Last month’s Spirit of the Wakatipu Gala & Awards function threw a spotlight on four local high school students making waves as environmental guardians in the agricultural world.
The quartet — year 13 Wakatipu High students Ellie Kerr and Lucy Thompson, both 18, and year 12 students Lucy Boniface, 17, and Manuella Sanches Pedrosa, 16 — were part of the Girls who Grow initiative who won the ‘Rising Star’ award.
The award recognises their drive, in their own time, to come up with innovative solutions to agricultural challenges, especially relating to increased droughts caused by climate change.
The awards programme states: "These young leaders, passionate about regenerative practices and sustainability, have demonstrated exceptional initiative, creativity and commitment to the region’s agricultural future."
Their mentor, Girls who Grow co-founder Catherine van der Meulen, started working with a group of Wakatipu High students last year, after conferring with science teacher Rose Kidd.
She contacted the school, along with Wanaka’s Mount Aspiring College and Alexandra’s Dunstan High, to launch a pilot programme as they’re in the vicinity of Justine and Geoff Ross’ Lake Hawea Station — New Zealand’s first carbon zero-certified farm.
Through those schools, Girls who Grow ran an innovation challenge in which Lucy Thompson placed first with her prototype of an irrigation system.
This year she worked on a home-made water filtration system for farms, emphasising water storage solutions during droughts.
Ellie, Manuella and Lucy Boniface, meanwhile, focused on projects to support farmers with tree lucerne, or tagasaste, which is a drought-tolerant green fodder plant.
Van der Meulen, who nominated the quartet for the Spirit of the Wakatipu awards, says "I have loved watching the girls connect to their projects, be so enthusiastic to stay committed even when they have had so many other things going on at school, and the bond of the students working together to explore things they may have not had any prior knowledge of".
"It’s just been beautiful to be able to see those young women come together and support each other and take each other on different learning journeys as well."
Van der Meulen’s now collating a "mini magazine" with the girls’ findings which will be presented to a group of farmers, landowners, funders and investors at Lake Hawea Station on December 6.
She’s also excited Wakatipu High will introduce agriculture and horticulture as a subject next year.
Meanwhile, the Rising Star winners say they were stoked but also very surprised at their win.
Lucy Thompson says "I was really happy ’cos it was, like, the first time we got recognition for this".
Coming from "a long lineage of farming in my family", she likes the fact Girls who Grow is encouraging more young women to get into agriculture "because in primary industries the women-to-men ratio is, like, concerningly low".
Aiming to go to Australia’s Byron Bay for the first half of next year before snowboard-instructing at Cardrona, she says "I won’t pursue any higher education till I’m absolutely sure what I want to do", but the programme had "opened up this whole new pathway I never saw before".
Ellie, who shifted to Queenstown three years ago from Northland’s Tutukaka Coast, says she’s known a lot about plants, "because I’m quite interested in that area, but it was quite fun to learn more about it".
She’s heading to Otago Uni next year where she’ll study botany and plant biotechnology.
Lucy Boniface, who’ll be Wakatipu High’s environmental lead prefect next year, says "what makes the project so cool is people didn’t expect us girls from Queenstown to do something based on agriculture".
"I’m really passionate about kind of making a difference in climate change, and setting up for the future."
She’s taken biology this year and is "super-excited" about taking teacher Noni Gabb’s new course in agriculture and horticulture next year — "she’s an amazing teacher".
Meanwhile, Manuella says she’ll probably carry on with Girls who Grow next year.
She’s thought of law as a career and admits she’s not a ‘sciency’ person.
"But I did do biology and chemistry this year, and then I kind of got into the Girls who Grow thing and it was quite cool, because then I thought about doing, like, environmental law or something that could tie in both."
Manuella says "you really start to see climate change when it’s snowing in November, and you’re like, ‘what is going on?"’
"I just wish people could appreciate the place more and really look after it as much as they could, because it will eventually come to an end if we keep on going down the same route we’re taking."
