Photo : Sharyn Smart
Award-winning young New Plymouth conservationists are sharing their passion for the environment with the public.
As part of Conservation Week pupils from Moturoa School gave the public guided tours of their Trees for Survival Programme. The school won the New Zealand Plant Conservation Award in 2010 for its rare species work.
Established in 1996 the programme is driven by Environment Educator Bill Clarkson’s passion for the environment and teaching children how to take care of it for generations to come.
The guides gave a tour of the school grounds passing on their knowledge about the endangered Taranaki native plants they are helping to preserve like the koheriki (Scandia rosifolia) and a local form of Corokia cotoneaster, the Paritutu korokio.
Tour guide Brayden Thompson, 11, says the kauri is his favourite tree because of the way it heals itself.
“The kauri tree will ooze out this white sap which heals it like a plaster. It just oozes out and sticks there.”
The pinatoro has also caught the interest of the Moturoa student.
“It’s great because it’s the primary host plant for the local moth Notoreas “Taranaki,” Brayden said.
Tui are seen and heard in the large established puriri within the school grounds and Brayden said it was fun to watch them with the beaks deep in the flowers.
“Tui love to come and suck out the sugary nectar. Sometimes they get some pollen on their feathers by their beak and when they move to the next flower it can pollinate it,” he said.
Mr Clarkson spends every Tuesday morning with small groups of children teaching them about the plants and how to grow them. They learn how to take a cutting right through to helping DOC and the New Plymouth District Council plant out endangered local native plants around Taranaki.
For more information on the Trees for Survival Programme contact Moturoa School on 7510392.
This article was published in the North Taranaki Midweek on September 18, 2013.