Living in New Zealand is like living on a knife-edge. Our country lies in one of the most active geological zones on Earth, and our weather is wild and ceaselessly energetic. Between them, the two are constantly trying to change the shape of the country, sometimes violently and lethally.
Every year, many thousands of New Zealanders come face-to-face with the worst the elements can throw at us, and are directly affected by what they can do.
Weather-related disasters remain the most frequently damaging events, threatening livelihood and life itself at least every few months.
Earthquakes and landslides are also an ever-present danger. Though less frequent than storms, their potential impacts are huge and can be much more costly to recover from.
Then there are the absolutely devastating events which occur across a much larger timescale of hundreds or thousands of years, such as tsunami and major volcanic eruptions.
The more we know about these hazards, the better we can prepare for disaster and hopefully the quicker we can recover from them afterwards. Why, then, are the geoscience experts themselves under threat?
Cash-strapped Victoria University of Wellington, home to a very well-respected earth sciences department which has been in the vanguard of a great deal of important earthquake research, is closing down its geophysics, geographic information systems and physical geography programmes. At the University of Otago, cuts are planned to the geology department and also to the highly regarded science communication department.
Robust policy and strong infrastructure relies on better understanding of New Zealand’s earth sciences. Without that, buildings will be more likely to crumble and support won’t automatically be in the right places.
On top of these self-inflicted expurgations, we have another potential problem looming.
While universities have already been busy removing the country’s scientific capability, the incoming likely National-Act New Zealand-New Zealand First government are also sharpening their knives to chop off parts of the public service they consider surplus to requirements. That razor gang believes there are too many public servants in government departments and ministries, and wants to start slicing off parts to save money, and presumably help pay for their promised tax cuts. However, the new government needs to move extremely carefully with its pruning. Our state-funded science sector is poised on the brink of an exciting new future, thanks to the Te Ara Paerangi white paper, the culmination of years of work and based on ideas from hundreds of submitters.
It’s all very well for National leader Christopher Luxon to talk about wanting New Zealand to be one of the world’s leaders in innovative science, but if their planned cuts affect Te Ara Paerangi, we will slip even further back on the world science stage.
Just in recent days, MetService has admitted its forecasting models performed poorly ahead of the extreme Auckland rainfall on January 27. More of these intense downpours are likely as the atmosphere warms, so investment in these models and forecasting is crucial.
At the same time, geologists have discovered that two large faults north of Wellington are far more active, and therefore hazardous, than previously thought. Meanwhile, an out-of-season and very strong tropical cyclone is battering Vanuatu, and heavy and low snow is about to cause problems in the South later this week.
This is not the time to be cutting back on geoscience research in New Zealand. In fact, more money than ever needs to be pumped into the sector. It’s fair to say that boosted earth-science capability will be more important to the futures of many New Zealanders than how globally innovative we are.
