Education Ranger, Lucy, joined forces with Sustainable Coastlines Coordinator, Emma Hunter, visiting local Hokitika primary schools.
Lucy and Emma joined education programmes last week, pulling resources, ideas and skills together. They carried out the first step, called the “Priming session”, of the Litter Intelligence Programme‘s Four Phase Education Journey together.
Litter Intelligence is Aotearoa’s first and only national litter monitoring programme, enabling communities to collect data, gain insights and take action to prevent litter. Developed and launched in 2018 in collaboration with Stats NZ, the Department of Conservation and with funding from the Ministry for the Environment, the platform provides open, scientifically rigorous litter data from hundreds of survey sites around the country. The West Coast Penguin Trust has been very keen to collaborate with them and the opportunity finally arrived.
The “Priming session” usually involves the “Yoshi Challenge”. Learners begin by listening to the true story of Yoshi the Loggerhead Turtle and then set up and go through an obstacle course to recreate the challenges Yoshi had to overcome on her journey home. However they were looking to adapt the story to an animal that was more personal to students (we don’t see many Loggerheads around New Zealand). We knew just the right animal!
Last week, the “Yoshi Challenge” became the “Kororā Challenge”! Students from all the primary schools in Hokitika township got to learn about the challenging journey our blue penguins have to make each day, and then recreate it, creatively as an obstacle course for the rest of the class to complete. It was a really fun day, full of great education, a lot of laughs and chaos!
While materials were chosen that would stand up to the harsh coastal conditions, those same coastal conditions are conducive to plant growth! Occasional checks of the fences have been carried out by volunteers and rangers so that any maintenance needs can be identified and remedied. The never-ending need for maintenance is managing the vegetation that can grow through the fence, for example gorse, blackberry and hydrangea, pushing it to breaking point in places, or flop over causing damage from the weight of rank grass, rushes and weeds such as montbretia.
Volunteers recently spent a few hours tidying up the main fence along Woodpecker Bay north of Punakaiki so a big shout out to them - thank you Fiona, Jony, Reef, Katrina, Mandy, Marty, Teresa and Deb! Flax had been pressing down on the fence, but now the fence has been freed up by these wonderful volunteers - and they picked up a fair bit of rubbish too.
Volunteer Natassja Savidge has offered to check and help maintain the Hokitika penguin protection fence and joined Ranger Lucy Waller and Manager Inger Perkins in May to inspect the length of the fence. Some minor issues were found but the main finding was the extent of the vegetation growth that was damaging the fence in places. Big thanks to Natassja!
