Have a field day with the winners

The main aim of the Cawthron Marlborough Environment Awards is spreading the word about people doing good things for the environment, and the field days with the winners are an important part that.

After the winners are announced on April 31, the Cawthron Marlborough Environment Awards Trust will start arranging the field days timetable which is likely to start in April and carry through to spring.

The field days are an opportunity for the public and industry members to see what impressed the judges by visiting the winners.

There is often a guest speaker picking up on a particular theme, such as farm soil fertility, or fundraising strategies for conservation groups.

Trust chairman Peter Jerram says the field days are the place for people to get ideas on how to improve their own environmental practice. ‘‘Basically, through the awards we find great examples happening in the real world, and the field days are the key to sharing that experience.’’

Each field day is led by an awards trustee and the category judges are also there to share information and insights about what impressed them.

A conversation at a past field day led to a new business for Paul Millen, project manager of NZ Dryland Forests Initiative which won the supreme award in 2015.

The idea of growing durable hardwoods to replace chemically treated vineyard posts came to Paul after a forestry awards field day in 2003.

At the field day organic winegrower Konrad Hengstler said he was importing hardwood posts from Australia and would rather have a New Zealand supplier.

That conversation sowed the seed for the NZ Dryland Forests Initiative, now a multi-million dollar research project.

There are 22 entrants in this year’s awards and they all have good environmental stories to tell.

Not all of them will receive a prize and host a field day, but in the words of the disco classic ‘‘Everyone’s a winner, baby that’s the truth ... .’’

Keep an eye out for the field day timetable at cmea.org.nz

- Bev Doole is the Cawthron Marlborough Environment Awards co-ordinator

PHOTO: SUPPLIED Visitors take in the view at a Cawthron Marlborough Environment Awards field day at Kaipupu Point Sounds Wildlife Sanctuary in 2015. The sanctuary won the habitat enhancement award that year.