Amberly School students recently attended a Healthy Waterways Workshop at the North branch of the Kowai River with Westpac Ambassador and All Blacks Legend Richie McCaw.
The workshop, run through a partnership between NZ Landcare Trust and Westpac NZ aimed to teach students about water quality, and the importance of keeping rivers and waterways healthy.
Spending time in nature was a great way to spend the afternoon, says McCaw.
“It’s really important to protect our natural resources for the future, and getting our kids passionate and invested in conservation sets them up to value what the environment gives us.
“By ensuring our waterways are healthy, we encourage biodiversity which helps maintain the balance of the wider ecosystems in New Zealand.”
McCaw joined the students in the river for a variety of activities including:
- kick sampling to check for macroinvertebrates, involving disturbing the stream bed gravel enough to release insect larvae, and other stream life into a net, then sorting them out for identification. The type of species can tell a lot about the health of the stream.
- looking through a water clarity tube to determine how clear the water is or how much silt the stream is carrying. Too much silt makes it difficult for stream life to survive.
- river flow testing to see how fast the river is flowing and indicates how well nutrients and silt are flushed through the gravel, and how well oxygenated the stream is.
- eDNA testing to determine the species that live in the river giving a more complete picture of stream conditions than the kick sample method. The species mix is used to give a stream condition score, which can change over time as positive or negative impacts take effect.
The students were introduced to the concept of sampling, the importance of multiple measures and consistent data collection. After rotating through each activity, Wednesday’s findings were combined to produce average measures for temperature (11.55 C), clarity (78.9 out of a possible 100) and a flow rate (11.24 seconds/10m) and a count of eleven species of invertebrates from the gravel. Overall, these indicators point to a reasonably healthy stream. This data and local knowledge can then be used to track progress over time to understand how conservation efforts around the North Branch Kowai River are impacting water quality.
NZ Landcare Trust Catchment Coordinator and workshop facilitator, Ric Balfour, says, “The kids really enjoyed the day, including one student who knew this stream well, and told me “There are inanga, a couple of huge longfin eels, and a few bullies in this spot, but it warms up and dries out completely in the summer!”
Ric was really impressed with the Amberley School teacher and students, especially the enthusiasm they brought to the activities. Having support from partnerships like ours with Westpac New Zealand enables the next generation to understand how important water quality is to our native species and everything we need from our freshwater resources. Having an understanding of how to measure and monitor conditions was a key outcome for the day and having Ritchie along gave the event an extra spark.
To finish the, the group planted 100 locally sourced native plants, including 50 harakeke, 30 Carex and 20 Kowai that were planted along the school border and in a special the memorial garden for a teacher who started the school environment programme.
COMPETITION
NZ Landcare Trust has a rugby ball signed by Richie McCaw to give away. Entries are open to all. Simply comment on the Instagram or Facebook post about how you are caring for waterways in your area (we’ll select a winner on Friday 11 October).
