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Town Belt Kaitiaki
Town Belt Kaitiaki (TBK) is a student-led education programme for Dunedin schools and ECE centres.
INTERNATIONAL VOLUNTEER DAY 2024![]()
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To our Town Belt Kaitiaki volunteers! You are absolutely marvellous and I appreciate your help so much to help our Town Belt Kaitiaki student leaders do all the things they want to do. I appreciate your skills, your enthusiasm, your kindness and attention to our students and your generous time. THANK YOU!
The focus of TBK's Term 4 Professional Development session was 'Measuring Trees and Carbon Sequestration in the Dunedin Town Belt'. Hopefully we are all skilled in the methods of measuring tree height and girth (DBH) now and on the way to calculating how much carbon our TBK planted trees are are sequestering in the Town Belt. Most of our trees are still pretty young so we had to practice on older ones - but ours will get there!![]()
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Thanks to Tim Ashdown and Otago Boys High School for hosting our TBK Term 4 Teacher Professional Development Session. We very much appreciated being in the lovely classroom Tim has created to inspire his students! ![]()
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Thanks to our speakers - Associate Professor Janice Lord from Otago University, and Dr Jacqui Amiers, Dr David Bergin, Mike Bergin, and Dr Mark Alexander from Tane's Tree Trust (on Zoom).![]()
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And thanks to our TBK Link Teachers who attended and to all our LTs for their hard work this year to keep TBK alive and kicking in our 12 TBK schools!
JUNIORS ROCK!![]()
By Freya, Secretary of the TBK Student Leadership Team![]()
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On Thursday, Town Belt Kaitiaki had our November monthly meeting at the Role Model Site. What made this one so special was that is was Junior Led. Our younger members did a wonderful job at stepping up, running fun activities like checking traps, scavenger hunts, and even a shared lunch. Despite the small pattering of rain, it was still a great day to get out into nature!
By Maureen, Senior Education Coordinator for Town Belt Kaitiaki![]()
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This is an interesting read by Dunedin based environmental historian Dr James Beattie about the historical environmental issues that faced the Dunedin Town Belt in the 1850s-80s.![]()
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I feel sad to think of all the big mature native trees that were cut down during that period. The Town Belt faces different environmental issues today - but I think more than ever we are recognising what an important part of Dunedin our precious Dunedin Town Belt is!
Urban conservation and conflict in early Aotearoa: Dunedin Town Belt, 1848-1860s
gardenhistoryresearchfoundation.com
by James Beattie Keywords: urban conservation, Aotearoa conservation, urban environmental history, Dunedin/ Ōtepoti, class tensions, 1850s-1860s Introduction Seen from the air, Dunedin’s Town Belt ...
By Maureen, TBK Senior Education Coordinator![]()
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It was meant to rain last Thursday, but instead we'd a fabulous day in the TBK Role Model Site in the Town Belt. With brand new rakes, the students made short work of tidying up their forest tracks for the public to use, as well as getting stuck into some aluminium plant weeding. The infestation that we have of aluminium weed and onion weed, as well as a few bricks and rubbish in this spot show this was likely the result of an illegal dumping perhaps 5 or 6 years ago that has allowed to weeds to spread. The students are definitely winning.- go Team!![]()
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Two of our fabulous volunteer TBK assistants Miriam and Hannah also planted their kowhai tree in a damp part of the reserve - a gift from the DCC / DOC for TBK Volunteer Services! TBK could not run without volunteers. If you have some time and passion for nature and young people - we'd love to hear from you!