Meridian Energy Community Update, August 2015
Fostering partnerships that benefit the local community is a key part of Meridian’s Community Funds.
Sam Judd from Sustainable Coastlines talks about the work they’re doing on the Kaitoke Peninsula and how this has inspired a new perspective on how they work with community groups.
“When we first started working with the Raglan community we knew about the amazing work that has gone into looking after the Whaingaroa Harbour catchment. We found that there was an opportunity to run activities that would enable people to give some love to their local waterway,” says Sam.
“The public land on the Kaitoke Peninsula was an existing long-term restoration project that needed help. Being close to Raglan Area School, and used by other schools in the region for camps, it was a perfect site to do something meaningful that kids and adults could get involved with.”
Over three years, Sustainable Coastlines has worked with local groups to do riparian planting on the peninsula with native trees and plants.
“Our ongoing involvement has meant we can take a longer-term educational approach to the project, which means we can engage and work with community groups in different ways. For example, this year we’re setting up a Kaitiaki committee that will be run by local students from Raglan Area School who are in their second-to-last year. We’ll give the committee members training and they’ll play an active role in the management of the peninsula with the understanding that they will mentor the newly elected younger students in their final year.
“These projects, run under our Love Your Water programme, have shown that in collaboration with Meridian we’ve been able to achieve something that’s much bigger scale than what we usually do. Water is a pretty big part of Meridian’s business so this is a really good fit and we’re looking forward to running more projects around Aotearoa/New Zealand.”
Sustainable Coastlines will be running their next community tree planting event on the Kaitoke Peninsula on Friday 11 September. Contact oliver@sustainablecoastlines.org to get involved.