Unitec Institute of Technology

Lizards on a living waitakere roof

In 2007, monitoring of the first commercial native living roof in New Zealand began at Waitakere City Council. Renee Davies, Unitec’s Head of Landscape Architecture and a council employee at the time, led a biodiversity research project that indicated the roof might have sufficient insect diversity to support native lizard species.

Since 2004, local councils in the Auckland region have applied consent conditions for rescuing and relocating urban lizards, generating numerous skinks and geckos in need of a new home. Renee is now furthering her initial study, again with Landcare Research and a co-researcher with herpetological expertise, to see whether the council’s living roof might sustain a world-first relocation of lizards to such a habitat, whilst also improving and maintaining the aesthetic properties of the roof.

Unitec industrial design students and researchers within the Design and Visual Arts Department will be designing built objects, or habitat features, that can be retrofitted on the roof to enhance the lizards’ survival before any are released.

Living roofs, Renee says, have benefits for endangered species. They are not walked on by people and are unlikely to contain predators. They have a particular advantage in retaining local taonga in local places. The project is expected to be complete by the end of 2011.

This article also appeared in Advance, Unitec's research magazine.