CO-ORDINATING

SEAWEEK
NEW ZEALAND

Community coastal and marine education

events help improve awareness of the need
to conserve vital coastal resources. From
beach clean-ups to dive sessions, events
often occur over the course of a few days
and involve local schools as well as the
community. New Zealand Seaweek is an
annual event that takes place in early March.
Here Linda Bercusson, co-ordinator of the
nationwide event outlines the planning and
co-ordination involved.
 Seagrass meadow

A DIVERSE COASTAL AND SEAWEEK

The first week in
MARINE WORLD March is just past the
The New Zealand coastal environment is diverse. It is peak of summer in
characterised by features such as long ocean beaches, New Zealand and
exposed cliffs, bays, drowned valleys and numerous islands early in the school
of varying sizes. Beneath the waves a diversity of marine year. It is the time
habitats can be found, such as kelp forests, sponge 'gardens', when the conservation
shellfish ‘beds’, canyons, coral ‘beds’ and all its fish and community in this
marine inhabitants. There is still much to be learnt about small maritime nation
the coastal environment. Every year an average of 30 to 50 celebrates Seaweek.
new species of fish are discovered for example. Seaweek is a concept and initiative owned and driven in New
Zealand by the New Zealand Association for Environmental
Overuse, exploration and apathy cause widespread damage Education. This March was the 13th New Zealand Seaweek,
and minimise examples of what life in the coastal waters organised along what are now well-proven lines, with high
used to be like before humans arrived. Establishing marine levels of participation demonstrating the importance of
and island reserves is becoming increasingly urgent and the marine environment to New Zealanders of all ages
vital in the survival of native species and offshore islands – and callings.
‘treasure islands’.

In addition to the two main North and South Islands, there

are just under 700 offshore Islands in New Zealand. On the
CORE ELEMENTS
The mission of
mainland, competition with predators and loss of habitat Seaweek is to
has made survival impossible for many species, but on educate and engage
offshore Islands it is possible to control, monitor and New Zealanders
protect these species. in understanding,
enjoying and
caring for New
Zealand’s marine
environment. It sets
out to celebrate the
sea, its beauty,
Ranger Jeff Campbell helps plant the diversity and
native pingao, an important plant in cultural significance
NZ dune ecosystems. for New Zealanders
as well as increasing
awareness and understanding of the marine environment.
Lastly, it tries to encourage behaviour at sea and on land to
help protect and sustain the marine environment.

Goat Island is a perfect place to picnic and peer into the
fish-filled waters.
This year’s theme for the event was ‘One Ocean – It Starts
with Me’ (Kotahi Moana – Ka timata mai i ahau) with a special
focus of ‘more than meets the eye’. Events were set up all
around New Zealand with 15 regional co-ordinators
organising various activities that reflected this theme.

The Edge
www.coastnet.org.uk/theedge | August 2009 magazine
TIMELINE AND APPROACH
The approach and timeline is broadly laid out in the
following table. The critical variable is how it sits in relation
to the school year and to a lesser extent other annual
factors, such as season and national holidays.
In New Zealand, the long ‘summer’ holiday is around
Christmas. Schools come back at the beginning of February
and Seaweek takes place in the first week of March. This is not
ideal, but it is unlikely that any timeline will be.

MONTH APPROACH

July 2008 (Winter) • Secure a cornerstone sponsor or sponsors to ensure the event will proceed. Doing this
will require early planning and event outlines in order to sell to the sponsors.

August 2008 • Appoint a national co-ordinator.

• Settle on theme for the year.
• Make all-media announcement and within a fortnight send out a brief announcement to
schools advising dates and theme for next year’s event. You can’t do this until you have
secured a major sponsor. Include sponsors’ logo(s) on everything, along with a verbal
acknowledgement which may be a tagline or a quote.
• Highlight to schools your intention to provide lesson and project plans with strong
curriculum-related content.
• Start now (or earlier if possible) to bring in more sponsors.

September 2008 • Enrol co-ordinators for every area where you want or expect to have events taking place. In NZ
these people are often employees of the Department of Conservation or some marine-oriented
(Spring)
conservation organisation. Their role is a combination of event organiser, publicist, source of
information and encouragement for other Seaweek organisers and education advisers.
• Get co-ordinators who have the commitment and availability to make your event work. If you
have the luxury don’t necessarily accept the first offer; ask questions. Regional co-ordinators
vary widely in personality, degree of interest and most importantly the time and work freedom
to make things happen in their area. These distinctions can often underlie why some areas
have a great Seaweek, with parades, beach clean-ups , film seasons on the marine theme and
much more, while others have almost nothing and see it as a schools-only event (many
schools receive a Seaweek kit, with lesson plans, project materials and plenty of hands-on
ideas.) See table below to see where co-ordinators came from.
• Continue the hunt for sponsors.

October 2008 • Allow plenty of time and resources to find sponsors because now time is running low.
• Start graphic design work: get a great poster image and design, while keeping in mind what
the website will look like. It should all hang off the poster and the poster has to be able to
translate easily into a web look.
• The instant you have a logo and dates and some early confirmed content/events, start
working with the long-deadline media – glossy magazines, TV shows which are being
planned now for the period of the event.
• Keep a keen eye out for a Launch Event.

November 2008 • Start to put together the school resource kit. These must contain usable lesson plans and
project plans for both junior and senior schools, which in turn have to be relevant to the
curriculum. Get real teachers to advise and check. Where possible use sponsors’ resources.
• Launch the website.

Note about schools’ timing.

Wherever in the school year the event occurs, your timing must enable school teachers to plan
relevant study and activities in advance in sync with their normal planning schedule. It’s useless
sending schools great material which they can’t use because their year or your part of their year
has already been planned.

The Edge
www.coastnet.org.uk/theedge | August 2009 magazine
 MONTH APPROACH

December 2008 • The long school summer holiday period in New Zealand is December which also coincides
(Summer) with Christmas. Few people have time to move anything forward and we do what we can.
And relax.

January 2009 • Five months ago you promised schools great content for the time leading up to, during and
following after your event. Now you send it. Incorporate electronic content – DVDs, web
content, but also make sure the pack has good-looking physical content. Be prepared for a
lot of follow-up requests for more packs. Usually as many again as you sent out.
• Time for fine tuning plans, supporting new things which pop up or come forward as a
result of your activities. Don’t tell people ‘You’re too late – the programme has closed.’
• Intensive planning and support work. If you have created a good website which provides
downloadable information and allows people to promote their events, your webmaster will
become very busy. Make sure that person is available to keep the site up and jumping.

February 2009 • Media and promotion; getting the launch event lined up and ready to go. Helping
co-ordinators with more materials, contacts which come in, etc.

March 2009 • EVENT TAKES PLACE

SEAWEEK

March/April 2009 • Follow-up stories to media; evaluation (very important); photos, videos and thank you
to sponsors.
• Audit & accounting, as required.

Co-ordinators by organisation type Solo events

Department of Conservation 33 (29%)
Government (central, regional and local) 17 (15%)
Community 56 (49%)
Shared events 7 (6%)

The Edge
www.coastnet.org.uk/theedge | August 2009 magazine
VIEW FROM THE GROUND
Tanya Jenkins (pictured above) is the Seaweek Co-ordinator
for the Christchurch region of New Zealand, situated on
the South Island. She has been part of Seaweek since it
began in 1992 and spoke to The Edge about what it was like
on the ground.
EDGE: What kind of events did you run this year?
TJ: Guided coastal walks, Hector dolphin viewing, sand
castle building, story telling session, coastal planting
events, childrens’ book launch.
EDGE: How many people attended in total?
TJ: Near 2,000
EDGE: What event stuck out for you?
TJ: The Farewell to the Godwits ceremony, which was the
10th time we ran this during Seaweek. The first time, only
45 people attended but this year 1,000 people came along.
It shows that people have slowly but steadily been
educated on this special migrating bird and found it
interesting enough to attend a ‘ceremony’ to ‘wish them
farewell’ to their breeding grounds in Alaska and Siberia.
EDGE: How did you manage to get volunteers on board?
TJ: Really by promoting interesting and fun events.
EDGE: What would you say was the best reaction to one
of your events?
TJ: I think it would have to be the appreciation from the
schools who received a personal visit from the author of
the Seaweek book, Rahui Rangers, which focused on how
children can help protect the marine environment. The
schools really liked that the author personally delivered the
book to the school and spoke to the children.
EDGE: Any memorable responses from the public
attending?
TJ: 1) From a child on board the dolphin-viewing boat:
“If I live in Lyttelton and the dolphins live in Lytteton
harbour, does that mean the dolphins are sort of ours and
we should look after them like our pets?
2) I brought my grandchildren to see the Godwit birds
hoping that if they realise how special these birds are they
may want to learn more about the other birds in this area.
The Edge
www.coastnet.org.uk/theedge | August 2009
EVENTS DURING
SEAWEEK 2009
• Fishery Officer for a Day poster
competition – best poster winner taken
on patrol with fishery office
• Turtle tracking
• Watersports day – coinciding with
Seaweek, local school situated on
Ngunguru Estuary held annual
watersports day – jet skis, waka paddling
• Karekare Beach Races – horse racing along beach,
children running races, food stalls, raffles, wild west
hat competition – home to sea birds, fur seal and blue
penguin, dotterels – local predator control group
• Seaweek on Great Barrier Island – snorkelling and
shellfish monitoring
• Long bay beach and underwater clean-up
• Kids trip to Goat Island – as NZ’s oldest no-take
marine reserve (32 years and counting) it has become
a prime snorkelling spot, attracting around 300,000
visitors a year.
• Xtreme waste recycled raft race – celebrating ocean’s
beauty and raising awareness of marine pollution. All
rafts made out of 80% recycled materials.
• Celebration of seafood
• Coastal art exhibition
• Guided boat tours of Kapiti marine reserve
• Snorkelling for children
• Children’s art competition – Wairarapa – Mountains
for the Sea
• Blue Wellington – discussing the fate of Wellington’s
coastal areas for anyone with an interest in the sea.
Linda Bercusson is national Seaweek Co-ordinator
More details: www.seaweek.org.nz
magazine