Nature is the classroom in Conservation Week

From coastal rubbish collecting to rocky reef protection on the South Taranaki Bight and innovative rat trap lures – Conservation Week provided an abundance of learning experiences and hands-on participation for a group of WITT students.

Field trips to local conservation projects and a series of guest speakers from the sector made it a memorable and enriching week for students enrolled in the New Zealand Certificate in Conservation (Level 4) and the New Zealand Diploma in Environmental Management (Level 5), says tutor Georgina Ngamatea.

Guest speakers were Oisin Ammundsen, who graduated with the Level 5 diploma in 2023. He shared some of projects his organization is involved in, such as the development of innovative rat lures and trap box designs, both in Taranaki and on Great Barrier Island conservation areas.

Marine Reserves Ranger at the Department of Conservation (DOC) Oscar Cotter spoke about his everyday marine work as well as preliminary outcomes of recent lobster surveys at Tapuae and Paraninihi Marine Reserves on the Taranaki coast.

Karen Pratt and Bruce Boyd shared the latest on their mahi with Project Reef Life - a nationally recognised scheme aimed at discovering and documenting the subtidal rocky reef communities found in the South Taranaki Bight. These include blue cod, seven gill shark and scarlet wrasse (Pseudolabrus miles) - a reef fish.

Willy Harvey, from Biosecurity Taranaki, spoke about what it takes to be a team manager and highlighted some interesting but unwanted critters they have been tackling recently, such as the invasive freshwater gold clam (Corbicula fluminea).

Planting trees, removing plastic

The class also helped at a planting day at Everett Park (near Inglewood) alongside DOC, East Taranaki Environment Collective (ETEC), Todd Energy, Te Iho Wai, Te Ara Taia and Pukerangiora Hapū, and got a shoutout on Facebook.

“We planted around 350 native trees,” says Georgina. “It was fantastic to see so many people come together and get stuck in! The passion for helping the environment was shared by everyone there.”

Students also participated in a Litter Intelligence beach clean alongside DOC at Tapuae Marine Reserve as part of the Enviro Sampling course. “We picked up 346 pieces of litter in only about 45 minutes,” says Georgina.

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.

Check out the link to the WITT dataset here: https://litterintelligence.org/data/survey?id=3845

Georgina says conservation and environmental management programmes at WITT play a vital role in preparing and equipping knowledgeable professionals committed to protecting our precious natural environment, and the vulnerable native species – of plants, insects, birds, fungi and marine life – within it.

“People interested in conservation as a career can pathway into any of our programmes, from the Level 3 (Pest Operations) to our Level 4 (conservation), and all the way up to the Level 5 (environmental management) programme. We have something for everyone!” she adds.

Find out more here: https://www.witt.ac.nz/study/environmental