If you listen to the words of the song we wrote for our project then you will know there is a line in it which says, "One World, it's your only home". As we travelled around the very top of New Zealand's South Island this week I thought a bit about this. You see we can have all these ideas of travelling into space and building communities on the moon but the life we are used to, the type of atmosphere in which we can survive, is only found here on earth. So, if you are going to have somewhere to live in the future, all of us need to look after it. And sometimes we don't do a very good job. We know we have to take care of things like rubbish disposal because litter lying all over the place is really ugly. But it is not just us changing things. Nature, without any help from us, can do quite a bit and when we do help, then things can get really bad.

We can't stop earthquakes, volcanoes or tsunamis. As we have understood them more we can prepare for them. After the tsunami a year or so ago, new early warning systems were put in place. They now construct buildings so that, in places where they know earthquakes could happen, the buildings have a better chance of surviving. But even then things go wrong. It is quite often in the poorer countries where they cannot afford this new technology or where they don't have this knowledge that earthquakes seem to occur. So natural disasters, with all our knowledge, still kill thousands of people every year. And then there are times when we contribute to these tragedies. Maybe by building in certain places we weaken the land; perhaps by altering the flow of a river we may at a later date cause a flood. And we now know that some of the chemicals or fuels that we use do damage to the atmosphere and so can alter our weather patterns faster than they would change naturally. There have been changes in weather patterns, ice ages etc, for million of years, long before we starting using coal, gas, sprays but we may be making things happen quicker.

But some of the worst damage has been done by changing the vegetation, the natural landscape of the places in which we live. In many countries large areas of forests have been destroyed. The trees have been cut down for wood or to clear the land so towns could be built. Nobody really knows what long term affects this may have. Trees soak up water, they give habitat to animals and all of things are part of nature's chain. Take away a link in that chain and maybe, just maybe, eventually the whole structure could fall apart. It's like building a house with a deck of cards or playing jenga, if you know that game. You have lots of wooden blocks on top of each other and the idea is take away blocks from the bottom or middle and put them on the top. You can take away so many and then the whole thing collapses and that is just how nature is and we don't know how many blocks are left before it falls. Some of the effects are more obvious. Somewhere there may be a person who thinks cities look more beautiful than forests. Please write to me if that is you; I'd like to meet you. I agree some cities can be quite nice and we all need somewhere to live but no way is that more beautiful than fields, trees or any landscape of nature. Well, not to me anyway.

Many countries have now designated certain parts of their lands as National Parks or something similar. These are areas that are considered to be of great natural beauty or places that it is important to preserve. Now we have already said that man can do the most damage to nature so here we have a bit of a problem. We preserve these areas for man to enjoy but too many people going there could destroy it and this is why governments try to control things. Not only can they look after the park, control any building but they can also keep an eye on the number of visitors. New Zealand has, I think, 13 National Parks and all of this came home to me because we made a visit to the Abel Tasman National Park in the north west of the South Island. It is the smallest of the National Parks but also the most visited. And it is beautiful. Some areas have no roads so the only way you can get to the magnificent beaches and see the hills is by water taxi.

You can see from the pictures, all of which come from the park, that the landscape is rich in forests but they are not all old. You see years ago man got here and burned the land or chopped down the trees and most of the vegetation on the lower levels is either introduced plants or replanted natural ones,. At the higher levels there are still some original trees. In the warmer, more moist areas you would find a lush rainforest while in the drier areas perhaps there could have been beech trees or similar ones who like a dry soil base. And, as I said, it is not only man who has changed the landscape around here. Nature has done her bit. The large number of bays and inlets are there because the sea has worn away the softer rock over thousands of years. The peaks of the mountains are caused by something called weathering where the wind and rain will affect the land. Gorges will form on mountainsides where water and ice have cut a path through the rock.

So this is the land that we are trying to preserve. This is what I would like my children and grandchildren to enjoy. New Zealand is a very lucky country at the moment with only about 4 million people living in an area of about 260,000 square kilometres. Funnily enough, Abel Tasman, after whom the park is named and the man who was believed to be the first European to sight New Zealand, was a Dutchman. At the moment in Holland there are about 16 million people living in 41,000 square kilometres. This means that there about 380 people for each square kilometre while in New Zealand there are only about 15 people per square kilometre. Think about that. How can countries like Holland, or The Netherlands as it is also called, find much land left for National Parks. Indeed is there much space let at all. Just remember, it's are only home.