Media release

From: University of Canterbury

Author comment from Professor Jack Heinemann 

“Wild food (mahinga kai) harvesting puts people and communities at risk of contracting antibiotic resistant infections, but nobody is monitoring this risk or providing specialist guidance to those who rely upon wild foods.

“Wild food harvesting is an important source of nutrition, especially for indigenous communities, and an intergenerational 'classroom' for sharing cultural knowledge and skills. All communities may rely more heavily on wild food harvest during a disaster, such as earthquakes or regional flooding.

“But we found that wild foods are also where antibiotic resistant bacteria concentrate, putting vulnerable communities at heightened risk.

“With the help of Te Ngāi Tūāhuriri Rūnanga and Environment Canterbury, we found that Canterbury waterways had high levels of potential disease-causing bacteria and worse: they were often resistant to antibiotics, too. Plants and animals taken for kai could have  up to 60-times more bacteria than did the water. Up to 1 in 5 of them were resistant to first choice antibiotics, and amongst them were also some resistant to antibiotics of last resort.

“We believe that existing water safety guidance is inadequate to address additional risk from antibiotic resistance. We argue that a One Health approach is needed to maintain the benefits of harvesting wild foods.”