Ocean Champions Contest lauds kids caring for Bay coast

Sophie Eyles, YuQing Jiang, Zara Otto, and Emily Otto collecting rubbish during Seaweek.

Napier's young Marineland Rangers groups have finished runners-up in the inaugural 2014 Ocean Champions national contest staged as part of Seaweek.

"They are pretty stoked about the result despite not winning outright," said Emily Otto, the mother of Brianna Otto who leads the youngsters aged between 4 and 14.

"They did extremely well and we are very, very proud of them and their efforts."

The group went up alongside about 20 other entrants from throughout the country and the standard was high, Seaweek coordinator Dr Mels Barton said.

"The Ocean Champion initiative celebrates all those individuals, groups and organisations who work so hard to look after our seas and the marine life that lives in them," Dr Barton said.

"It's been great to receive so many nominations in this first year of running the Ocean Champion and it just shows that people do recognise how important this work is and how special these people are that go the extra mile to protect it for all of us."

The title was won by a group called "Our Sea's Our Future" - a non-profit marine conservation organisation whose members come from a diverse range of backgrounds and share a common goal - "to engage and work with local communities, groups and governing agencies to take an active role in protecting the coastal and marine environment."

Mrs Otto said despite Marineland's permanent closure and its seals being prepared for re-housing overseas, the Rangers would continue to carry out projects like last Sunday's beach clean-up along a stretch of Marine Parade.

"We had another productive haul including all the usual finds such as single shoes - we never find matching pairs - as well as empty cans, fishing lines, rolls of wire, part of a sofa and a shopping trolley, which the group was unable to dig out of the shingle. They had to leave it and decided to inform the council and hopefully they'll be able to unbury it."

However, one highlight of the clean-ups was missing, Mrs Otto said.

"Afterwards the group tried to spot a seal or sea lion through the gaps and holes in the fence of Marineland, although they noticed most of the holes have now been boarded up since their last beach clean-up."