As New Zealand becomes increasingly more urbanised and our teaching programme becomes more crammed with national standard requirements and our profession more pressured into being competitive with each other - it is more important than ever to make sure we are transferring to our Äkonga those things that make us New Zealanders.
Unique! Our point of difference.
For year and a half I had the incredible opportunity in the late 2000s to work as an Environmental Educator for the
Brook Waimarama Sanctuary - a development here in Nelson with the aim to do this very thing - protect our point of difference! An area of bush fenced with a predator proof fence where native species can thrive in an environment close to what it was like before we all started coming here. New Zealand has a biodiversity that is truly unique globally - which is already impossible to maintain without human intervention. There are a number of sanctuaries springing up in New Zealand now - please support them. A fenced sanctuary on will give many people the opportunity to see things on Mainland New Zealand that you just can't see anymore (unless you get the opportunity to travel to an offshore island that has been kept pristine from introduced pests... but those chances are rare indeed!).
In that role I saw class after class of students not just with a lack of knowledge but also a lack of appreciation (bordering on apathetic!) about our uniqueness.
Could this apathy be the result of a 'taking it for granted' culture in our generation?
I worry that we will get in a self perpetuating cycle here - increasing urbanisation and resulting disassociation from the natural landscape resulting in break down of transfer to the next generation. Transfer of not just a knowledge of how special we are but ways to keep us that way! I am emphasising our environment here, I know, but extinction is for ever.
Already when our parents were born the natural landscape of New Zealand was much changed to what it was before people started arriving here. Most bush we might happen to wander into now barely resembles the pre-colonisation bush - we are so used to the introduced species we are blind to their real impact on our native trees.
It is so hard to actually take Joseph Banks (an early 'naturalist' who came to NZ on Captain Cook's first voyage) at his word when he described the birdsong as deafening.
I can't even imagine what "tens of thousands" of kaka flying off the Takaka Hill could even be like but I have read many accounts of these numbers from the early 1900s.
Please get your students and children and families involved in conservation in your area. Use the
DOC website to find local groups and get out there! Find ways you can support natives in your gardens. DOC website also has many teaching resources and plans that you can modify for your own area.
If you can't get out and about (usually a local council does plantings that students can go on for instance) then follow a conservation website - like
Kakapo Recovery (
Sirocco even has his own Facebook page!).
Get in touch with passionate people (usually volunteers!) that can support you in inspiring the generation that come after us to continue to Keep New Zealand Beautiful! (and unique!).
Some useful Conservation/Educationy type links:
