When I was at school, Geography was by far my worst subject. A combination of a slightly mad teacher, my basic lack of interest in incise meanders and the Aswan Dam, and a final-nail-in-the-coffin class on Sheep Farming in Holland ("when will I EVER need this in my future life?!?" I shouted to myself, angrily...) ensured that I was heading for failure at my O Level in the subject at 16 years old. The last report card before the exam bore the damning comment "until recently, he has been quite idle, but he has started doing some work."My brother mentioned at Easter before the test "getting a lot of A
grades doesn't count if you fail one". This spurred me to cram and revise more for Geography than any other subject, mostly out of stubbornness and a desire not to be defeated, and somehow I scraped a C grade to pass. However, I don't remember studying anything about New Zealand. Over the years I never really needed to know anything about the country and if I am honest, I didn't even know there were two islands here before this trip... But now that I am here and loving every minute of our trip, I felt it was time to get a bit of background about it. These few bits are picked up from Wikipedia.New Zealand was first discovered by a Dutch explorer called Abel
Tasman (one of the National Parks is named after him) in 1642, and despite leaving very quickly after some of his crew were killed by natives, he nevertheless gave the country its name - Zeeland is a province in Holland, so New Zealand means New Zeeland. He was the last European to get to the remote location for over 120 years, until Captain James Cook came in 1769.At at time when French, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese were all colonising like hell, the Brits signed a treaty with the indigenous Maori in 1840, giving them some kind of claim to ownership of land. The capital was originally in Auckland, based in the centre of the North Island, but moved to Wellington in 1863. The city is almost in the centre of the two islands, and at the time there was a fear that the South Island would break away as an independent state.
New Zealand was the first nation in the world to grant women the
right to vote, a sign of social advances to come. Although a part of the long-past British Empire in 1947, the country became politically independent from England long before. Amazingly, a large part of its economy from the 1890's was based on export of Dairy and meat products to Britain, so far away, thanks to the development of refrigerated shipping. (Nicki and I agreed that our first recollection of the name of this country came from advertising on TV for New Zealand Lamb).One basic issue is the balance between the Maori rights and the incoming settlers. It was in 1859 that the number of Pakeha (non-Maori) settlers reached the same number as Maori - 60,000 each (there are 4 million people here now). Various treaties and agreements led to battles and wars over land. No need to go into the details - eventually the Maori were outnumbered, and the movement to respect historical land rights in the last 35 years has only marginally redressed the balance of injustice which dates back to that 1840 treaty.
In the two World Wars, New Zealand had huge numbers (in relation to population) involved and America had 400,000 troops based on the islands to prepare for attacks into Japan. The alliance with USA grew after WWII as the UK focused on Europe and joined the EEC in 1973, and the ANZUS alliance (between NZ, Australia and USA) went so far as to have NZ troops fighting in the Korean and Vietnam wars. But this treaty was brought to an end when the government refused to allow Nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed warships onto its territories, a major stand against America.Indeed, New Zealand declared itself a Nuclear-Free Zone in 1987, and this is
a symbol of its focus on the environment. Unlike Australia, nature here is incredibly benevolent, with very few predators (eg no snakes) and a huge number of birds that are found only on the two islands. We have been amazed at how clean everything is, how little litter there is and the high level of re-cycling and environmental messaging around. Tourism contributes around 9% of Gross Domestic Product, and yet all tourists seem to catch the "awareness of environment" bug. The beauty of the place forces you to think about how to preserve it.The country's economy was severely hit in the 70's. Seeing the prosperity and orderliness here on our visit makes me really surprised to read that in 1982 it had the lowest per capita income of all the world's developed nations. Dramatic shifts and a daring approach to a free economy by successive governments since have helped create a much healthier basis - an example is that New Zealand was the first developed country to sign a free-trade agreement with China in 2008.
Today, New Zealand ranks highly in comparison charts with other countries on "human development, quality of life, life expectancy, literacy, public education, peace, prosperity, economic freedom, ease of doing business, lack of corruption, press freedom, and the protection of civil liberties and political rights. Its cities also consistently rank among the world's most liveable." (Wikipedia). Add to all of this the incredible scenery and the relaxed friendliness of the people and you have what Nicki and I feel is the most beautiful place in the world.
