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Is light pollution in Aotearoa New Zealand affecting our native wildlife?
Artificial light at night is considered the fastest-growing pollutant worldwide.
New research from NMIT Te Pūkenga indicates light at night is growing rapidly in New Zealand. With the country in danger of losing its cloak of darkness, awareness of the environmental impact needs to be brought to light.
According to the latest study by NMIT researchers Dr. Ellen Cieraad and Dr. Bridgette Farnworth, lit surface area increased by 37 per cent in the last decade, and brightness increased by 87 per cent.
“The rate at which New Zealand is brightening is faster than the global average,” says Ellen.
Extra illumination after-hours allows us to extend our activities into the evening, but the addition of light at night is not good news for nocturnal wildlife that rely on dark places to survive - a concern highlighted by research co-author Dr Bridgette Farnworth.
“We have very little information on how light pollution affects our native animals,” Bridgette says.
A recent publication in the New Zealand Journal of Ecology by Ellen and Bridgette lists bats, wētā and seabirds as species that could be harmed by excessive lighting but emphasizes there are minor changes that could reduce the impact.
“Small changes to wavelength, timing or lighting intensity could play a key role in mitigating the impacts on our dusk-dwelling animals,” says Bridgette.
Helping to halt the loss of New Zealand’s dark sky cloak could therefore be just a flick of a switch away.
Expert Reaction
These comments have been collated by the Science Media Centre to provide a variety of expert perspectives on this issue. Feel free to use these quotes in your stories. Views expressed are the personal opinions of the experts named. They do not represent the views of the SMC or any other organisation unless specifically stated.
Ellen Cieraad, author
Artificial light at night has transformed the way we live and work outdoors after dark, but this emission of light is also severing connections to the night sky. This light can impact human wellbeing, it limits our visibility of the stars and affects cultural practices. Plants and animals around us rely on the predictable rhythms of dark and light under which they evolved. Our 24-hour economy is disrupting this rhythm.
There was a study by Christopher Kyba and others earlier this year that showed that the number of stars people can see with the naked eye has diminished drastically. Their findings indicate that if a child was born in an area where 250 stars were visible, by the time they are 18 years old and if our light emission continues at the same rate, they would probably see fewer than 100 stars at this same location. That study did not include New Zealand locations. While New Zealand is still relatively dark compared with many other developed countries, our work shows changes in New Zealand are even more rapid than elsewhere.
We have the technology to reduce the impact of the light we emit into the environment, including shielding the light, using motion-sensors, dimmers and different colours of light. But the first question should always be: Do we really need light here, in the first place?
Bridgette Farnworth, author
We found that artificial light at night is a highly understudied pollutant for New Zealand. More than 30% of the existing research here was based on simple observations of how light alters animal behaviour rather than proper, experimental trials. So clearly, this indicates we need additional research.
Of concern for New Zealand is that we currently have no information on the way light pollution influences some major animal groups – including reptiles and marine mammals.
We can’t mitigate what we don’t understand. That would be like asking a doctor for a diagnosis to fix a problem…. but without articulating all the symptoms.
In New Zealand, we are considered world leaders in other aspects of conservation and there is no reason why we can’t continue our progress by trying to protect our wildlife from light pollution too.
This is not about banishing light. It’s an opportunity for us, as a nation, to think about how we can convert ourselves to be ‘shadow architects’ and build ecofriendly places that include darkness as part of the habitat.
