Hi everyone welcome back.
Today we had our first meeting as a group and discussed our focus issue and what some more ideas were to improve the Hautapu river awareness of it's pollution. We allocated certain jobs to everyone and everyone took part.We thought it would be a good idea to put an article in the Taihape Times and get the Community supporting us. Also we had some students ring Horizons and get some more information about Hautapu river.We also assighned Michael to be our facillitator and Jess is our note taker. We will also be updating our wiki some time. Don't forget to send in all your ideas on how we can improve the Hautapu river.
3 comments:
Hi Josh, Great work, I am so impressed with what you guys achieved on Friday. Mr Davey said you were a fantastic class. I am away Mon & Tues on a course - how about a quick catch-up with everyone on Weds at interval in my office?
Hi Josh,
I just wrote to Ari a bit, but thought I'd write to you too about something different... (yes I like writing and I'm lucky that I can type fast!)
I grew up in a place called Kawerau. I'm not sure if you know where that is - in between Rotorua and Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty. There is an amazing river in Kawerau called the Tarawera River - the most crystal water you've ever seen, just stunning. You might have heard about the Mt Tarawera eruptions early last century (I think)that destroyed the pink and white terraces. Anyway ... I digress.
In Kawerau there were also a few pulp and paper factories and they were also really important to the town because so many people worked at them. So everyone was reliant up the factory for their jobs - and jobs are good for lots of reasons (food on the table being one of them!)
The trouble was that the factory used the river to dump some of its waste. Once the river passed the factory it was effectively poisoned and the colour changed to black.
So this is the problem eh - how do you keep people in their jobs but keep the river clean?
It's been a long time since I went to Kawerau so I don't know what the situation with the Tarawera river is like now - but I have these memories of Greenpeace acivists chaining themselves to the pipe that discharged the factory waste into the river. Not very safe but it certainly attracted attention. The funny thing was that lots of people made fun of them and told them to get lost. I sort of felt torn because on one side I loved the river - it was just SO beautiful, and on the other hand my Dad worked for one of the factories.
Anyway - those are some of my thoughts.
Here's a link - if you are interested you can google Tarawera River as there's lots of stuff to see
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK0605/S00030.htm
Keep up the good work - I hope you find the project interesting!
Amie
Hi Josh,
You guys are doing such a fantastic job! The river clean-up project is a great decision and it will be inspiring for other people too.
I live at Muriwai Beach which is North-West of Auckland. We don't have any big rivers here, but the beach is very long and wild. You can drive on the beach all the way to the Kaipara Harbour, but it takes almost an hour to get there because the beach is over 60km long!
You might be able to find conservation organisations that could help you with ideas on how to clean up the river - maybe you could ask the Department of Conservation for suggestions.
Good luck!
Mary
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