2022 Charles Fleming Award for Environmental Achievement: Importance of high country management for biodiversity
Professor Ann Brower, University of Canterbury, has been awarded the Charles Fleming Award for Environmental Achievement for pioneering interdisciplinary research that challenged the foundations of high country tenure review, and catalysed legislative reform to improve the conservation of New Zealand’s unique landscapes and biodiversity.
Loss of habitat is an ongoing threat to native biodiversity. Almost singlehandedly, Ann discovered that a quiet administrative process (tenure review of Crown leasehold land), over large land areas, was delivering negative biodiversity outcomes at high cost to the taxpayer. Few academics can say their work has protected 5% of New Zealand's landmass.
Ann's legacy of science-led legislative change will protect the ecological integrity of the South Island high country. Using economics, law, politics, and ecology, her research helps combat species loss globally and locally, improving mechanisms for evaluating and protecting habitats.
Charles Fleming Award for Environmental Achievement:
For distinction in the protection, maintenance, management, improvement or understanding of the environment, in particular the sustainable management of the New Zealand environment.
Citation:
For pioneering interdisciplinary research that challenged the foundations of high country tenure review, and catalysed legislative reform to improve the conservation of New Zealand’s unique landscapes and biodiversity.