Give the Kids Outdoor Education

An opinion by Tony Orman 

Currently there’s a fuss that has brewed up and is vigorously bubbling away about the value of outdoor education in the school curriculum.

Hand in hand with that is a 40,000 signature petition to keep outdoor education as part of the secondary school curriculum

Last month Minister of Education Stanford announced an overhaul of the secondary education curriculum, involving phasing out NCEA. Soon afterwards the Ministry of Education said outdoor education won’t be one of core subjects. Thus the petition launched by Education Outdoors NZ (EONZ) was one reaction.

Other reactions have been against the Ministry’s proposal.

And for good reason. Youngsters in general are troubled and are in trouble. They need the outdoors and its benefits.

For example, a 2024 report on the internet says “suicide rates among under 30s are the highest in Korea, New Zealand, Japan and Estonia”.

New Zealand is right up there among the leaders in youth suicide..

Why is it so in New Zealand with just 5 million people and the “wonderful, clean, green, beautiful” outdoors image as is often painted?

Frankly New Zealand has lost its way as a society ever since the neo-liberal  experiment termed “Rogernomics”, was unleashed on New Zealand’s 4 million people in 1984 when the David Lange-led government was elected.

The year “1984” was a remarkable coincidence, for George Orwell wrote his masterpiece novel of the same name in which people were dumbed down and subservient to “Big Brother” government.

Orwell’s prophetic novel may in detail, not have yet come about. Perhaps it’s on the way to that fate? 

After all, there is little doubt the 2025 represents hard authoritarian nationalism, a disdain by politicians for democracy, frustration and cynicism with self interest, arrogance and often ugly hatred, adding up to a confusion, conflicted society.

Today there is fragmentation and division – not necessarily excessive authority –  but a conflicting contradictory mess of fake news, true news and self interest groups baying for the biggest slice of the monetary cake. Selfishness and greed are paramount.

Is it any wonder teenagers are confused and bewildered?

The Lost Society

It’s not just teenagers who have lost their way. People have – society has.

And the impact is far from positive on many youngsters. The social impact can be devastating with the self-esteem of many teenagers plummeting. That then manifests itself in a disgruntled, bewildered youth sector that can result in aggressive behaviour and crime – at great cost to the country. 

And tragically even suicide as shown by NZ’s abnormally high youth suicide rates.

Successive New Zealand governments have slyly eroded our standard of living in economic terms so that a household can no longer exist on one average income but needs at least two average incomes to sustain a living for two adults and two children. The situation is aggravated by a rampant consumer-driven economy spawned under the free market neo-liberal Rogernomics mantra.

And have the new wave of “liberated” mothers got it wrong? As a youngster, my father worked, my mother was at home.  Should today’s liberated mothers mock their mothers for being the vital home manager? 

The trouble is while the modern woman may delude herself she’s alive and active being “busy”, the reality is she (and her husband) are in danger of being exhausted from being workaholics with inevitable burnout. Weekends can become recuperation rather than leisure.

Look at New Zealand today and compare it to yesteryear.

GDP Fallacy

One of the paradoxes is that while our economic standard of living measured by GDP and material goods such as washing machines, television sets, mobile phones and cars is high, we have lost the art of living and attaining happiness.

In the 1970s New Zealanders had an empathy with the land, were outdoor people, the Kiwi face was weather-beaten and smiling, skills were muscular and the work ethic was overall high and productive. Our heroes were the likes of Ed Hillary and Colin Meads, Bert Sutcliffe and Yvette Williams.

Each household drew sustenance from the land or even the home vegetable plot.

Technology and changed social attitudes have eroded that. We are becoming a weaker society, fragmented by division and self interest, a low work ethic, intolerance while physically people have succumbed to the weaknesses of an indoor society where weekend recreation is a trip to the supermarket. 

People have developed the flabbiness of a sedentary society.

Teenagers lack confidence and self esteem, which is too often disguised by a veneer of arrogance and aggressiveness and manifesting itself in teenagers stealing cars and sadly and horrifically even committing murder.

The value of the outdoors is being neglected.

CMT

I did Compulsory Military Training (CMT) which almost every 18 year old undertook. I went into the three month course, grizzling but came out smiling. It had only positive benefits. 

It instilled self esteem and made for better apprentice citizens and we were physically fit.

Why not reinstate CMT but adapt it to be like an Outward Bound course?

Ditch the term of “boot camps” –  call it and model it on the concept of youth education and outdoor skills.

I don’t know what’s in outdoor education as in the secondary school curriculum currently under debate. However it doesn’t have to be intensive outdoor education such as mountaineering or rock climbing. Keep it simple such as fishing, hunting, bushcraft and tramping. Study environmental subjects such as botany, geology, entomology, wildlife study and photography or other aspect.

Instil a positive work ethic.

Besides there are a multitude of tasks that trainees could undertake, tasks which bureaucracies seem unable to cope with. I think of the inept Department of Conservation and the need to maintain tracks and huts on public land, combat the invasion of wilding pines which DOC has sat on its hands over, the waste left after clear felling of pines which could be collected and cut into firewood for needy families and pensioners and a host of restoration projects of wetlands and native tree plantings. 

Firearm Safety

Along the way trainees – both male and female – would be taught firearm skills and safety and respect for firearms, instead of the phobic fear of that politicians and even some prime minsters can have – think Jacinda Ardern. 

Teach youngsters trapping of possums and the utilisation of the resource for meat and fur. Trap predators instead of using toxic, ecosystem poisons.

Teach fishing and bushcraft skills – and more outdoor related education.

Frankly governments have failed because of their myopic pursuit of the dollar, based on GDP.  Uncontrolled economic growth is a fallacy. Governments have pursued growth with a maniacal passion and no foresight or vision.

And it’s to no avail in monetary terms. Google trade deficits and New Zealand’s debt  for example – economic failure. Also socially it’s failed. Google crime rates and adult suicide rates.  For people, it has failed. Look at our languishing health services, electricity supply and ever rising cost of living.

“Maximum growth – we need more people” has been the mantra. John Key’s vision as a tourism minister was short-sightedly “more and more tourists” instead of focussing on fewer but quality affluent tourists that give added value. That was his vision for dairying too with a favouritism to corporate farming with unbridled expansion into dry rainfall areas.

Consequently water quality in both drinking water and rivers has suffered with dangerous increasing nitrate levels while irrigation demands have depleted the aquifer and river flows. 

The GDP system is flawed in concentrating on solely on growth and more and more dollars. What is needed is ditching GDP and implementing Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) that considers three factors – economic, social and environmental. A number off economists advocate that such as as Oxford’s Kate Raworth in “Doughnut Economics.”

So under a new measure of the nation’s progress would come much increased consideration of the environment – the outdoors playground – and youth outdoor education.

Rivers that youngsters once swam and fished in, have had flows depleted by irrigation for corporate dairying. In turn, nitrates and other pollution have fouled water quality. 

Degraded Rivers

Alarmingly the majority of NZ’s lowland rivers are rated unfit for swimming.

New Zealanders are not getting outdoors. Young New Zealanders are losing their connection with the outdoors with urbanisation while youth obesity, mental health and suicide rates are unacceptably high for a country of just 5 million people.

For youngsters the outdoors used to be a readily accessed, available and indispensable class-room.  

The sweet success of catching a trout or perhaps a kahawai, shooting a rabbit, climbing a mountain or canoeing a river were personal achievements which importantly built self-esteem in youngsters. 

Besides tramping, fishing and hunting encourage observation, analytical reasoning and a respect for Nature. And often a lesson was that to achieve in the outdoors, you have to sweat and slog it out. A healthy work ethic.

Egalitarian

In New Zealand’s egalitarian society, anyone can fish or hunt. It was a legacy the first European settlers instilled into the new colony in order to escape the feudal system of Britain where for example, the best trout fishing, deerstalking or pheasant shooting is the preserve of the wealthy minority.

In New Zealand the kid down the street may go trout fishing on equal terms and rights as the city’s top solicitor, doctor, baker and the candlestick maker or even the Governor General  or Prime Minister.  The much respected Labour government PM Norman Kirk was a hunter in his younger days and an ardent fisherman. 

New Zealand could do with a few more practical keen fishing/hunting persons – male and female –  in Parliament. 

A Horizon survey of sporting participation rates, back in 2012, showed fishing had more than five times more people participating than rugby. Twenty-six percent enjoyed fishing while just five percent played rugby.

Toxic Policies

Other government policies adversely impacted directly or indirectly on the public’s outdoors. The widespread use of poisons such as 1080 was not only unjustified but ecologically disruptive in poisoning public lands.  

Who wants to tramp, fish or hunt in an area top-dressed with toxic baits and smelling of death?

An open door policy of successive governments over decades to encourage foreigners to buy farms and in particular high country and farm land often results in locked gates and denials of access in contrast to the Kiwi owned family farm. 

Saltwater fisheries mis-management gave commercial fishing companies interests far higher ranking than recreational fishing.

Yet in economic terms, recreational fishing stimulates over a billion dollars a year in economic activity.

Governments’ Ignorance

The list goes on and on, where governments out of ignorance, have let the public and particularly youngsters, down by policies that have despoiled outdoor resources.

The solution to helping young Kiwis out of their predicament is a recognition of the priceless value of the outdoors whether it be fishing, hunting, tramping or other recreation, to youngsters.”

From once being an outdoor-minded people, New Zealanders have become sedentary, stressed, uncertain and often lost. The youth statistics mirror that.

It should not be forgotten that today’s youth are tomorrow’s adult citizens.

Investing in the well-being of youth makes for a better society in the decades ahead.

Footnote: Tony Orman has spent several decades fishing and hunting in New Zealand’s outdoors. He is a member of the Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations of New Zealand (CORANZ) and a life member of the NZ Federation of Freshwater Anglers (NZFFA) as well as author of several fishing and hunting books.

This opinion piece does not necessarily reflect the opinions of CORANZ and NZFFA.