Editorial - November 20, 2012

KAITAIA has seen the best and worst of the younger generation over the last week or two. The best was the enthusiastic participation of dozens of children in the establishment of a reserve along a stretch of beach at Ahipara, the worst the four teenage girls who made a drunken spectacle of themselves in Kaitaia's streets on a weekday afternoon, two of them so drunk that police feared they were in jeopardy of alcohol poisoning.

The fact that three of the girls - two of them 14, they being the particularly drunk ones, and the third 16, not quite so bad - were released by police on pre-charge warnings suggests that nothing further will happen. More importantly, nothing will be done to find out why they were so paralytic (in the 14-year-olds' case, apparently after attending a sitting of the Kaitaia Youth Court earlier in the day - one does not need any particular qualification to hazard an educated guess as to how seriously they are taking whatever it was that led them there), how they got the alcohol or what their parents, and the plethora of government agencies that exist to help at-risk children, are going to do to address whatever problems they have.

At the very least, one would expect the police to be making vigorous inquiries to establish who supplied the alcohol. The oldest of the foursome was 19, so that could be a good place to start. But whoever gave it to them should be punished. If that isn't going to happen, all those who wring their hands when kids come to grief might as well pack up and go home.

We've been talking in the Far North for countless moons about the horrors of suicide; a number of people, two of them children, have taken their lives in this community over recent weeks. It beggars belief that the authorities, for want of a better word, do not seem to make a connection between a grossly disturbing display of alcohol abuse such as this and the fact that some of those among us see no future for themselves.

People can talk and lobby and formulate policy until the cows come home, but this problem, not only suicide but the general despair that occasionally culminates in people taking their lives, needs to be addressed from the bottom up. Paula Bennett isn't going to fix it, but the community might if it takes the task on one potential victim at a time.

There is absolutely no doubt that alcohol and drug abuse feature prominently not only as a factor in suicide but in crime and dysfunction in general. The police stationed in and around Kaitaia spend a great deal of their time mopping up after displays of anger and aggression that are clearly born of alcohol abuse, but the black eyes, broken teeth and smashed furniture that so often result are at the lower end of the harm scale. The real damage is being done to the kids who witness it, who grow up seeing drunken violence as normal, who are denied the social skills and education that might offer them a lifeline and who grow up to behave just as the adults in their lives have taught them to.

These two 14-year-olds are extremely unlikely to be consumed with remorse. They will be well down the track of committing themselves to miserable lives from which they will not have the character to escape. Whoever let them get into this state should be held accountable. That includes the person/s who supplied the alcohol, and the people who are supposed to be raising them.

Things were much more positive at Ahipara when children from the local school turned out for the official launch of a reserve to protect a stretch of beach, and more specifically, the flora and fauna that cling on there, and will hopefully gain a new lease on life if they can be protected from people.

Tuturiwhatu Pukenui Punanga has the support of an impressive array of organisations, from the local beachcare group and Te Runanga o Te Rarawa to the Department of Conservation and the Northland Regional Council. All will have parts to play if the overarching goal - the protection of the tiny colony of the endangered New Zealand dotterels that persist in making the beach at Ahipara their home, and are doing their best to breed there - is to be achieved. But it is the children who are most important of all.

Doug Klever and his fellow members of the Ahipara beachcare group will do everything in their power to persuade people, locals and visitors, that what is being done there is important, and that native wildlife and people can live side by side very happily, if the latter use their brains. Mr Klever has gone to some pains to explain that the beach remains as accessible as it has always been, that there will be no 'keep out' signs, but that the birds and plants that used to live in relative peace there will be able to do so again if their habitat is not churned up by motorbikes and four-wheel-drives on an almost daily basis.

It would seem to be a small price to pay for the success of a very worthy goal, but it will not be easy to keep that small area of sand wheel-free. Mr Klever says the aim is not to stop people using the beach but to keep the idiots out. Unfortunately, the people he is concerned about are called idiots for good reason. Rational, sensible people who can see past their own gratification they are not. They will not have heard of Tuturiwhatu Pukenui Punanga and thought to themselves, 'What a great idea that is. I must stop going down there every day and ploughing through birds' nests on my bike.'

They will likely have thought nothing at all. And while they can hardly avoid seeing the signs they won't comprehend them. If they do comprehend they won't comply. That's where the kids come in.

It is the next generation that will deliver the beachcare group's reward. These kids, some of whom showed how much they care about their environment well before the reserve was mooted by shaming their community into getting rid of what had long been an informal rubbish dump in the dunes, are genuinely keen to do something positive for their small part of the world. They will keep those values as they grow older, and will surely instil them in their own children and grandchildren.

Involving children in this project is vital to its long-term success, and their response will hopefully give the beachcare group heart. It will be a slow process, but the seed has well and truly been sown, not just at Ahipara but all around the North. There is a whole generation of kids in this community who have a genuine appreciation of their wonderful environment, and are actively helping to protect it. Their children will follow their example.

That's what kids do. Whether it is helping to protect a beautiful, dainty native bird that, without help, might soon be extinct, or whether it is destroying their young lives with alcohol, kids do as the adults around them do. For some, that is extremely positive. Unlike some Kaitaia teenagers, a lot of kids at Ahipara are blessed with role models who will change their lives and the world they live in.