Ethan McCormick is a young man with passion and a vision for the future to eradicate rats, possums and stoats. Ethan’s journey of learning about native biodiversity and understanding about the impact of pests started as a 5 year old and has since been nurtured by family and his involvement in the Enviroschools Programme at Howick College. This involvement helped open Ethan’s eyes to the raft of opportunities to take real world action and develop hands-on skills.
“Ethan is a humble and truly action competent Enviroschools Enviro-group member and Head Boy at Howick College 2020, and is also now a great member of our Pest Free Howick Team. Both the community and students love working with him.” – Cate Jessep, Enviroschools Facilitator Tāmaki Makaurau
Ruru/ morepork family in Howick garden: Photo by Ethan McCormick
Enviroschools fosters a tuākana-tēina approach – older students teaching younger students – and Ethan’s mahi (work) provides a great example of this! Having left secondary school, he is now studying at University, working part-time for Pest-Free Howick as Conservation Assistant and piloting a pest-free cadet programme in another Enviroschool. Ethan is raising awareness of introduced pests and the control of them in this area and mobilising the community to work together, towards pest free 2050. He was recently able to take a photo of a morepork/ ruru family in his garden – testament that introduced predators are being reduced.
See below!