Trident High School sent their Year 10 class to the Manawahe Eco Centre for a three day camp in preparation for their five week visit to Great Barrier Island. These students have themselves chosen to be
involved in the outdoors and environmental care and as a result are a very motivated and capable group to do conservation work. They helped with two conservation efforts in the local area: on their first day they helped select and pot up seedlings for the nursery on the Week's farm and on their second day they planted 1000 young trees at a recently fenced spring on Mountford's farm.  This was an amazing effort from a
group of young people and they worked really hard to actually get all these trees in the ground. It is truly amazing to see a large group of young people that are so dedicated to our natural environment. 

In the first weekend of July, the scouts came back for their annual camp. They use our facility for a training weekend for their cub programme and don't require an environmental programme as such. We have a number
of groups now that come back every year and this way we are steadily building
up a regular client base.

The Manawahe morning tea group is another group that visited this month. Most of these ladies have a connecting with the Eco Centre as a former school and it is nice to welcome them back into the facility once a
year.

Most of us know that the gardens at the Eco Centre harbour a few noxious weeds. Quite often school groups spend a bit of time cutting Blackberry or pulling Monbretia bulbs, this reinforces the idea that New Zealand does not only have to deal with animal pests, but that plant pests form a threat to our ecosystem too. Two teachers from Trident High school got inspired by this and offered to take down our Japanese Walnuts and cut the wood
into fire wood. The nuts of these trees were very loved by the rats and the removal of them will surely help us control these pesky rodents.

The students of Matata primary school have shown an interest in setting up some trap lines around Matata. Whakatane Rotary West has kindly donated 10 traps to our trust to enable us to support these students in
their conservation efforts.

Confirmed upcoming visits         
29- 31 August Tauranga Girls High         
25 - 27 October Whakatane Intermediate         
1-2 November Trident Special Education unit camp        
13 - 16 November Whakatane Intermediate      
27 Nov - 1 Dec St Joseph's Opotiki