2025 Meetings

BotSoc meetings are usually held at 7.30 pm on the third Monday of each month at Victoria University, Wellington, Lecturer Theatre M101, ground floor Murphy Building, west side of Kelburn Parade.   Enter building off Kelburn Parade about 20m below pedestrian overbridge.   Please note that the doors of the Murphy Building and lecture theatre M101 open for evening meetings at 7 p.m. to allow time for members to socialise before the meeting begins.

Non-members are welcome to come to our evening meetings.

Click here to find out how to get there by public transport

To Help raise funds for BotSoc’s Jubilee Award Fund members are encouraged to bring named seedlings/cuttings for sale at each evening meeting.

How to join a ZOOM meeting option
1.   Meet zoom URL: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89547154619?pwd=bE0zRXRWSXBBUkVoUjdPcElJNXlJUT09
Meeting ID: 895 4715 4619
Passcode: 857939
2.   Follow the prompt to open link (or Download the ZOOM app. if needed).   The app. should automatically open and take you to the meeting.
Please note:
•   When you join the meeting, your microphone will be automatically muted.   This is so no one accidentally interrupts the speaker.   If you’re not speaking, please keep your microphone muted, so accidental background noise and playback doesn’t disrupt the meeting.
•   You can turn the video on if you like or leave it off.

On the meeting night – Please ensure you have connected to the meeting well before 7.30pm, when the meeting proper begins.

2025 Programme

Monday 17 February 2025:   Evening meeting (also via ZOOM - see above for instructions) – 25 years of Long Gully Bush

Speaker:   Chris Cosslett, Long Gully Bush ranger.   Chris will talk about 25 years of progress in restoring this privately-owned reserve from a goat-ravaged gorse block to early stage native forest.   Long Gully Bush lies between the southern end of Zealandia and South Karori Rd.   It is thought to have been clad, before clearance for farming, in kohekohe-podocarp forest similar to that seen in Porirua Scenic Reserve.   Long Gully Bush is not only a recovering native forest ecosystem but is also home to threatened native birds that have colonised it from Zealandia.   Most of the area is owned by the Wellington Natural Heritage Trust.   The Trust manages the whole, including contributions from several neighbours, under a management plan prepared in 2015.


Monday 17 March 2025:   Evening meeting – Where to for New Zealand’s biodiversity – eradicating predators or managing ecosystems?

Speaker:   John Leathwick, DSc, Conservation Science Consultant.   In two recent science papers John worked with co-authors to raise fundamental questions about how best to achieve New Zealand’s biodiversity goals.   In his first paper he explored the current emphasis on eradicating just four introduced predators (Predator Free 2050), highlighting both the considerable technical challenges that this poses, and the need to also consider the impacts of other major biodiversity pressures including browsers and weeds.   In his second paper he demonstrated how a systematic ecosystem-focused approach to biodiversity management, first proposed by NZ's Geoff Kelly in 1980, could be efficiently implemented using contemporary conservation planning tools.   He argued that such an approach would be much more likely to achieve NZ’s biodiversity goals than current predator-focused management.   His talk will explore various aspects of these two papers.


Tuesday 22 April:   Evening meeting – Resolving the taxonomy of an iconic New Zealand plant genus Aciphylla (taramea/speargrass/spaniard) (NOTE: Easter 18–21 April 2025)

Speaker:   Lara Shepherd, Science Researcher, Te Papa and Leon Perrie, Botany Curator, Te Papa.   Aciphylla is one of the largest indigenous vascular plant genera in Aotearoa New Zealand, with ~ 40 species.   The larger species are an often prominent and iconic feature of our tussocklands and the bane of trampers.   Despite the ecological and cultural significance of Aciphylla, the taxonomy of the genus has not been comprehensively revised since 1956, and there are many outstanding issues.   We will provide an introduction to the genus and the taxonomic problems we are hoping to resolve.


Monday 19 May 2024:   Evening meeting – Members’ evening

Share a pre-meeting bring-your-own supper: a flask of hot drink, cup and a small plate of ‘nibbles’ to be followed by a few speakers — limit 10 minutes / person.   For a gold-coin koha, or even ‘folding money’, buy one or more of the books we put on display, and help build up the Jubilee Award Fund which supports research on NZ plants.   Room opens at 7 p.m.

Bring:
•   your botanical slides and photographs taken on BotSoc trips.   Slides on a USB stick – limit 20 / person;
•   favourite botanical readings, your paintings;
•   any spare botanical or other natural-history books you have and don’t want any more to have them auctioned.   Take them home if they don’t sell;
•   plant specimens to sell or to discuss;
•   botanical art—paintings, drawings, ceramics – to add to a memorable evening.