THINK LIKE A STOAT

Pesky: Getting serious with the Stoat (Silke Stefan) in the Pesky Predators workshop. All pictures supplied

Trying to bring about behavioural change in people is a big ask, but the Wild Lab Tiaki Taiao team at Waikereru Ecosanctuary are doing just that, one experience at a time.

Only 10 minutes out of town the ecosanctuary, which is being restored by the Longbush Ecological Trust, is fast becoming nationally and internationally recognised for its innovative approaches to environmental education.

Voluntary trustee Dr Jennie Harré Hindmarsh looks after the trust’s community and education portfolio, and Pete Jarratt is the education team leader. While those titles might sound a little dry, talking to them both at once is a head-spinning whirlwind of tumbling ideas and vision.

The Longbush trust’s Waikereru Wild Lab Tiaki Taiao programme has just received Ministry of Education funding support for three years, a solid shot in the arm for the work they have pioneered.

“The amazing thing about getting funding is it validates our approach,” Pete says.

“We go for experiential learning. You learn through experience — touch, feel — it makes you think critically. The information hits you and you think ‘I’ve never thought about it that way before’. We’re trying to elicit new behaviours in people.

“The more you know something or know someone the more you care for it, so in this world of disconnection we are trying to create that connection, informed by both western science and mātauranga Māori.”

Jennie describes the type of education they offer as a “creative, immersive and engaging experience”.

It is about being a part of the ecosystem — not engaging people to do something to it, but recognising we are part of it — “I am the river, the river is me”.

So how does this play out for classes of students visiting the sanctuary?

A school group — usually limited to 20 to maintain a quality and depth of experience not easy to impart with larger groups — might drop their bags into the Welcome Shelter before they go exploring the bush. Returning to the shelter they might find their bags upended and scattered everywhere, because the “stoat” has come in while they were out and messed things up.

“They have to think like a stoat!” Pete says.

“Everyone is trying to come at problems from a human perspective and that might not work, so somehow we have to break those mindsets,” he says.

Students might draw up or build a trap, but what the creative minds behind the Wild Lab Tiaki Taiao know for sure is that the same old thinking is not going to solve many of the same old problems — environmental or otherwise — we face today.

They encourage “design thinking” or “ideation”, which starts off as imagination and proceeds to how any seemingly crazy idea might work in practice.

“We call it ‘talk with nature’, and in a non-anthropocentric way, that’s what we need to do. It’s theatrical so it adds that imaginative and engaging part to the curriculum.”

The education team worked with a range of prominent western science and mātauranga Māori experts to develop te taiao/the environmental content, crafting their raw material and ideas into eight workshop themes for schools. They engage with and refer to western and Māori knowledge systems to explore flora, fauna, predators, rivers, and natural and human history.

“We’ve got a mayfly character and I’m always stunned by how much I’m drawn in to talking to her,” Jennie says.

She has an MSc from the London School of Economics, a BA(Hons) from Massey and a PhD from Victoria University — both in Education . . . and an actor dressed as a mayfly makes her stop and think.

Maybe there’s something in this?

“Most of our costume characters have been designed and made by Bridghe Penn, who grew up down the road and currently is based in the UK. She completed a masters in costume design in Cardiff and did her major project on the Wild Lab Tiaki Taiao as a case study, about using costumes and masks to influence behaviour.”

Bridghe is working on costumes for Dr Who at the moment, and Pete describes her as “a force”.

Anne-Marie Vigeant is the education facilitator at Waikereru, and actor Silke Steffen slips between mayfly, stoat and other characters, an intrinsic part of the immersive educational experience.

Jennie says their approach generates masses of inquiries, loads of questions, and lots of big ideas, fodder for teachers to build on with their students later.

An essential part of the education programme is partnering or collaborating with others working in similar fields. This week they invited Sport Gisborne Tairāwhiti, Tōnui Collab, Enviroschools, the Tairāwhiti Environment Centre, Tairawhiti Museum, Tairāwhiti Waka Hourua, Ngā Mahi i Te Taiao and the Waimata Catchment Restoration Trust to share experiences at the Wild Lab Tiaki Taiao and explore opportunities to collaborate.

“This will generate more ways to complement each other and enrich the district’s learning opportunities,” Jennie says.

As word is spreading about Waikereru and the programme, increasingly they are being asked to host small groups other than schools, such as tourist groups and business teams.

“Our development plan is to respond to those requests, to build links to other groups. Adults are often interested in the ecosanctuary’s restoration and the 1769 Garden, which has many endangered local plants that are growing like mad. These include examples of what was once common here and are now rare or threatened.”

Another string to their bow is that the “Waikereru experience” is a wonderful environment for businesses to open up their planning and team-building processes.

“Younger staff are now saying, if organisations don’t have a sustainability strategy ‘we don’t want to work for you . . . what’s your Why’?” Pete says.

The Waikereru programme is already playing its role in putting this region at the forefront of helping businesses focus on sustainability, wrestling with their “why”. They have completed a workshop with at least one local business, and can lead nationally in this field. There is, they say, a real hunger for this experience.

The ideas — and the work — never seem to stop. The Longbush Trust’s Waikereru Welcome Shelter is open-air, and fundraising will start soon for the “Treehouse”, an enclosed space with a larger capacity. It will be a space for small groups whatever the weather, and be located among the kanuka next to the Welcome Shelter.

For now the team are taking their next step. Funding from the Air New Zealand Environment Trust grant supported their work for the last four years allowing them to fully develop and deliver their eight educational workshops and to start growing a digital resource base.

And just as that money runs out, the Ministry of Education contribution has been secured. The Ministry works together with communities to support authentic, hands-on, interactive learning experiences, which sounds tailor-made for Waikereru’s programme.

“We are really appreciative of support from the Ministry of Education for our Wild Lab Tiaki Taiao through its Enriching Local Curriculum and Professional Learning and Development (PLD) programmes”, Jennie says.

“This support means we can now continue to offer the Wild Lab Tiaki Taiao workshops to groups of local ākonga (students) and kaiako (teachers) for free until at least December 2025, and also provide professional development opportunities for teachers and leaders in schools with a focus on designing local curriculum.

“We’re hugely grateful for the faith they showed in us to grow this programme.”

Their focus remains on inspiring education, but an educational paradigm totally removed from chalk and blackboards.

“My background is in education,” Pete says. “I’m one of those naive people who want to enrich and change the education system worldwide, and I’m still trying.”