PROJECT TANE

The project TANE Team are six students who live and go to school in the brand new sub-division of Flatbush in New Zealand's large and sprawling Manakau City, in the greater Auckland area.

At the centre of the community stands our school, Mission Heights Junior College which opened on 4th of February, 2009.

There are many students in our school from overseas. As a result they bring their own cultural treasures but often have little knowledge of the beautiful features of our New-Zealand landscape which have made us what we are as New Zealanders with a love of nature and a “can do” approach to adventure.

MHJC is a wonderful school, with amazing buildings and a high tech 21st century educational vision, where learning is designed to be “authentic, relevant and engaging”. But there are down sides to being a new school, particularly one with a strong focus on environmental sustainability. The school has solar panels, a wind turbine, eco- friendly furniture and furnishings, a worm farm and a recycling programme which includes no rubbish bins. And yet in contrast there are few established plants and trees on a site that will look barren for some years to come. The school land, which used to be a forest, fields and home to one of New-Zealand's noted surgeons, now has only a small portion of native bush, identified by the Manukau City Council as of “high heritage value” left on one of it's boundaries.

Our school stands majestically at the heart of our new community but in stark contrast, the remaining bush, a green oasis in a desert of newly established houses, is left uncared for, inaccessible and dangerous with its original track made by a neighbour and former land owner now long over-grown, untended and unused.

Our Challenge

Because MHJC is a newly established school with few established trees, how might we create an authentic learning environment in our neighboring bush reserve so that our generation will learn to value New-Zealand's native treasures in an exciting natural environment?

Actions to date

We decided to call our project “Project TANE” (ta-nay) (Trees Are Nature's Educators) to emphasise the fact that the bush is a valuable learning resource. Tane Mahuta is the Maori god of the forest and this reinforces the special value of the native bush to us as all as New Zealanders.

We met with a representative of the Manukau City Council Reserves Department 4 times over many weeks to discuss with her the possibilities and obstacles to opening up the bush. We also met with a neighbour and previous land owner who helped us convince the Council of the value of opening up the bush.

We eventually gained permission to open up a track within the bush so long as we undertook not to remove any established trees or plants. We have since gained approval from the Council for the school to “adopt' the bush reserve and assume responsibility for maintaining it in good condition.

We gained permission from MHP and MHJC to open up the security fence on the school boundary to allow access to the bush from the school site. This was given on the condition that the gate could be locked to retain security of the school site. We gained sponsorship from Hawkins Construction to erect a gate in the security fence and open up a second fence inside the security fence to allow safe access to the bush from the school.

We have temporarily marked out a safe “track” which passes by many native species and has open areas where students will be able to sit and enjoy an authentic NZ bush environment in safety, or to draw the trees and plants.

We have taken photos of the beautiful tree specimens and gathered educational information about the NZ bush to include in our an audio tour we intend to make of our bush trail. We have begun to develop a website which will host our audio tour and link to our school site, Mission Heights Online.

Next Steps

We will permanently mark out the track and place low impact signs which link to our audio tour. We will make repairs to any parts of the old disused track that may be a hazard, such as broken planks on old bridges. We will work with art students and Manukau Beautification Society to install an enviro friendly sculptural gateway. We will work with the school's enviro council and community groups to plant new native seedlings in areas on the edge of the bush which are overgrown with invasive introduced species such as gorse. We will ensure that all teachers in both schools are aware of the value of the bush as a learning environment. We will have an official opening of the bush track and take people through the bush for the first time.

Sharing the bush with MHP students

Helping release frogs