Pitufa.at

Whenever we stay longer in a place I try to visit the schools and do a little presentation about sustainability and environmental issues. At primary schools this means mainly presenting some local wildlife and its “function” for eco-systems to explain why they are worth protecting. E.g. bird droppings are fertilizers for the soil and the lagoon, parrot fish are important as they clean the reef, sharks prevent diseases as they eat sick fish, turtles are worth protecting as they eat jellyfish and are getting rare, etc.
Quite often I feel like fighting windmills, when the little ones assure me that turtles taste delicious (even though stressed looking teachers then explain that nobody actually hunts them–as this is strictly forbidden) and the fish are there for humans to eat.
In Rapa things are different: the local environmental protection group Raumatariki is very active, sweets and everything wrapped in plastic is forbidden at school and even the youngest ones know that littering is a dreadful thing to do. Therefore the visit to the two classes here (the young ones from 6 on and the older ones up to 10 years) was a real pleasure. Katsumi and Jacqueline are doing a great job!