Young marine team use ripple effect to boost Marlborough Sounds project

Wednesday, 27 March 2019

A team of Marlborough students say the ripple effect has boosted what started as a simple idea to better protect the Marlborough Sounds.

The group of eight Marlborough Girls' College students took out the top prize in the marine category at the Cawthron Environment Awards last week.

The group of Marlborough students are on a mission to save New Zealand's marine life, particularly the Marlborough Sounds.

As part of a sustainability course, they looked at previous management of the Sounds and realised there was an urgent need for better protection.

They drafted special legislation to create a collaborative group and give them the powers to protect and manage the marine area. The proposal won support from the Marlborough District Council and was presented to the Prime Minister.

Blue cod over biogenic habitat, Pelorus Sound.

* Students' dream of marine guardians in Marlborough gets council backing

* 'Impressed' PM Jacinda Ardern thanks students for 'fantastic' work**

The marine team from left, Siobhan Hemingway, Hannah Dickson, Holly Wills, sustainability teacher Melynda Bentley, Baylee McConaghey, Demi Fearn with Hon David Parker.

In April, the students' work will be published in the Resource Management Law Association journal, New Zealand's leading forum for the interpretation and implementation of the 1991 Resource Management Act.

The team worked with the community, coastal scientists, university academics, the media, and lobbied Cabinet ministers to create political pressure and raise awareness about the Marlborough Sounds.

Current student and marine team member Baylee McConaghey said winning the award had further motivated them on their sustainability mission.

The project started as a very simple idea, McConaghey said. They sent a letter to the Prime Minister and hoped for a response.

'But opportunities kept coming up for us,' she said.

'The connections we got to make with the experts were amazing and so unexpected.'

One expert they came across in the field shared the analogy about a stone creating a ripple, McConaghey said.

'It doesn't matter if you think it's going to be such a big project, that we won't be able to do it, that we're only young, no-one will listen to us.

'But the thing is, people will listen and you've just got to cast that first stone and the effects will roll out, pan out.

'If you want to change something, you have to start somewhere, even if it's small, because if you don't start, nothing will ever happen.'

At the Cawthron Environment Awards, they asked mayor John Leggett whether he would be willing to write a follow up letter to Minister Eugenie Sage.

'Just to keep bringing it to the surface so it doesn't die down. We want to keep bringing it to the attention of the public.'

Former Marlborough Girls' College student and marine team member Demi Fearn said they hadn't decided how they would spend the $1000 prize money, but it would be put toward moving the project forward.

The biggest lesson she had learnt from their experience so far was about not giving up, Fearn said.

'To not give up when things seem a little bit more difficult than normal, just to keep going with it, as long as you have that passion and that drive I think you can suceed and achieve whatever you put your heart to.