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Published 22 April 2025Researcher rethinking the future of atolls under climate change announced as New Zealand’s Champion for Frontiers Planet Prize
Dr Sebastian Steibl, from Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland, has been selected as the National Champion for New Zealand by the international jury for the Frontiers Planet Prize, in an announcement coinciding with Earth Day.
Sebastian was nominated for research which challenges the perception that the fate of atoll islands rests solely on whether the Global North reduces greenhouse gas emissions enough to limit sea level rise. Instead, the article ‘Rethinking atoll futures: local resilience to global challenges,’ published in Trends in Ecology & Evolution outlines local-scale opportunities to reverse erosion.
The narrative of atoll futures within planetary boundary sciences is not one of inevitable loss but of adaptive capacity, sustained resilience, and emplowered local stewardship.
—Sebastian Steibl
View thought piece by Sebastian Steibl
As National Champion for New Zealand, Sebastian will attend the awards ceremony for the Frontiers Planet Prize in person, in Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland, from 16 to 19 June 2025, where he will have the opportunity, along with 23 other National Champions, to present and discuss his research.
The jury of 100 experts from around the world, includes one academic from New Zealand: Professor Bronwyn Hayward FRSNZ from the University of Canterbury. The jury will select three International Champions, who will each receive $1 million Swiss francs (about $1.8 million NZD) to facilitate and accelerate the research and development of the winning research.
This is the third time the Frontiers Plant Prize has been offered. The Frontiers Research Foundation, based in Switzerland, launched the prize in 2022 as part of an international effort to accelerate scientific solutions to planetary challenges.
Royal Society Te Apārangi is the Representative Body for the Frontiers Planet Prize in Aotearoa New Zealand. Sebastian’s research was selected along with two other nominees by Fellows of the Society. The other researchers chosen to represent New Zealand were:
- Professor Elizabeth Macpherson (University of Canterbury): Setting a pluralist agenda for water governance: Why power and scale matter - https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1734
- Dr Daniel Lowry (GNS Science): Ocean cavity regime shift reversed West Antarctic grounding line retreat in the late Holocene - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-47369-3