Our mission
The Smart Weed Alert Tool (SWAT) helps protect New Zealand's ecosystems with timely, accurate alerts about invasive weeds.
The problem
New Zealand spends around $50 million a year controlling weeds and managing their impacts. This will only increase as new weeds emerge and existing weeds spread, both of which are likely to speed up in a warming climate.
Right now, we have no way to detect new weeds when they first invade. The 2021 report on weed management in New Zealand by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment made this point. Usually a new weed is only found by luck, when someone knowledgeable happens to notice it.
SWAT fixes this. It automatically scans new exotic plant records posted to iNaturalist and GBIF to detect weeds at the earliest stage of invasion.
Early detection makes early control possible. This saves money and reduces the impact on biodiversity.
Our vision and goals
Vision: new weeds are detected before they become widespread.
Outcome: new weed invasions are stopped early, which saves significant cost and a reduces the impact on biodiversity.
Goals: SWAT is world-leading technology and a major step forward for weed surveillance.
Who SWAT is for
SWAT is free for anyone to use. Its highly specific, user-defined alerts benefit any organisation, group or person managing weeds, such as DOC, MPI, regional councils, and community restoration groups.
You can improve SWAT alerts for your area by posting plant observations on iNaturalist.
Contact
Please visit our Contact page to find ways to connect with the team behind SWAT.