Newsletter #112
Top image: Banded dotterel from the 2026 Braided Rivers Conference presentation: Waimakariri Braided River Birds
Tēnā koutou katoa,
Thank you to everyone who attended the 2026 Braided Rivers Seminar and extra hugs to those who made a donation when booking. Special thanks to all of our speakers; it takes considerable time to package up what can often be years of work into just a few minutes’ long presentation. The PDFs and video recordings of presentations are here. For those who watched the first talk on the evolution of flood protection, you might also like to see the Resilient Rivers’ webinars and resources.
Recently, some of you had problems accessing the Braided River Bird Data – Web App. Thanks to a bit of deep diving by ECan staff, it’s now working as it should. If you need some guidance, in 2025 at the Braided Rivers Conference Miles Burford and Frances Schmechel presented how to use the app. At this year’s conference Anne Schlesslemann revealed the diverse ways that the database is being used, and some of the findings.
By now you will all be aware that the H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b of bird flu has now arrived. This was always going to be a case of when not if. For the latest information (15 July) see the MPI website.
Finally, Rima Herber, Hurunui District Council’s Water and Land Coordinator, chaired a Hui last month on Purple Willow. Find out why it’s quickly becoming a pest plant of concern (the photos from Rima are particularly compelling) and what you can do to help.
Ngā mihi,
Sonny Whitelaw
News/articles
- RNZ (17 July): Wildlife sanctuaries well prepared for bird flu
- Newsroom: How one graph could revolutionise environmental funding; Parliament’s environment watchdog says MPs could work with his office to ensure nature and climate spending is achieving real world outcomes
- Christchurch Envirohub (July Youtube webinar): The Ōpāwaho Heathcote River & climate change effects
- Mongabay: Updated standards make the case for restoration: ‘We have to create uplift’
Reports & research papers
- Ahmed et al; Increasing global threat of outburst floods from overlooked small alpine lakes, Nature Sustainability article 26 June
- Murali et al; Temperate local extinctions from climate change are outpacing tropical extinctions, Nature Climate Change 16 pp854–861
- Avaria-Liutureo et al; Seabird range contraction and dispersal under climate change, Nature Climate Change 16 pp836–842 (open access)
- Carbon Brief: The research nerd in me went to heaven when I saw this stunning visual interactive database: Project Cosmos; the world’s largest database of climate change research
