YRE Winners Celebrated at National Workshop

Winners of this year’s Young Reporters for the Environment (YRE) Litter Less competition were celebrated at the National YRE Workshop on Tuesday 5 November at The University of Auckland.

In its 25th year, YRE is a youth-led environmental programme which encourages students between the age of 11-25 years old to focus on environmental issues relating to litter. The programme is facilitated in New Zealand by Keep New Zealand Beautiful (KNZB) on behalf of the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE). Found in over 45 countries, with more than 350,000 young reporters involved, YRE gives young people the opportunity to be part of the solution by producing creative and engaging environmental journalism.

Thirty-five students attended the YRE Winners Workshop this year, which was led by MC Jason Whitelaw. The winners were awarded their certificates and then took part in exciting sessions on photography and video designed to stimulate the students’ interest in environmental journalism.

Environmental photographer and YRE Judge, Jacki Key led a photography workshop which saw students exploring the University grounds to create a photo story centred around one or more of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The journalism media session was a highlight of the day giving students the opportunity to interview a panel of environmental and journalism experts and past YRE participants.  Each student was assigned a different role within the group, such as floor manager, interviewer, visual/audio mixer and camera operator.  The panel of interviewees included journalist and KNZB Ambassador Melissa Chan-Green, past YRE winning students Joshua Richardson and Joanna Tao, and environmental experts from the University of Auckland, Dr. Daniel Hikuroa, Julie MacArthur and Reno Nims.

This year over 80 students from around New Zealand entered our YRE Litter Less Competition. The winning entries can be viewed here.

Registrations are now open for the 2020 YRE Litter Less Programme. For any queries please email education@knzb.org.nz.

View two of the student’s video interviews from the workshop:

• Melissa Chan-Green (TV Journalist)
• Dr. Daniel Hikuroa (Earth Systems Scientist)