Conservation Comment: The new generation brings hope

Lukas observing the delicate beauty of nature. Photo / Airini Beautrais

My son Lukas, who recently turned 12, is an ardent conservationist.

He has been interested in animals and nature since he was a very young child. He has a great memory for facts and will quiz me on my knowledge of things like native fish, insects and global environmental issues.

Although I have a degree in ecology, Lukas knows more than me about a lot of biological subjects.

Recently he has been watching a lot of David Attenborough documentaries and has been talking to me about the bleakness of the situation with wildlife internationally.

At Lukas' age I had developed a similar passion for saving the environment. I went through Kiwi Conservation Club and joined Forest and Bird as a teenager.

David Attenborough's voice was also part of the backdrop of my childhood. I was 12 in 1995. It makes me sad to think about what that child would have thought if she could see the world now – how indicators such as climate change, deforestation and species decline have not changed for the better.

It would be very easy to become cynical and despondent and stop engaging with any of these issues.

I have immense hope for my children's generation. Caring about the environment is not 'uncool' in the way it was in the 1990s.

My sons went to primary school at an Enviroschool where they had regular visits to Bushy Park, learned how to grow and cook vegetables, had waste-free lunchboxes and a big focus on waste minimisation.

A few years ago Lukas became aware of single-use plastics and held a one-boy protest against the selling of glow sticks at the school disco. He was sad when his protest did not have an immediate effect, but it did help to start a useful conversation at his school, other schools locally and further afield.

During the school holidays Lukas asked to go to a stream to observe native fish. We took a small plastic tank and a net. While I sat on the stream bank I could hear Lukas upstream talking to the fish. He showed me a couple of inanga and a smelt. We watched a full-size inanga in the tank.

'Don't you think it's beautiful?' Lukas asked me.

Admittedly, tiny, dull-coloured fish are not something that I have spent a lot of time looking at. But when I saw the fish through my son's eyes I could see how special it was and how we need to do more to help save our native freshwater species from extinction.

Recently Lukas said to me, "David Attenborough says contraception will help stop climate change."

We talked about how education for women and girls is an important part of the equation.

"That's why we have to work for women's rights," said Lukas.

Although some things have gotten worse during the past 27 years, I am very proud of my children and their peers, and their obvious commitment to making the world a better place.