Dive into Seaweek 2016

Celebrate our marine environment around the Greater Wellington Region as New Zealand's annual "Seaweek" gets underway this weekend. The theme for 2016 is "Toiora te Moana,Toiora te Tangata - Healthy Seas, Healthy People".

Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) is co-ordinating events across the region, including storytelling for kindergarten children, beach clean-ups, tours and exhibitions. For a list of what's happening around the region go to seaweek.org.nz/events/wellington/.

GWRC is again running snorkelling tours in Whitireia Park, in conjunction with the Healthy Harbours Porirua programme. Although additional sessions have been added the event is fully booked again this year.

"Educating and supporting our community to explore our natural environment is a part of GWRC's Biodiversity work that I really enjoy" says Rebecca Bird, GWRC Biodiversity Advisor. "Families were enthralled as they discovered more about their local marine life last year, and I am really looking forward to seeing the community out in the water again at this year's snorkelling events."

GWRC protects and enhances marine environment biodiversity by supporting community groups to restore high priority coastal sites around the region, protecting the Wellington Harbour and through its work with the Te Awarua-o-Porirua Harbour and Catchment Strategy and Action Plan.

Greater Wellington Regional Council has specific responsibilities for managing indigenous biodiversity in the Coastal Marine Area (CMA) of our coastline, an area which extends out 12 nautical miles and totals 786 700 hectares - almost the same size as the land area it manages.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

* JPG from Seaweek 2015 attached.

* Seaweek 2016 runs from Saturday 27 February to Sunday 6 March 2016. 

* The snorkel events are taking place on Saturday February the 27th from 10-2pm and again on Saturday March 5th. In the event of bad weather, the event may be cancelled.

* GWRC is the regional co-ordinator for Seaweek, a national initiative of the NZ Association for Environmental Education (NZAEE)

Contact: Media phone: 021 914 266