Overbearing?
OPINION: Dust ups between rural media and PR types aren't unheard of but also aren't common, given part of the job description of PR is to grease the wheels and ensure clients get good media coverage.
So, imagine your old mate's surprise when he heard that instead of increasing funding for such 'colonial science', more is going to projects like 'research' into whether playing whale song to sick kauri trees can fix kauri die-back.
Sounds ridiculous, and yet the project got the green light, was managed by MBIE, and the actual payments were funneled through Landcare Research.
Officials are still refusing a line-by-line breakdown but, in total, this mātauranga Māori-based 'research' cost taxpayers $4,027,020.
Te Tira Whakamātaki Ltd did the 'work'. It's "co-founder and trustee", Melanie Mark-Shadbolt, is also the co-director of the BioHeritage Science Challenge Science - i.e. the government initiative funding the project!
