By Nick McIvor | Posted: Saturday May 18, 2019
To my generation, the need to protect and preserve the environment was something we understood, something we respected, but also, perhaps, something often seen as an ‘optional extra’ and not really a mainstream focus or pressing concern. When we look at this current generation it’s very different.
If asked, boys at Timaru Boys’ are likely to have strong conviction about environmental matters. And if not strong conviction, then ready acceptance of the need to work to improve the environment, at the very least. Both in and out of the curriculum young people are mobilising their thinking and action to do their bit to try to correct previous environmental mistakes, protect what we still have, or avoid new mistakes that will jeopardise our natural world, and us as humans. They see the partnership we have with the environment clearly, as well as the need to utilise the environment for our benefit.
One student group that has been promoting awareness and doing community work is the Environmental Group. The boys in this group have been busy clearing traps near Pleasant Point (to protect the bat colony out there), cleaning up the Saltwater Creek/South Beach area, preparing new planting around the school campus, developing a worm farm, and the list goes on!
Last Wednesday morning the Environmental Group took Assembly with guests from ECAN invited: Jemma Hippolite, Debbie Eddington (both recently back from ECAN work in the Chatham Islands) and Tim Gale. Our guests spoke of their careers in environmental preservation. Tim described his extensive contract shooting across New Zealand; this certainly piqued the interest of many boys (as did his resource management – focussed masters degree completed in Vienna). Jemma’s story about diving with sharks in Northland also got plenty of attention. Speaking for the student group, Joshua Earnshaw, made the following comments that are possibly an apt summary of what these students, and an increasing portion of this generation, believe passionately about the environment:
‘It’s easy to leave the problem solving to the people who know what they’re doing, however it’s pretty clear that doing this isn’t working and it isn’t going to suddenly start working in the future. The top people, such as MP’s and big business owners can only do so much, and to make matters worse some of them, despite everything that’s in the media, refuse to take action on environmental issues … Our goal is to inspire you all to get out there and do your bit to help to stop what David Attenborough calls “our greatest threat in thousands of years”. It might seem like solving the huge environmental issues we face should be left to the New Zealand and World leaders but we are ALL responsible. If we all take small steps in helping out, we WILL achieve great things. Small actions can, and do, have big impacts.’
Nick McIvor
Knowledge is Power. Mā te Mātauranga te Mana. Scientia Potestas Est.
