Penny Gaylor: Girl's bus stop poster message 'beautiful'

Te Horo School principal Michelle Tate (left), Ava Rae McGregor and councillor Penny Gaylor.

Weekly column by Kāpiti's Greater Wellington Regional Council representative Penny Gaylor.

Last Wednesday it was my pleasure to present Te Horo School student Ava Rae McGregor, 12, with a giant poster that included her bus design.

Recently we ran a competition for young people in our region to help us design some wraps for our double-decker buses.

Ava was one of the final four designs, and the poster pictured is a replica of what will now feature on numerous bus stops around Wellington.

Thanks very much Ava. Love your work, and your message; her design said "In a world full of Roses, Be a Sunflower". Beautiful.

And while our growing fleet of electric buses is part of our work to reduce our carbon emissions, there are plenty of projects we are doing in the environment and in particular in our regional park-like Queen Elizabeth Park on the Kāpiti Coast.

We're chuffed that our Low Carbon Acceleration Fund received national recognition last week at the 2021 LGFA Taituarā Local Government Excellence Awards.

The fund enables us to boost climate action initiatives, like the phasing out grazing in our regional parks, and restoring native forests and wetlands.

We have a laser focus on reaching our climate positive commitment by 2035, and we're hoping that this spotlight on the fund will encourage other organisations to set up similar schemes.

Greater Wellington's Low Carbon Acceleration (LCA) Fund, was established to accelerate the action required for Greater Wellington to meet ambitious climate goals.

LGFA Taituarā Local Government Excellence Awards seek to showcase and celebrate the outstanding people and mahi that contribute to the success of the local government sector.

Greater Wellington won a Highly Commended Citation for Environmental Leadership for the LCA Fund — a pool of money set aside to boost activities or initiatives that reduce emissions faster or at a greater scale than would otherwise occur.

In the words of my colleague councillor Thomas Nash (chair of GWRC's Climate Committee), "Our carbon credits are a major and growing asset on our balance sheet. It makes sense for us to borrow against them to accelerate the restoration of native ecosystems that absorb and store carbon. We hope this award will help get the word out to other organisations that might be in a position to set up similar schemes."

Already Greater Wellington's Low Carbon Acceleration (LCA) Fund has allocated approximately $2.4 million to a range of projects which will occur over the next few years, including restoration of key areas within Queen Elizabeth Park and Kaitoke Regional Park.

Our next steps are to continue to reduce emissions by phasing out grazing across our regional park network, and restoring native forests and wetlands.

We are also putting money into the development of joint plans with mana whenua as a core component of these initiatives.