I’ve recently taken part in Ko Tātou This Is Us – a biosecurity campaign to get every New Zealander to care about biosecurity and to see that biosecurity threats have an impact on our way of life. I was so excited when they asked me to be a part of this as biosecurity and protecting our nature is something really dear to my heart.
The campaign was very cool as it shows that all of us as New Zealanders play a big part in biosecurity and we can all do our bit to help protect our environment.
Biosecurity isn’t just about border control and not bringing in forbidden things into our country. Sometimes these pests or diseases have gotten in accidentally and it’s our job to keep our eyes peeled in the garden to stop them establishing themselves here.
I’m always checking out my plants for unusual signs of bugs I haven’t seen before or a disease I don’t recognise. Earlier this year Che and I went blackberry picking and we spotted what we thought was a female brown marmorated stink bug. We caught it put it in a bag and sent a picture to the Ministry for Primary Industries. They were more than happy to determine what the bug was and were grateful that we took the time to do this.
Luckily this story has a happy ending and it turned out to be a brown shield bug (still a pain but not as bad as it could have been!)
It’s as simple as that, keep your eyes peeled and realise that it’s up to us to protect NZ’s gorgeous nature and we shouldn’t take it for granted. Ko Tātou This is us.
To find out more or get involved, visit thisisus.nz
Love that people are still very much involved in having a vegetable garden. When we had a home/house a garden was an essential part of our daily lives. Enjoyed your post.
Yes couldn’t imagine life without my garden to potter around in! Thanks for reading 😊