Green Bay High is located at the foothills to the Waitakere Ranges, and over the years we have had a number of conservation groups establish in our school catchment area, who are diligently working to reduce plant and animal pests.
The Waitakeres are home to many introduced weeds, but Titirangi has had a strong track record of weed elimination too, with trailblazers in this area being our once councillor, Bill Haresnape who organised the first local weed collections, particularly for ginger plant, followed by the late June Henderson (known as both the ginger lady and the possum lady), who with husband Ian, introduced Welcome to Titirangi packs providing information to new residents on our pest plants and animals, and hired out possum traps.
The South Titirangi Neighbourhood Network, with a paid coordinator, are working together for a weed and pest free South Titirangi Peninsula. Restoration Ruatuna is another local group based around the Laingholm area with a remit to “restore nature to Laingholm”, they have a strong emphasis on removing pest plants as well as animals.
The Waima 2 Laingholm Pest Free group is a local voluntary group mainly focussed on reducing pest animals, and the first of the groups that Green Bay High are working with, to introduce students interested in conservation to the grassroots of conservation, removing the pests to restore the environment. The Gateway programme allows students to take time out of school to spend with volunteers on their traplines, helping clear traps and resetting them.
Green Bay High Careers Advisor Fiona Drummond, and Gateway Coordinator, Melissa Cowan, developed the programme using assessments provided by the Primary ITO, which provide students 10 NCEA credits at Level 3 in each of Pest Animals or Pest Plants. Additionally the students complete a first aid course.
Fiona Drummond says once we identified students keen to take up the conservation mantle, the rest has been easy, as we have been working with friends in our community, Waima locals Jason Bourhill, Megan Fitter and Neil Dingle, a previous DOC worker, who collectively manage the Waima 2 Laingholm group, and share our passion to get young people into conservation. Jason and Neil provided an in school induction to the students and showed them how to use the traps prior to their first outing.
As well as the field work, students are shown how to record catches on to Trap NZ, and have been given their own rat traps to set up at home. They are gaining knowledge about kauri dieback, and how to take preventative measures for spreading this disease when working in the field. They have also completed a Waitakere rahui forum with local iwi Te Kawerau a Maki.
Supervising volunteers also point out different pest plants along the traplines and encourage students to pull them out whenever they come across them.
The six students involved this year are all Year 13 students. Zuli Wade is enjoying the programme. “In the future I plan on going into Marine Biology, probably conservation of marine animals, so I joined this conservation effort to see if this is the direction I want to go and I am currently loving the experience. Trapping has been incredible as the people have just been so positive and supportive, just ready to go. The W2L group has been really thankful for the younger generations being interested in pest control and hopefully next year others will join. The experience has been so much fun with my friends that all want to go into different careers but trapping is an awesome first step to hopefully get where they want to go”.
We hope that our young conservationists continue with this volunteer work after their Gateway programme ends, and that they inspire other students to follow this pathway for the future. With the nationwide Predator Free 2050 programme focused on the complete removal of five predators: rats, stoats, ferrets, weasels and possums, the future will see more opportunities for paid work in this sector.