Alison Ballance is a zoologist, writer and broadcaster. In 2017 she was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for services to natural history, filmmaking and broadcasting. In 2008 she began producing and presenting Radio New Zealand's weekly science and environment programme Our Changing World. Before that she spent 18 years producing and directing wildlife documentaries for NHNZ, including the film To Save the Kakapo. She has written 30 books, including 'Hoki: The story of a kakapo' and the biography of conservationist Don Merton. The first edition of 'Kakapo: Rescued from the brink of extinction' drew on her long association with the Kakapo Recovery Programme and won the 2011 Royal Society of New Zealand Science Book Prize. It was revised and republished in 2018.