Environmental council meets

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32959, 4 July 1972, Page 11

Environmental council meets

CVeu> Zealand Press Associations

WELLINGTON, July 3.

New Zealand’s environmental problems would be acute in the coming years, the Environmental Council was told in Wellington.

A member of the council, Mr H. F. P. Downes, said this after presenting a special paper to a meeting of the council. The paper is to go before an educational priorities conference in August.

Mr Downes said a move should be made towards teaching citizenship as “citizenship of the environment.” At present many schoolteachers were conscious of this aspect and were building it into the general “tenor of their teaching.”

Although people could be taught things, attitudes were something different, and if an attitude change towards the environment did not come "fairly quickly” the authorities would move into increasingly tight regulations, he said. Mr D. G. Porter said he hoped Mr Downes’ paper would lead to a re-think within the Education Department on curriculum development. Pupils learnt a lot of things that were of little use, and matters such as education on the environment should be included in the curriculum, he believed.

Mr E. A. J. Holdaway believed the young generation was being well educated in the environmental field. Hope lay with this generation which was taking an early responsibility for the environment.

The council’s acting chairman, Mr D. A. Thom, said he thought it was necessary for the public to know the council was serious about environmental teaching. POOR KNIGHTS

On the question of the Poor Knights Islands, the council strongly supported the concept of a marine reserve around the area.

The Poor Knights Islands, off the east coast of the North Auckland peninsula, aroused a public outcry some months ago after a petroleum prospecting licence for the area was granted to Norcom Oil and Mineral Limited. The council agreed in principle that the land and water of the proposed reserve should be as far possible be administered by the same authority.