Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 52
Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds
Zoe Studd represents a new generation of conservationist committed to working for the environment. Well educated and travelled, she brings a wide range of experience to her work. She is Kiwi born, educated in Wellington – and spent time in Brazil as an exchange student. She has a New Zealander’s love of the outdoors and is a skilled snorkeler, paddle boarder and scuba diver, as is her partner Jazz. She attained her science degree in Australia, majoring in coastal and marine management. She subsequently worked on oceans policy for the NZ Environment Ministry, and then began mapping sea floor habitat in Melbourne for the Victorian Dept of Sustainability. She’s back home now, with an education degree and running outreach programmes for the Island Bay Marine Education Centre.
Midnight Collective - You’re based in Wellington at Island Bay yet work right along this western coast.
Zoe Studd - That’s right. In winter we run a fresh water programme with the Whitebait Connection, exploring our streams. Then in summer a programme called -Experiencing Marine Reserves. There’s a reserve here at Island Bay, and then Kapiti Island. We explore the way these reserves are enhancing our marine ecology. A third area is the Porirua estuary. Here the programme is called Healthy Harbours.
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| Spoonbill colony at Porirua Nov 2014 |
MC - You work with a wide range of people?
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| Whitebaiting on the Waikanae River November 2014 |
Zoe - Schools during the day then we run a number of public events –night or weekends. When we go out to a creek or estuary we look at everything. At the living and non-living things and how they effect a stream. The insects that start their life there; then native fish. - the five species of native fish you’ll find in your whitebait patty including our endangered giant kokopu. Then there are short and long finned eels and Black Flounder along with the bird life that live in our estuary’s and wetlands. We talk about water quality, of how it can be improved; at the effect of riparian plantings…
MC - What kind of response are you getting?
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| Zoe taking a night party into the Paekakairiri stream estuary. |
Zoe - We try and get everyone as close to the environment as possible. We take them out spotlighting at night when our rare fish are most active. They’ve usually never seen kokopu or know we have native fish even, or how threatened they are. So it’s a revelation and very dramatic at night. Then we go snorkling and they can inspect the seabed for themselves. We connect kids to what’s happening out there. Then what they can do to help. They go away with a light in their eye, wanting to do projects of their own. It’s very rewarding.
MC - Do you have Iwi (Maori) involvement.
Zoe - In Porirua I work with the Ngati Toa runanga. They have a number of restoration programmes on the go. Improving the harbour. We’d like to do more. The harbour is very important. There’s the rig shark you’ll find in your fish and chips, yellow eyed mullet, sting ray…It supports a lot of bird life.
MC -You work nights. You give up your weekends. The salary can’t compete with a day job in the City. Why do you love this work?
Zoe –I love being outdoors. It’s fascinating because we’re always going into new areas. Then you’re bringing kids into it. They absolutely love it.
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| Kapiti- a wind surfers coast. Zoe's partner Jazz heads out in a stiff northerly breeze |
MC - Is there a downside?
Zoe - Extreme paperwork (laughs) – say no more – but it’s got to be done!
If you would like to learn more, or get your school involved you can contact Zoe at zoe.studd@gmail.com
Track we were listening to while posting this - Peter Cape's Taumaranui (1959) - Pat Rogers classic interpretation.
There's this sheila in Refreshments and she's pouring cups of tea
And me heart jumps like a rabbit when she pours a cup for me.
She's got hair of flamin' yeller, and lips of flamin' red,
And I'll love that flamin' sheila till I'm up and gone and dead,
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