Tag: Kaitiakitanga

Cultivating Kaitiakitanga: Paparore School’s Arbor Day Event at Lake Ngatu

Te Runanga o NgaiTakoto – 14th June 2023

Cultivating Kaitiakitanga: Paparore School’s Arbor Day Event at Lake Ngatu

Today Paparore School’s annual Arbor Day event at Lake Ngatu showcased their deep commitment to our environment. Year after year, they continue to plant native trees and plants, demonstrating their dedication as caretakers/kaitiaki of our taiao. With an impressive tally of approximately 40,000 trees planted since 1999, Paparore School is making a significant impact.

Working together with Ngāi Takoto Taiao Kaimahi, Summit Forest, and the Bushlands Trust, Paparore School undertook a big task today, planting over 1400 native trees. This effort perfectly aligns with the schools core values of Porihanga (community) and Kaitiakitanga (environmental stewardship) while enriching their local community curriculum.

Lake Ngatu holds immense significance within the community, and Paparore School wholeheartedly embraces the role of kaitiaki, or guardians, of this precious environment. The day’s activities were made even more meaningful with the invaluable support of their whānau, including parents, siblings, and grandparents.

Through their continuous efforts, they inspire and empower future generations to manaaki and tiaki our natural environment, our taiao.

“Manaaki whenua, manaaki tangata, haere whakamua.”

If we take care of the earth, if we take care of the people, we will take care of the future.

Keep up the amazing mahi Paparore

Te Runanga o NgaiTakoto

Little Gardeners in Te Manga

Our class is all about gardening. We aim to grow, care and eat our vegetables! Today we planted our Little Garden seedlings and look forward to watching them germinate over the next few weeks. They will be going home for the students to plant in their own gardens.

Our sweet peas and beans have been growing beautifully and were laden with pods so the students had an afternoon feast. Some enjoyed them more than others but overall it was great to see everyone try them.

We are Kaitiaki of our Lakes – Planting at Lake Gem

Today we went to Lake Gem to plant trees as part of the Dune Lake Restoration Project. This kaupapa aligns with our school values of Porihanga (Community and Partnership) and Kaitiakitanga (Caring for the Environment) as well as our local community curriculum focus.

It was a fabulous effort with 100 students and 20+ whanau helping. We managed to plant 1700 plants and go for a big hikoi around the lake, all before lunch! Our students were marvellous and represented Paparore School beautifully. We have been planting at the lake for years and it was lovely to have one of our former students there as part of the planting crew. We look forward to the next planting opportunity.

Karen Lucich (Summit Forests)

Dune Lakes are threatened habitats and Summit Forest has identified this site as having high conservation and recreation values. Summit aims to plant 1000 eco-source seedlings annually around Arbor Day. Seed is collected and grown by Bushland Trust at Kaitaia Intermediate School. Many schools including Pompallier, Awanui and Oruaiti have been involved over the 12 years this project has been running but Paparore School are kaitiakitanga of this area.

With everyone’s support, this wetland area has made a momentous transition from totally degraded to its now pristine state, providing habitat for threatened birds and plants and feeding clean water into Lake Ngatu. Last year Summit’s paddock to the south of Lake Gem was planted with 700 Pohutukawa seedlings expanding the project by 3 hectares.

Recently Summit Forest has installed new mountain bike access gates. Kaitaia College students are marking out a new recreational loop track to join the existing Lake Gem track through Te Hiku Forest to Te Oneroa-a-Tōhē and to the Lake Ngatu track. We were spoilt by a sunny day for planting on Friday when 1000 seedlings, mostly Kanuka (with some Karaka, Houpara, Manuka, Harakeke, Tī kōuka and Kohekohe) plus an additional 500 Pohutukawa seedlings were planted.

This is a great community effort we can all enjoy, including the birds and fish for many years to come. Thanks for your support to make this happen.

 

 

The Bug Man aka Ruud Kleinpaste Visits Paparore School

Ruud Kleinpaste is known as The Bugman. He is an expert in environmental education, championing biodiversity and biosecurity and citizen science. Ruud visited our school 10 years ago and wowed the students with all sorts of bug knowledge as well as introducing some very special creepy crawlies. He did exactly the same during our visit today.

We were enthralled to learn how every living thing is important and all living organisms have a job to do. Ruud talked to the students about the relationship between birds and dinosaurs, the fact that our everyday garden snails in NZ can be eaten (as in France) and being able to recognise when a weta is giving you a warning! An absolute highlight was meeting Dorothy the Auckland Weta. We all had the pleasure of allowing Dorothy to walk across our hands and what a wonderful feeling it was.

In the afternoon, our class was able to start work with Ruud on a bioblitz of Paparore School. We are looking at the biodiversity within our school grounds using an app called iNaturalist which is free and fun to learn with. Stay tuned to find out what we have and don’t have within our school boundary. We are already looking forward to learning more about biodiversity and the creepy crawlies that are our neighbours at school!