Amanda Black (Tūhoe, Whakatōhea, Whānau-ā-Apanui) has been awarded the Te Tupu-ā-Rangi Award for Health and Science at the Matariki Awards 2019.
Black is a Senior Lecturer in the Bio-Protection Research Centre at Lincoln University and her research expertise is in environmental soil and water chemistry.
She has been a member of the Māori Biosecurity Focus Group, (Ministry for Primary Industries), and has research funded by the Royal Society (NZ) Marsden grants, National Science Challenge, Tertiary Education Commission and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
Black is also an executive member of the community group, Greening the Red Zone, which is advocating for the return of Christchurch city’s eastern suburbs destroyed by the 2011 Earthquake to indigenous forests and wetlands.
She recently moved her research focus to ecosystem resilience in soils investigating disease resistant traits in kauri forests.
“Kauri dieback is one of the biggest crises ever to face New Zealand's forests," she says, "It threatens not only individual kauri trees, but the entire ecosystem around them. If kauri disappear, so do all the other plants and animals that depend on them."
The other finalists in the category were Keri Opai (Te Atiawa, Ngāti Ruanui, Waiohua, Ngāti Te Ata and Ngāti Porou) and the late Talei Morrison (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Raarua, Ngāti Tama, Kai Tahu, Ngāti Apa).
Te Pou o Whakaari Nui Paeārahi leader, Opai hails from Taranaki and won the MHS Award in the 2018 Mental Health Service Awards of Australia and NZ. He received a special award in recognition of his contribution to excellence, innovation and best practise in mental health services for the creation of Te Reo Hāpai - The Language of Enrichment.
The resource is a new Māori Glossary that provides translations for existing words and created many new words in Te Reo Māori for use in the mental health, addiction and disability sectors.
Finalist Talei Morrison's Smear Your Mea campaign, encourages wāhine to undertake cervical screening, and was named the winner of the Hiwa i te Rangi Award for Community at the Matariki Awards tonight.
The Smear Your Mea mission is to raise awareness of cervical cancer and encourage women to have a smear test. It has been described as one of the most successful Māori health initiatives.
Sadly, Morrison lost her fight against the disease in 2018, but the campaign has continued on through her mother Sandy Morrison, uncle Te Ururoa Flavell and friend Tiria Te Kurapa.