibilities this research could have for Aotearoa and our tangata whenua,” Jessica said.
As part of her study into bull kelp aquaculture, Jessica created a video presentation, for which she won the top student prize at the 2023 CRC Participants Workshop in Fremantle, Perth. Jessica also attended the ANZSA Seaweed Summit in Nelson on 13 October, where she presented a poster and won the second prize for best poster for the inaugural Jill Bradley Student Award.