Te Tu’anga Taporoporo (National Environment Service) and the University of Newcastle, Australia, will conduct “voluntary” interviews this Friday with households on the island to better understand local perspectives on biodiversity conservation and development.

The Project Enua – Knowledge Attitudes and Practices (KAP) Survey interview will be conducted in Māori or English and anticipates 200 respondents.

It aims to capture community views on the state of the environment, key threats to biodiversity and potential strategies for protecting natural ecosystems.

Project Enua will also explore linkages between biodiversity and three critical development sectors – agriculture, tourism and infrastructure.

Dr Sascha Fuller, senior research associate from the University of Newcastle, says the purpose of the interview survey is people’s values, their attitudes towards conservation and the impacts of tourism, agriculture and infrastructure.

“We are really keen to sit down with people and have a conversation … capturing their qualitative responses, stories, their experiences, and also the knowledge people have of their own biodiversity which isn’t just this technical-scientific knowledge,” says Dr Fuller.

“The project is focused on enhancing biodiversity and conservation and key development sectors that impact agriculture, tourism and infrastructure.

“Cook Islands, Rarotonga is developing and we want it to develop sustainably, not having a cost to the environment, they can both go hand in hand one doesn’t have to cross out the other.”

Dr Fuller says in collecting the quantitative data that’s needed “we hope it will be really valuable”.

“The data is for the government of Cook Islands to share among the sectors and for decision-making.”

University of Newcastle Bachelor of Development Studies students Hannah Arundell, Jessica Jones, Leah Mundy and Isobelle Sullivan are here on an Australian-funded internship for two weeks.

The students are helping to design and implement the KAP survey, gathering insights directly from households by listening to people’s experiences, their values and the impacts that are taking place in their environment.

A thorough consent form is provided and it is voluntary to participate in this survey.

“These students are really fortunate because we’re so privileged to have this partnership with NES to come do an international placement in Rarotonga,” says Dr Fuller.

“It’s benefiting our students as well and we are very grateful that they can have this experience, they are already learning so much so it’s an incredible learning experience.”

Sullivan, one of the students, says the project is very exciting.

“We’re providing many different aspects of different data areas and data points but really getting into how islanders would feel about the environment as well, not just what is present physically but also what is present in connections to the environment,” she said.

“It is so incredibly sunny here, it’s so beautiful and I’m so happy to be here. Everyone I’ve met so far on the island is so happy and welcoming, so warm – a beautiful atmosphere and beautiful people too.”

An example of the questions in the survey are: How do you describe your environment? How do you make the linkages between everything and how it works including people, the environment and the man-made environment?

In 2022, a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to establish a partnership to provide support and technical assistance during project activities, direct support through contract engagements, optimise resources and deliver common goals, was signed between Tu’anga Taporoporo and the University of Newcastle.