REBECCA HARPER
Whether you recycle or have a tui singing in your garden are not high priorities for most teenagers, but for one Napier schoolboy they are top of the list.
Tom Logan, 15, of William Colenso College, sets such a good example when it comes to the environment, he was asked
to act as MC at a sustainability forum for 50 adults on Friday.
"I am bringing the average age down a bit, and I didn't even know what an MC was at first," he said when asked how it felt to be leading such a large group of adults, many of them prominent community figures.
Hawke's Bay Regional Council spokesperson Susan Wylie said Tom had been chosen because of his involvement in the young environment council and his leadership skills.
In his first year at Colenso, Tom started an environment group and was also in the process of setting up a zero waste recycling scheme at the school.
His love for the environment sprung from his passion for gardening.
"I worked a lot in the garden at home, I like the birds and trees. I progressed from gardening to conservation - planting native trees to encourage the birds. I guess it was a natural progression from conservation to a global perspective on the environment," he said.
"I don't even want to ever move house because there wouldn't be any tui there."
So why does he care so much about the environment?
"If we are having a detrimental effect on their habitats, even unintentionally, it's about making people aware and saying that's not where we want to be going," he said.
The forum, organised by the Ministry for the Environment, was about encouraging people to identify barriers to sustainability and think about how they could take action in their own community.
